Friday, February 11, 2005
WHY ARE REVIEWERS
PRAISING A NEO-NAZI MOVIE?
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.
Don’t Shrink Back in Fear
Love should never trump conscience. Murder is not excusable, even when
it is art. And, the renowned director of MILLIN DOLLAR BABY is not
conservative (contrary to the witless commentary in the Los Angeles
Times), unless except in the sense that the National Socialists were
branded as conservative. In truth, real Christian conservatives support
life, not murder.
© baehr, 2005
To help you pick the good from the bad, please visit us daily at www.movieguide.org.
Note: For more information, or to arrange an interview with Dr. Ted
Baehr, founder of CFTVC and author of THE MEDIA-WISE FAMILY, WHAT CAN
WE WATCH TONIGHT?, and many other books, please call 1-800-577-6684.
(c) baehr, 2005
| NOTE from Dr. Ted Baehr: For
more information from a Christian perspective, order the latest
MOVIEGUIDE® magazine by calling 1-800-899-6684(MOVI) or visit our
website at www.movieguide.org.
MOVIEGUIDE® is dedicated to redeeming the values of Hollywood by
informing parents about today's movies and entertainment and by showing
media executives and artists that family-friendly and even
Christian-friendly movies do best at the box office year in and year
out. MOVIEGUIDE® now offers an online subscription to its magazine
version, at www.movieguide.org.
The magazine, which comes out 25 times a year, contains many
informative articles and reviews that help parents train their children
to be media-wise consumers. MOVIEGUIDE® also regularly broadcasts
several international TV and radio programs hosted by Dr. Baehr. Also,
if you want to train your family to be media-wise, call 1-800-899-6684
in North America to order the book, video or audio version of THE
MEDIA-WISE! FAMILY, Dr. Ted Baehr's latest book. © baehr, 2001 |
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