million dollar baby

(while i have not yet seen the movie, this sentence should serve as a disclaimer that i have read enough about it to herein give the plot away.)
i want to see this movie. you know why? because i think it might be powerful enough to challenge how someone thinks about a thing.
movies have certainly challenged me and helped me on some path towards something positive, self-actualization, i suppose. it is the art form of the day. if picasso and van gogh had their days, scorcese and eastwood are having theirs now. a movie's ability to affect so many of our senses places it above other art forms of our day.
i remember sobbing in parts of salles' central station. having grown up with my mother in prison, i identified with the josue character in that movie on such a level, i cried for every person who has ever had this feeling. this movie made the character so real, so humanly flawed but perfectly imperfect, it made me realize i was not alone. and i don't guess i ever truly considered myself alone, really, but i don't guess i realized the sheer number of people whose circumstances in this world are at times and in degrees, dreadful.
my circumstances with my mother represented a season with much horror and pain, then later, an aspect unfulfilled. certainly as i became an adult much changed and the level of control over my own circumstances increased and, well, all things considered, i can't complain.
central station made me think about all those who suffer poor social structures as children. it made me think about them and feel for them. that, (the movies,) is a powerful medium. beautiful, too.
what can happen as a result of someone feeling the way i did that day in that movie theatre is an infinite spring of possibility. positive possibility.
so i like the idea of million dollar baby because i understand it will challenge people's conventional viewpoints about the right to die. i understand eastwood's character assists swank's character in dying and i assume there is a question of quality of life brought into the equation. i hope this movie does challenge the way people view this issue.
but will it? perhaps i am entering a season in which i have become jaded. lately it seems to me no one wants to change how they view anything. perhaps public discourse has become so rough people have become more stubborn.

(just saw the movie. it's a week since i started writing this blog entry, which i haven't been satisfied with whatsoever, but now i've seen the movie and feel like maybe it will be interesting to go ahead and finish this, somehow.)
despite this season of mine pessimism, i am renewed. what a movie. i am inclined to give the lion's share of credit for this film to the writer who imagined the story. he is the one who created vivid, likeable characters and placed them in a moral conundrum for our age. after the movie i saw a woman crying and realized, this movie will touch people. i am an optimist all over again.
months ago i loaned bowling for columbine to some friends of mine. they never watched it-i got it back last week. i can only conclude they do not want to change, do not want to be challenged. (and i'm not even saying these things would occur. in fact, i doubt the movie would have any effect at all on how they view guns or americans or capitalism or marketing or the nra or dick clark or k-mart or anything. [by the way, kudos to kmart!]) i imagine many will not see million dollar baby in much the same way.
the one thought i came out of that matinee today with was this: those groups that came out publicly against clint eastwood might be brain-dead. one of those groups, survivors, (i think,) claims to be friends of terri schindler schiavo, a woman who has been in a vegetative state for 15 years. apparently her husband won a court order to let her die by not force feeding her while her family opposes such action but has lost the court battle.
it is difficult to understand these people because i can only think of how i would feel if thrown into similar circumstances. i do not want to exist in a vegetative state. my people are clear on that point, in case it ever matters. i accept that i will die some day. i assume i will go kicking and screaming to some degree, but if thrown into a state where i am unable to sustain a quality of life i deem worthwhile, i do not want to be forced to live on by my family, the courts or anyone. in fact, i think it is rude to do such a thing to someone.
what is the motivation of these groups? i know some of the activists against this movie have been wheelchair bound people. i suppose they have a high quality of life and feel like others can and will too. that's positive and i certainly appreciate these are, for the most part, good people. the thing is, it should be the individual's choice. self-determination should be an inalienable right.
quality of life is relative and people who can't communicate how they might self-determine their outcome certainly put their loved ones in a quandary. in that case, i would the decision went to the next of kin. . .
it seems many of the christian groups have come out against million dollar baby. i guess because they believe in god and they feel like it should be his decision. personally, i don't mind if a person stays alive for 15 years in a coma. but i would prefer to make the decision for myself if it affected me. that seems reasonable. right?
million dollar baby is a great movie. it will make people think about this question. through one set of possible circumstances it sheds a sympathetic light on a person who would wish to die. bravo.