From: SO YOU WANT TO BE IN PICTURES? -- Interviews and Articles By and About Key Men and Women in the Entertainment Industry

By Dr. Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

HOLLYWOOD, CA (ANS) -- Recently, I received a letter complaining about another critic's review of the movie MILLION DOLLAR BABY. The letter notes writes:

"Dear Ted,

"…The latest issue) reviews "Million Dollar Baby." The reviewer gives the film an A-, concluding that it is "one of the year's best films." The discussion of the film’s ending is as follows:

"Another interesting aspect of the film is displayed near the end and takes many audiences by surprise. The events that occur demonstrate the solemn realization that acting in the interest of love must override everything - desire, and sometimes even conscience. This statement by itself makes sense because pure love is entirely selfless. The way this idea plays out in the film, however, is its only debatably frustrating aspect."

"…One blogger simply writes, "A remake of the Nazi I ACCUSE. How novel."

"…I ordered a cheap DVD copy of "Ich Klage An" and am watching it as I type. I ordered it on the Internet when I saw the review and compared it with yours. …there was just a loving scene in which she died in her husbands arms after he poisoned her.

"I just thought you would be interested if you have not seen the paper."

Sadly, the reviewer was not media-wise and did not understand that the forerunner of MILLION DOLLAR BABY was the very entertaining Nazi movie I ACCUSE, which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and was the propaganda that Dr. Goebbels used to convince the German people to switch their vote from “vehemently opposed to the holocaust” to over 60% in favor of so-called “mercy killing.” In fact, I ACCUSE is a very subtle film that inspired the killing of millions of people.

Dr. Joseph Goebbels was the National Socialist (Nazi) propaganda minister from 1933 to 1945. He exploited radio, press, cinema, and theater in Germany to destroy the Jews, evangelical Christians, handicapped Germans and other groups. In 1994, the Discovery Channel aired SELLING MURDER, an important documentary investigating how Goebbels used mass media to influence the German people to accept the mass murder of human beings.

The documentary shows that at a time when a majority of German people rejected mercy killings (a euphemism for murder), Goebbels produced a movie called I ACCUSE, an emotive feature film about a beautiful, intelligent woman who is dying of an incurable disease and begs to be allowed to commit suicide. After the movie was released, a majority of German people said they had changed their minds and now supported mercy killings. After a few more of Goebbels’s films about invalids and handicapped people, the German people became strong believers in the efficacy of mass mercy killings.

While the attempted annihilation of Jews by the National Socialists is well documented, the atrocities did not stop with the Jewish race. The main focus of SELLING MURDER is a group that has been somewhat overlooked: the mentally and physically ill of Germany. In 1939, Hitler ordered the killing of the mentally and physically disabled, labeling them as "life unworthy of life." His reasoning was that the cost of keeping them alive in asylums and hospitals was too great. The real reason, however, stemmed from the government's determination to eliminate any threat to their idea of producing a superior race.

SELLING MURDER is must viewing for every moral person concerned about the use of the mass media of entertainment to influence societal behavior. Similarities between the National Socialist use of film and MILLION DOLLAR BABY are frightening.

In a January 27, 2005 article in the Los Angeles Times, Marcie Roth, executive director of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association, a national advocacy group with 13,000 members, was concerned "that this narrative development spreads a socially irresponsible message. “The movie is saying 'death is better than disability,' she said.”

The Los Angeles Times continues, “The group contends that the movie is part of a larger bias Eastwood holds against the disabled. A press release on its website carries the headline, 'Eastwood Continues Disability Vendetta with "Million Dollar Baby." Labeling the movie a 'brilliantly executed attack,' it also details a 1997 lawsuit in which a disabled woman sued the actor-director, saying he did not provide handicapped-accessible restroom facilities at the Carmel, Calif., resort he owned.”

The press release goes on to divulge the movie's plot. “Our responsibility is to the half-million people with spinal cord injuries, not to moviegoers or moviemakers,” Roth said.

Rush Limbaugh blasted MILLION DOLLAR BABY as a “million dollar euthanasia movie.” Critic Michael Medved told USA Today that he had revealed the plot twist because “there are competing moral demands that come into the job of a movie critic. We have a moral and fairness obligation to not spoil movies. On the other hand, our primary moral obligation is to tell the truth.” Medved, who says he “hated this movie,” also remarked that “They didn't want to tell people what it is [about] because no one would come.” Jewish columnist Don Feder says that “the screenplay could have been smuggled out of Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s prison cell.”

Furthermore, my wife has been on chemotherapy for ten years and is in great pain. California is now considering a so-called “doctor-assisted suicide” law. The connection is too horrible.

Joni Eareckson: Million Dollar Baby is spreading a false and dangerous message

AgapePress - Feb 9/05 - A quadriplegic who heads a Christian ministry to the disabled says the film Million Dollar Baby is spreading a false and dangerous message. Joni Eareckson Tada says the movie's positive depiction of euthanasia suggests that severely disabled people are better off dead than disabled. She says that message is "unfortunate ... sad, [and] evil." Tada, who has been a quadriplegic since a 1967 diving accident, says people who suffer crippling injuries do not need help dying -- they need Christian love to help them see that their lives still have value. And she challenges her fellow Christians to visit and assist the disabled. Tada says the euthanasia portrayed in Million Dollar Baby is not mercy killing -- it is murder

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