Denver Archbishop calls praise for Oscar winning ‘Million Dollar Baby’ a ‘stretch’

Denver, Colo., Feb 28, 2005 / 22:00 pm

In his column last week, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver called Clint Eastwood’s ‘Million Dollar Baby’, which took top honors at Sunday’s Oscar awards a compelling story, but one that took a morally dangerous wrong turn.

The Archbishop called the film “a great film about boxing and a bad film about moral reasoning.”

He noted that, “Advocates for the disabled have criticized the movie for being pro-euthanasia. Supporters have dismissed critics as right wing ‘culture cops.’”

The film has to do with a so-called “white trash girl” who desperately wants to become a boxer. Eastwood eventually takes her under his wing and in a knockout blow during a fight, she is paralyzed and lives off of a respirator.

Here, the Archbishop says, is where the film takes a wrong turn. The boxer (played by actress Hillary Swank) asks Eastwood to help her die and after an extensive struggle and counsel from a priest friend who tells him not to do it, he pulls the plug on Swank.

Chaput notes that, “by equating murder and mercy, [Eastwood] locks his characters into hopelessness. He makes a profoundly evil act seem noble. The tragedy in this otherwise arresting movie is what it could have been — and isn’t.”