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March 2005

By Chris Wolski

A Golden Opportunity

Since its release in December 2004, Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby has received a plethora of accolades (at the time of this writing, the movie is the front runner in the race for best picture at the Academy Awards) and criticism. The most notable has been from disability advocates including the CEO of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association.

[Warning: Spoiler Alert]

The controversy centers around Clint Eastwood’s character euthanizing his boxing protege Maggie (Hilary Swank) after she is paralyzed during the climactic fight in the movie. The criticism of the film by disability advocates is both understandable and justifiable. Eastwood’s take on spinal cord injury is medieval, at best, painting Maggie’s existence as one of continuing suffering and degradation. Death is her only option.

This is unfortunate, since the movie has received much of its cachet based on the fact that it was made by Eastwood and is dealing with a weighty adult issue, albeit in a sophomoric way. But Million Dollar Baby shows the power of the modern motion picture to sway and influence. Based on conversations I’ve had with friends and acquaintances about the movie, Eastwood’s wrongheaded argument is compelling. They believe that a spinal cord injury is worse than death.

But this misconception, on both Eastwood’s and the public’s part, is an opportunity for every rehabilitation professional, from the physiatrist to the physical therapist to the occupational therapist to the departmental secretary, to change the mind-set of patients, their families, and, most important, the public. The message that spinal cord injury is not the end of life, but a radical life change is an ongoing campaign, not a single battle. As Million Dollar Baby shows, the educational value of a thousand stories like Christopher Reeve’s can be undone in a moment by one compelling package, and is why advocacy is as much about vigilance as it is having the truth on your side.

Beyond their medical role, rehabilitation departments exist primarily as advocates and sources of information for patients and their families. But your work can’t stop there. Like the fighters in Million Dollar Baby, you have to go on the offensive in this war of information. Informational booths at public health fairs, presentations at PTA meetings and fraternal organizations, and letters to the editors of local newspapers would go a long way toward educating the public about the realities of spinal cord injury, making the message of Million Dollar Baby irrelevant, and positioning rehab professionals, publicly, in their decades-long roles as advocates of life.

An advocacy role, particularly in light of such a patently myopic message as presented in Million Dollar Baby, is probably as important for patients as the rehab programs in which they are participating. It is an opportunity that should not and cannot be missed.

--Chris Wolski

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