Maggie Gallagher on Million Dollar Baby:
Clint Eastwood’s "Million Dollar Baby," which
is nominated for seven of the statuettes, is an extraordinary movie that forces
us to ask the question: How do you get liberal elites cheering a movie that
lovingly reproduces every stereotype in the book about welfare mothers — fat,
lazy, good-for-nothing cheats?
Answer: Have the hero kill an invalid.
"Million Dollar Baby"
portrays murder as the ultimate act of love, teaching us the crippled human
being killed wants death, deserves death, is better off dead. How else to
explain the look of almost sexual ecstasy on lovely Hillary Swank’s face when
Clint Eastwood finally agrees to kill her?
And it’s not just Hollywood, of course — audiences
love the movie, too. I used to wonder how the Nazis readied normal Germans for
legalized murder. Walking out of that dark movie theater, I don’t wonder
anymore.
She goes on to offer a great critique of this William F. Buckley column, which calls for the Pope to go ahead and die.