Lux et Veritas

Million Dollar (Baby) Moralizing

February 18, 2005

I will expose my bias up front. I think that "Million Dollar Baby" is the finest film released during 2004. I also believe it is one of the finest films ever made. It follows the same honest and spare line that Eastwood's previous masterpiece, Mystic River, created in protraying "life as it is" for some people. That it deals with the very controversial issue of assisted suicide and other dark issues and experiences has made it a target of disdain for the conservative right, "right to life" fundamentalists, with Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved leading the charge. What is curious about their criticisms is that they seem to believe that Clint Eastwood is pushing assisted suicide and that everyone exposed to this "subliminal" message, in particular para and quadrapalegics, will opt to end their lives that way or harbor the false resentment that the movie disdains their condition. This is similar to the reaction to homosexuality by the conservatives who seem to imply that it is an infectious disease that the country will be disabled by.

But this is not just "moralizing". It reflects the line of the White House that reality is not the present or the ordinary, day-to-day human condition of suffering and success. Reality, as Bush sees it, is what we are all striving to create: a better, world-wide democracy and a return to basic American values, salted with the maxims of the self-help industry, of individuals of all economic classes taking "ownership" in this society.

The "Million Dollar (Baby) Moralizing" is also strangely reminiscent of not only the McCarthy era of fear and mutual suspicion but also that of the "Soviet" catechism. The Soviets believed that every aspect of society had to reflect communist beliefs and values. Every part of the artistic community, as well as every other community, was insepcted under the harsh light of the "culture police".

In all of these cases, the ideologies cited here failed to recognize and deal with the human condition as it is experienced by the entire social cross-section of society. Outside of the political prison ideologies create, there are daily questions of survival, ambition, success, and failure and how individuals cope with it, or don't or can't. The words "don't" or "can't" are political "no-nos" in the Bush conservative, fundamentalist belief system.

"Million Dollar Baby" is the most explicit demonstration of "American" values: striving, persistence, belief in eventual success, postive change of individuals' belief systems and behavior in response to the sun cast by another, and, most important, the experience of being bed-ridden for life - which neither Medved nor Limbaugh, to my knowledge, has ever experienced. Maggie's plea to Frankie Dunn to end her life is not a declaration of failure but one of success. She has experienced the most positive achievements and life changes, and she doesn't want all of that to disappear with a lifetime of dependency that she feels will only diminish those feelings of success.

I am not a supporter of assisted suicide as medical policy, only because without too much trouble it becomes eugenics: the killing of the weak and disabled to make way for a society of strong and able, surviving citizens. But I am a great supporter of individual choice over the quality of life. Strangely, the Limbaugh's, Medveds, and Pat Robertsons are against and fear the exercise of that basic American constitutionally guaranteed right. That makes them not only cultural dictators but also political ones.

Kinsey and America's Sexual Beliefs

January 24, 2005

Beyond the biography of Kinsey as a man and scientist of sex, the movie "Kinsey" is about America's sexual belief systems and lack of sexual self awareness. Another less noticed subject is love and sex. As a measure of how things haven't changed in the last 50 years, this movie has been boycotted and assailed by fundamentalist religious groups in the US. We're still mostly uptight about sex and have little time and self reflective space to consider the balance between caring/love and sex.

Kinsey revealed not only the truth about actual sexual behavior, he also explored sex himself and with his scientific staff.

But sex becomes more than a scientific endeavor over the length of the move. It is about what would happen if all of the restrictions on sex disappeared. Kinsey and his associates explored homosexual sex, "open marriages" and relationships. In this, his wife participated in multiple sexual encountries with different male researchers; and found them initially to be stimulating, reviving of sexual drive dissipated by long term marriage, and sort of "ok". The extreme practice of unmonitored sex is revealed in an interview with a New York executive who lists his conquests of male and female children, adults, with animals, and family members; and who demonstrates his ability to ejaculate within twenty seconds from a limp state by means of masturbation. Both Kinsey and his associate interviewer are "shocked" for once and leave the interview. They leave not just because they have witnessed how aberrant open sex is and can be. It seems to dawn on Kinsey how uncaring , narcissistic, and abusive sex without restrictions can become.

All of this blows up in Kinsey's face, when one of his researchers with whom he had a homosexual relationship lashes back Kinsey for promoting an affair between his wife and another researcher while he is out of town. In the course of which, he accuses Kinsey of how transgressive and without any boundaries his sexual attitudes are, and asks him if love ever came into his mind in the course of his research. Kinsey replies that he believes that sex is a pleasurable act that essentially knows no boundaries. 

Americans have always been Victorians about sex, except for the period in the 1960s when everyone was openly having sex with multiple partners. Sexual fidelity has always been a major goal in the US, and mostly from religious beliefs and general moralizing. And talking about sex has and still is very much a taboo. Even Kinsey is affected by these attitudes because it seems he wanted to tear himself away from his father's abusive, stingy behavior and his constant negative expositions on all matters of human sexual behavior. It's hard to conclude from the scenes with his father that Kinsey really, down deep, saw sex and sexual behavior as matters of unbridled pleasure and scientific exploration. It is implied strongly that, of course, anyone with a father like that would eventually rebel against these claustrophobic and demeaning attitudes.

Against this biographical backdrop, even the most sexually liberated Americans would agree that all human relationships as well as purely sexual ones have some measure of impact on the participants. Incest, to cite an extreme example of sexual taboos, even between consensual partners makes it difficult for the younger ones to see sex later in life as anything more than a matter of dominance, abuse, and control. It's hard to know how much of this reaction is purely a natural human one or comes directly from Americans' system of taboos. This reaction among many others that feel abused makes it difficult or impossible for "normal relationships" in marriage or any other companionship relationship. As in dating when a relationship is ended, someone always feels abused, used, unloved, untrusting, etc.; and this is about loving and caring more than it is about sex.

Europeans always criticize Americans' attitudes toward sex, commenting that we should be more "open" about sex. Does that mean infidelities and multiple sexual partners should be looked upon as normal expressions of basic human traits to seek variety and renewed sexual stimulation? I interpret it to mean that Americans should see sex as pleasurable and not as a transgressed taboo. Free and open sexual behavior that sees no limits to seeking pleasure is a wonderful fantasy. But put into practice it leaves out such important human needs as love and caring.