I didn’t get too worked up about the Southern characters. They are stereotypes, but then again, there are actual people like that. I do wish there had been some non-trashy, non-stupid Southerners to balance them out.
What bothered me more was the clunky (and wrong) “Southern” dialogue. The Danger character was the worst offender, with his screwy (and inaccurate) syntax. Swank’s “I don’t rightly know” was a groaner too.
Swank’s character wasn’t from the South, she was from Missouri (in the Midwest). Having come from Missouri myself, I can testify that her family as depicted wasn’t far off from a few people I’ve known, including a cousin or two.
I was disappointed that they never told us what had happened between Clint and his estranged daughter. What could it have been that she would not accept his letters for all of those years?
My friend speculated that perhaps it was because his daughter was gay. She thought that mainly because of Clint’s comments about how she had been athletic when she was younger, but he didn’t know if she had kept up with it. Mind you, we were both really reaching as to what the answer is, but I just can’t imagine a situation in which a daughter absolutely wouldn’t accept her father’s apologies after several years.
I mean, Clint’s character seemed like a very good man. I was really disappointed that they couldn’t clue us in more on that aspect of the movie.
Other than that, I thought it was a great film. Tragic, but very well-done. I wasn’t moved to tears for some reason, and I’m not sure why. Maybe my heart’s made of stone, or maybe it’s because I already had a crying jag this morning re: Hunter Thompson’s suicide.
Indygrrl - That didn’t occur to me. I somehow figured that Clint had somehow abandoned his family, or wasn’t there when she was growing up because of boxing. He was the best corner man in the country. I figured he’d been on the road a lot. In my imagined backstory, when his wife died, he felt remorseful and tried to establish a relationship with his daughter, but it was too late.
StG
This was my take as well, that she felt either abandoned or ignored as a child and had no desire to reconnect as an adult. It’s a stretch, but maybe the reference to her as an athlete was meant to indicate she sought attention in that realm since she didn’t get it as a daughter.
At first I thought the setup of Maggie as a surrogate child may have been a bit much, in the end I thought it was handled rather deftly. The reveal of the meaning of “Machushla” was a quite poignant moment, IMO, and I’m usually not one for that kind of material.
The part of Missouri these characters were from is culturally Southern. Missouri was a slave state, populated by Southerners and historically culturally affiliated with the South. It shares a border with Arkansas, and the hill culture of those two states spans that border.
I come from rural southern Missouri, and I’ve never known a single resident who considered him/herself “southern”.
Ah well, I’ve known a lot of Missourians (and Texans for that matter) who disclaim any connection to the South because of the negative connotations of being Southern. But you can’t define away the cultural, historical and linguistic connections.
A rose by any other name and all that.
I was sure that Griffith had admitted that he had deliberately set out to “hurt” Paret but I guess if that is true the documentary will mention it. I saw film of the fight years ago and Griffith certainly takes every measure possible to prevent Paret getting down to the canvas once he is defenseless. My recollection is that I have never seen a more cold blooded beating in a movie.
As to Brynda’s concern about the pressure sore aputation, I assume the preceding dialogue about the smell was meant to tell us the limb was gangrenous. I have nursed hospital patients who have developed gangrene while ambulatory.
Like Swank’s character, maybe?
Danger was a Texan, not a Southerner. But you’re right, nobody talks the way he talked.
See my last post.
First of all, I didn’t take the depiction of Maggie, her family or of Danger being stereotypically Southern. Danger was from Texas, and not only was uneducated but seemed to also be mentally disabled. His butchering of the English language was probably more of a result from that than his Texan heritage. As for Maggie’s family being portrayed as poor white trailer trash, it was spot on. I’m a Yankee and have seen plenty of people like her family up her in the Nort.
I didn’t perceive the movie to be proselytizing at all about the issue of euthanasia and quadrapalegics at all. Not at all.
The point I believe Eastwood was making was about one person’s issue with being rendered helpless.
Here’s the way I interpreted it. Maggie was poor white trash and she knew it. She had been busting her ass as a since she was a teenager and knew she would never become anything greater than that unless she could fulfill her dream of boxing. Her dream was the only thing she had.
We see throughout the movie that she is a very determined and stubborn woman. She takes no charity and asks no favors. The only thing she wants from Frankie is his guidance in learning how to box. What she gets but never asked for is a father figure who feels a need to protect her because she becomes a surrogate daughter to him.
When Maggie’s neck is broken Frankie feels responsible, as though he failed in protecting her. But Maggie, who never asked for this protection nor felt as though she needed it, blamed herself for not protecting herself. If you recall, when Maggie’s family shows up at the rehab center to get her to sign her assets over to her mom, Frankie tried to step in and protect Maggie, she respectfully told him to mind his own business. She protected herself by basically telling her family to fuck off. The only favor Maggie ever asked Frankie was to help her die, and if you recall also when he was talking to the priest about this he mentioned that Maggie asked him to teach her to box but never listened to him and always did what she wanted anyway. Maggie knew what she wanted, knew how to get it, and got it. After she lost her leg, she realized that the only thing she ever had going for her was forever gone. She had realized a dream and was content with that. Also, being someone who never asked anyone for anything, she was not about to become a burden to Frankie. She chose death not because being a quadrapalegic was so undesirable, it was because never being able to box was unbearable as was the idea that she could not take care of herself.
Frankie, who appears to have somehow fucked up as a father to his daughter Katie, eventually complies and because it’s the probably the one and only true act of complete unselfishness he’s ever committed. He risks being alone and tormented for the rest of his life because he loves Maggie that much.
Ok, well that;s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Oh really? I invite you to the backwoods of Kentucky or Appalachia. You may need an interpreter as the English spoken by some people is chock full of grammatical atrocities and the accent so thick you may have difficulty believing it’s English at all.
Even more than that and something I can’t believe the “it’s pro-euthanasia” crowd overlook is that Frankie not only risks everything, just as the priest told him, he actually loses it all. He gives up his connection with the world for Maggie. I was really surprised at the end when Danger tells us Frankie is gone and we cut to the shot of the diner for what seems to be the happy ending but the shot inside shows us that Frankie is on the wrong side of the counter.
Ok, well that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Speaking as someone who comes from “the backwoods of Appalachia” as you put it, I think you misunderstand the point Fiver and I are making.
Yes, there are Southerners (including Texans) who mangle the language. But there are rules in every dialect, and Danger’s phrasing violated the rules of grammar in Southern dialect.
Most egregious was the subject/verb disagreement. “I likes boxing.” (Not actual dialogue, but Danger had several constructions of this sort.) That is an inaccurate depiction of Southern dialect. (Including Texas, dammit.)
The point that I am making and made in another post is that Danger’s grammatical issues are most likely due to being mentally deficient and not due to his birthplace. He speaks like a two year old.
Even taking into account spoke’s comment, almost EVERY Texan I have ever met considers themselves to be part of the South (and therefore Southern); even if we don’t buy into the “heritage” (which sadly is usually a codeword for bigotry).
Since Texas is so big, I imagine that those in the West parts of Texas may consider themselves Southwestern, but in the Eastern half (where most of the people live) most consider themselves Southern.
This is complicated because we are primarily TEXANS. But there are WAY too many Confederate Flag stickers to forget where we live.
I agree about the mental issues, but he sounded like a mentally challenged NEW YAWKER trying in vain to ape a Southern Accent.
While he clearly wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, the movie gives us no reason to think everyone back where he comes from doesn’t talk just like him.
watsonwil, I’m a native Atlantan who lived in Houston (east Texas) for two years. Most Texans I knew then (and know now, as a perennial visitor to Austin) consider themselves Texans before anything else. If they think of themselves as Southern on any level it’s a distant afterthought.
But regardless of what they think of themselves, the culture is undeniably Western and not Southern. You just don’t see hats, shoes, belt buckles or barbecue like that here in the South.
Sorry for the hijack.
Things you find in Texas:
grits
barbecue
pickup trucks with gun racks
southern accents
vocal fundamentalists
cotton
country music
Nascar mania
bass fishing mania
high school football mania
Confederate flag stickers
Explain to me again why Texas isn’t culturally Southern?