Million Dollar Baby - Julia Ribeiro

The movie kicks off with what seems, a scenery of redemption, where each character is trying to figure out a way to "pay" for his or hers past mistakes. First we have Frankie Dunn, an ex-boxer who owns a gym in a "forgotten" place of LA, lives with the guilt of letting his friend Scrap continue a fight that cost him his eye, and has distanced himself from his now grown daughter. Then we have Maggie, a poor waitress who is trying to change her life through the art of boxing - as if this was her last chance to achieve at least some success.

To me, it seems like when Maggie comes along (not initially though), Dunn sees a chance to redeem himself from past mistakes - as if he had a second chance of "re-doing his life". This is because with Maggie he will get to take risks emotionally and professionally. He can create a connection with Maggie, that can un-do all his wrong doings in relation to his relationship to his daughter. Professionally, he can try to achieve success, try to prove to himself, maybe to others, that he is an experienced professional in boxing, and that he can win the gold. Who knew however, that this would lead to a fateful dilemma that would end in tragedy?

As we reach the final scenes of the movie, and Maggie is finally going to fight for the title, the surely expectancy of someone who has never seen before, is that Maggie will take home the gold, Frankie's image will be restored, the gym glorified, and Scrap will somehow be able to move on; a happy ending.  However, Million Dollar Baby does not end like a Rocky Balboa movie, and instead as a greek tragedy. The fight climaxes when a round has ended and Billie "The Blue Bear" looks as if she know she will be defeated. The bell has rung and no more punches are allowed, however, she decides to throw one at Maggie. What was supposed to be just one more punch, turn into a broken neck, an ended career, and tearful audience. The rules in sports are clearly there to be followed because many of them can get extremely violent in a matter of seconds. From this punch, I retrieve 3 obvious moral dilemmas:
1) Should the rules ever be broken?
2) Should someone be punished for un-intendended consequences? (I don't think Billie's intention was to break Maggie's neck, but just to hurt her. So should she be judged for her intentions, or for the consequences themselves?)
3) Should someone that has done similar actions as Billie ever be allowed in that sport again?
There can be many more dilemmas coming out of just this scene of the movie, but those are one of the main three, that can even be interpreted a little bit differently.

The audience then learns what they feared the most: Maggie is paralyzed from the neck down. After she loses a leg, she asks Frankie to put her out of her misery, who at first absolutely denies doing such thing. He has grown attached to Maggie, and as mentioned before, sees her as his daughter, so of course he would say no. The chances of him saying yes to her proposition become even slimmer when we take in account the fact he is religious, a serious Catholic - which brings in even more moral dilemmas involving this whole situation he is put in. Maggie argues that she wants to leave this world and remember it for the good things, remember this experience she went through while she still can.

Ahhh, then comes the question: Under what circumstances is it right to end one's life, or help end another's life, because of a loss or disability? That is why this movie was so controversial.
The movie itself, specifically the scene where he turns off her machines and injects Maggie with adrenaline, sets humane values against religious morals, where it's a sin to take somebody's life. Taking it just from a Catholic point of view and alienating all the other factors, this wouldn't even be a dilemma.

However, Frankie is put forth in a situation where he has to outweigh his values, morals, and ethics, to decide which would be the best action to take. Let's say if Maggie were to be his daughter (because that is how he saw her): Would he suffer more with her death, than to see her suffer? Would her happiness be more important than his? Parents usually want to see their child happy, and suffering would be the last thing they would want for him or her. If her happiness was to be gone, then he would have to break his moral/ethical/religious barriers in order to make her happiness an order. So from a parent's perspective this becomes a really hard moral dilemma.

Furthermore, the way this dilemma is solved suggests that a life with disability, or some kind of physical loss is not worth living anymore. Critics' reviews defy Clint Eastwood (the director and Frankie at the same time) even further, claiming that euthanasia or the ending of someone's life was even portrayed as something heroic. However he responds: "The dilemma of finally reaching some revival in his life, and then having to lose it is a tragic situation. It's a tragedy that could have been written by the Greeks or Shakespeare." Clearly suggesting that this was a master-piece, a work of art.

The Shawshank Redemption: Moral Vision

Sorry this is uber-late; GIN trip and what not.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking that I write this on the day that the Velvet Underground mastermind, Lou Reed, passed away. Consistently dealing with dark and morose subject matter—songs that talked about drug use and abuse, sadomasochism, among other things—it can be said that his art wasn’t exactly moral. That doesn’t mean that it was bad art; quite the opposite, his music is brilliant, and has stood the test of time. Except for that solo record, Metal Machine Music. An abomination of the musical kind, it was absolutely immoral of him to even think of making it… It’s so bad it should be illegal. Anyway, this blog post is about Shawshank Redemption, not Lou Reed.

Viewed from every single angle, The Shawshank Redemption is a brilliant dig at some of the most pressing (quasi-paradoxical) moral dilemmas we see today. In that sense, yes, the film has an entirely moral dimension to it. Obviously, it’s not as simple as that. There’s a quite intricate complexity to the moral vision in the film, both that displayed by the characters and the filmmaker, Mr. Frank Darabont.

            I will tackle the prompt for this blog with the word “moral” being defined as that which we—students at Graded—are most accustomed to: behavior that is considered “correct” or acceptable in a society. Thus morality for the characters and for the filmmaker is very different.

            On the face of it, The Shawshank Redemption appears to portray a very strong good vs. bad dynamic, which defines its basic moral compass. In the Shawshank penitentiary, convicts of all shapes and sizes are placed together to struggle in living hell, headed by Samuel Norton, Shawshank’s very own Beelzebub. In the world we’re accustomed to, we’d be inclined to loathe prisoners—after all, they did commit heinous crimes—but not in this film. Frank Darabont sets the movie in such a way that the antagonists become Samuel Norton, the corrupt warden of the prison and Byron Hadley, the vicious captain of the prison guards. The good guys, for the most part, are the convicts and the bad guys are the higher-ups. Funny. This in and of itself presents a strong moral vision of the filmmaker: he is trying to get the general audience to understand that our perception of morality is not necessarily a correct or good one. He uses this overly simplistic good versus bad moral view as a way to satirize our very own moral view, which is just a simplistic: we think convicts are bad and that those in charge of prisons and whatnot are the good ones.

            However, within this simplicity, there are many complexities to this basic moral vision, summed up by protagonist Andy Dufresne telling his convict friend, Red: “I had to come to prison to be a crook.” Andy was completely innocent of his crime and, yet, was given the life sentence for supposedly murdering his wife and her lover. Is this a flaw in the system? Or is Andy simply collateral damage in an otherwise perfect framework? Once in the penitentiary is when he begins doing dirty deeds: Red helps him infiltrate items he wants, he helps the guards’ finances and aids the warden in his acts of corruption in order to receive favors within the prison walls. From this we can gather a pretty strong idea of the filmmaker’s moral vision. It appears that, in his view, the prison fails as a correctional facility—one that instills morals in otherwise immoral people—and ends up doing just the opposite: it forces them to depend on a system that is just as immoral or more so (considering the warden and his principal guard mistreat the prisoners, partake in corruption and even murder a convict) than the crimes they have committed. In the words of the wise Red: “These walls are funny. First you hate 'em, then you get used to 'em. Enough time passes, you get so you depend on them. That's institutionalized.”

            Morality is such a pressing issue in the film that even within the convicts themselves, moral visions can be found. Within hours of arriving, Andy is seen as a target for the prison’s “bull queers,” also known as “The Sisters.” They sporadically rape Andy over the course of several years, acts which are never directly shown on screen—this is an artistic way in which the director is able to show that rape is a deed so immoral that it doesn’t even deserve screen time. Despite the entirety of the prison being made up of felons convicted for the most diverse reasons, nobody condones the actions of “The Sisters.” In that sense, they have a moral compass that is more correct, so to speak, than that of the correctional officers. However, they fail to do anything about it, despite it being a fairly common occurrence. This is a parallel with what happens in real-life; time and time again people fail do to anything when they are in a position in which they easily could. By pitting us with convicted felons, the filmmaker tries to show that, at least in the moral spectrum, we are more similar than we’d like to believe.

            During the movie, we see prisoners who have been discharged unable to enjoy life on the outside. In fact, Brooks ends up killing myself and Red deliberates doing the same. Both of these are symbolized by the moment Brooks releases a black crow out into the wild—those who leave are bound to find darkness and bad luck. Is “rehabilitation just a bullshit word” as Red claims, then? If a prison fails at doing its most basic job as a correctional facility, is it morally justifiable to maintain it as it is? Probably not. And this is what filmmaker Frank Darabont wants to believe. Finally, what does it mean to be moral? To do as the warden and guards tell you? Or to lock a guard in the toilet as he’s minding his business and play Mozart to all your fellow convicts? It appears to be the latter—the authorities, though they maintain this façade, are not the ones who determine morality.

            More than most movies we watch, The Shawshank Redemption is a work of art. Cinematography played a huge role in the storytelling. One scene stands out in particular, as brilliantly executed as any great painting: the one in which Andy plays Mozart’s “Canzonetta sull'aria” from The Marriage of Figaro to all the prison inmates. This scene contains a magnificent aerial shot of the countless inmates standing on a vast, enclosed patch of hopeless dirt; it appears that they’ve been stripped naked of any sort of life they once had. This all is contrasted by beautiful, soaring music—symbolic, in this case, as it is the scene in The Marriage of Figaro where Countess Almaviva is reading a letter intended the husband of the countess, in order to expose his infidelity—that instills hope, a hope that begins to show on the prisoners’ faces as the camera zooms in. This all is too in contrast with Andy Dufresne, who is extremely nonchalant on his chair, appreciating the music as well as the guard, who is interrupted in the middle of his defecating. As I said before, this single scene presents a twist on morality as we know it: Andy is the moral one, despite going against the warden and all his guards, because he’s doing what he can to bring back hope to a hopeless world. I also said that the music was symbolic, but I’ll make myself a bit clearer. First off, Andy’s wife cheated on him, the most obvious point of comparison, but infidelity can be seen throughout the film, especially in the warden, who betrays his honor and duty for money and power.

            All that said, there will be those who claim that art is a mere collection of visual (and sometimes sonic) artifacts that are in some way beautiful and thus, do not meddle into issues such as morality. This is very true and it could very well be that Frank Darabont went into this movie simply wanting to create an audiovisual experience that would entertain the masses for two hours and twenty minutes. After all, the film is adapted from Stephen King’s Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, so it can be said that any moral views presented are simply inherited from the novel it borrows from and are not really part of the art itself. The art, if movies are considered art, comes from collections of shots and not the messages that can be extrapolated from it.

            However, if art has to encompass everything situated within the piece of artwork, even that which it implies, then it is clear that in The Shawshank Redemption’s case, morality is prevalent. The big question, then, is: is it moral? Given the fact that it criticizes our view of morality, but remains within our moral schema (things that the director shows as bad, we understand as bad) I think that the answer is yes. That said, should all art be moral? I don’t think so. Beautiful art came about in Nazi Germany (the “Art of the Third Reich”), influenced by romantic realism, and it can be said that that art was not particularly moral. However, is it still art? Definitely.

This finally presents a bigger knowledge issue: should we consider and appreciate immoral art? Part of me wants to say “yes, but only the aesthetic part,” but that is utterly ignorant of me, for art to me, is not just the work itself, but the totality of it, complete with its literal and implied meaning. I think I’m in the swamp. Help.

Shawshank Redemption

Carlo Krell

            As soon as I woke up this morning, I watched a long and detailed preview of today’s anticipated Él Clasico match between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. Usually, these previews are most often the same when it comes to these two Spanish teams battling against each other – politics, finances, money, transfers, Lionel Messi on one side, and Cristiano Ronaldo on the other. However, there was one small difference today: Neymar is going to play against his team’s greatest rival for the first time. Fortunately, I believe the producers were aware of the redundancy of their previews because today’s show was almost entirely about the Brazilian youngster rather than the game itself. “He was meant to play soccer. Even before exiting his mother, Neymar was destined to revolutionize the way of playing this sport.” That’s all I heard today. Gratefully and coincidentally the day I was going to write this blog.

            I see “moral vision” as what one is inspired to do; something that is right; when one seeks to make a change in what he believes is right. The Shawshank Redemption, the movie I chose to watch, by this definition expresses a very strong moral vision. Before anything else, however, what does Neymar have to do with this? Well, his destined moral vision – albeit not essentially moral - was to play soccer and do what he thought was best for his team and for his nation (it was a great, realistic, and modern way of portraying a “moral vision”). Basically, the movie is about an innocent man, Andy Dufresne, being convicted of murder and becoming another prisoner’s best friend. Both imprisoned men spend a number of years together, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency through thick and thin.

            I would love to talk about many aspects of the movie, but I don’t want to “steal” what others, like Luiza and Yugo, have already said. Consequently, I’m going to innovatively try to split the rest of my response in two parts – aesthetic/artistic film aspects and ethics. Yet, both sections will be based on the same premises, which will unfortunately resemble other responses. First of all, Shawshank prison is an extremely corrupt environment with different echelons, including in the prisoner society. In addition, people are only recognized for what they do rather than for what they are or what they represent. Moreover, although paradoxically stated, many of the characters developed in the film were satisfied with their confined lives, even Red, the second protagonist, when asking his boss at the supermarket for permission to go to the restroom. Likewise, most of the prisoners had no aspirations given that they were “satisfied” with their ordinary, redundant and dreary routines – that is why Andy (the outlier) is always in spotlight.

            Just like in the paragraph above, the film portrayed prisoners as the “majority” of the environment’s society. Few of them had voices, very few actually. That I can think of, I heard the voices of probably two handfuls of prisoners all throughout the film. Furthermore, they are all portrayed as one, rather than a collective group of individuals. This is primarily shown through the plot of the film and through the camera angles. In about five occasions, the filmmaker placed his camera on a wire over the prison. This upper angle focused on all the prisoners down below on the prison yard, making the spectators (free humans outside of prison watching television) look down upon the ant-sized prisoners. This introduces me to another artistic approach to prisoners, which is that they are tremendously weaker than prison and authority. Once again, the plot already suggests this, yet the meaning is augmented when the plot is aggregated to the movie’s filmmaking tactics. When the prisoners are going back inside from their “recess,” they always look up to the prison walls – the filmmaker even made the camera seem like prisoners’ eyes.

            In terms of non-film art, a few things stood out as well. When Andy was carving his chess horse, he expressed one of his likes through emotion. For him, his geological hobby was a way of keeping his mind busy and focused even when placed in a state of potential chaos. Seeing something that he loved again – chess, rocks, and carving – made him feel more comfortable. This suggests that art is a way of finding solace and of expressing emotion, something we’ve already studied and agreed on. In addition, Andy, as well as all other PRISONERS (and not authority figures), expressed delight and emotion towards the classical music that played out loud. Andy even said “music is beautiful since it’s kept inside us. Both up here (in our minds) and right here (in our hearts and souls).” There are other artistic aspects of the film that need to be mentioned, yet I’ll tie them in to the “ethical” section for the purposes of your understanding.

            The first “ethical” characteristic of the movie appeared right in the beginning. Andy was convicted of murder because his wife was cheating on him. The Lawyer that convicted him even considered cheating a “sin.” With “sin” in mind, another huge “ethical” part of the movie was religion. As soon as Andy entered prison, Warden Norton (the prison’s manager) said “Trust the lord.” This suggests that God is the supreme moral lord, the one who determines what’s right and wrong. This is a religious approach to human nature, similar to many different philosophies we’ve studied. However, even though Norton was extremely religious, he ordered his employed troops to do immoral things. When in authority, you can do whatever you want to someone (a prisoner) – hitting, throwing cold water, killing, inter alia, are acceptable. Another huge aspect of human nature was also portrayed in the movie. The prisoners, even without paper money, found a way of commercializing with cigarettes and contraband. Not only does this suggest that humans are selfish, but it also shows that humans are willing to do immoral things for their own pleasure (living a good life in a corrupt society). Outside jail, Norton was also a ridiculously corrupt individual, once more emphasizing this perspective of human nature. With egocentrism in mind, another scene of the movie struck me. The police officer in charge of all cells did not (pardon the bluntness) give a damn about a “fat man’s” sadness. In reality, he killed the “fat man,” as he was called, because he was tired of seeing him cry. In the following morning, when everyone was talking about his death, Andy asked if someone knew the “fat man’s” name. The response was “why would you care?”

            The film went against the “all men are equal” philosophy in a myriad of ways. A few of them were already expressed, so I’d like to focus on one realm of this approach. When Andy was taking his first bath, a member of “The Sisters,” the toughest group in prison, admitted he was a homosexual. Instantaneously, Andy fled. This could mean several different things, such as Gay people are avoided, Gay people shouldn’t belong with other men, Gay people shouldn’t be the toughest men at a prison, inter alia, but I will choose not to elaborate on this because it could be a whole other blog.

            One inspirational ethical approach of the film, on the other hand, was that a man is only a man when he has company. Similar to Carol Giligan’s philosophy on human nature, the film shows how humans achieve great things with the help of others. In terms of filmmaking, whenever the lights were already shut down at night, prisoners “left the darkness” and became “enlightened” when they spoke to other prisoners across the hall. Crooks killed himself because he was lonely, even when he was free. These were ways of representing the difference between solitude and company. Likewise, everything that the prisoners did in prison to keep their minds occupied needed others’ aid. Red needed to do his contraband when others needed his help, and the youngster who had tried stealing a television in JCPenney needed Andy’s help to get into college. Initially, the youngster had no hope of getting in, and many other characters lived without hope because, as Red recalled, “hope is dangerous.” However, by the end the film made explicit that all men should have hope because it is what keeps good things from dying.

            The last ethical characteristic of the film I’d like to talk about regards authority. It became clear that with more authority, one is more corrupt. Norton, the police officer, and even Andy at times made this evident. However, one is not born corrupt. When in contact with such a corrupt and immoral world (like that prison), one becomes corrupt as well. As Andy himself mentioned, he became a crook after being convicted as one. The only authoritarian figure that was not shown to be corrupt was God. Yet, controversially stated again, Norton’s corrupt safe was placed right behind a religious statement. Does this mean that money is a supreme power as well, just like God?

            So, what about moral vision? I believe that the movie portrayed such a strong moral vision because it showed us all the bad things of human nature and society. Andy was the outlier – the one who tried breaking the system. He did not abide by the ordinary or the “set of rules.” In the end, when Andy was capable of escaping a horrible world, and freeing himself from his temporary corruption, he showed us what our moral vision should be. We shouldn’t be corrupt because that is wrong. By asking Red to go meet him outside of the USA, Andy also showed us that we should always seek company and friendship. In the end, the film suggests that we as humans should seek was is right for us and for ourselves. We should pursue what we’re inspired to, what we’re destined to. Yet, we should never succumb to authority or to corruption. Rather, we should stick to those beside us, who will definitely take us to the best places, including psychological places.

           I don't believe the film expresses if art should or shouldn't be moral. Yet, based on the moral vision of the film, I conclude that art should have some meaning or objective to it. 

             

            

Morals in "Million Dollar Baby"

The movie presents several ethical and moral little dilemmas as the story goes on. It goes way beyond that "good fight movie" that we all expect it to be. The movie has three main characters; Frankie, Maggie, and Eddie ("Scrap"). All three characters have a rough past, and seem to be forgotten by most people around them. Eddie is a half blind ex-boxer who lives in Dunn's gym, cleaning and attending to it. Frankie is an aging boxing trainer and the owner of a shabby gym, and Maggie is a 'white-trash' diner waitress who dreams of becoming a boxer. Maggie decides to ask Frankie to coach her, and tells him she wants to be the best. Frankie initially does not want to teach her, because she is a girl (the audience might get that idea) - which is one of our fist encounters with a moral "dilemma"-; so Eddie decides to lend Maggie an old punching bag out of pity and because she is very persistent and keeps coming to the gym to practice on her own.


Maggie sees boxing as her "way out". Although this isn't a clear moral/ethical dilemma, boxing became an escape for her in social standards, because she didn't have a very good education - or at least we assume-. There could have been other ways of her reaching success and get out of the harsh life she has been living. She could have just as easily taken some course, or anything that would qualify her for a better job. However, she chose boxing. She comes from a very poor family, and all she wants is to buy a house for her mom. Her mom is another clear "problem", as she constantly tries to downgrade Maggie whenever she has the chance. Although Maggie does everything for her family, and is caring for others -even Frankie who doesn't show much affection towards her, when she refuses to leave him like his previous athlete, and keep him as her manager/coach-, her mother does not seem to support anything Maggie is doing at all.


Eddie a caring and compassionate character, as it is clear he only cares for others. He takes care of Maggie and also takes care of Danger (a boy who suffers a mental disability and dreams of becoming a boxer). Although Danger has that mental disability, Eddie still cares for him, and supports him. He is able to persuade Frankie in letting Danger use the gym without having to pay, and is also the one who convinces Frankie in training Maggie, after he compares her to Sugar Ray, considered one of the best boxers. He seems to be completely selfless, and it might be because he doesn't want what happened to him, happen to others whom he sees might have a big future ahead of them in the boxing world.


Frankie always seems to find good boxers but is never really recognized for bringing them to the top. Eddie was one of Frankie's boxers and lost his 109th fight and one of his eyes because Frankie did not stop him from fighting. The only reason Big Willie Little took on Mack as his new agent was because according to him, Frankie did not believe in him for not letting him fight in a particular fight. However, what Big Willie Little probably didn't know, was of Frankie's and Eddie's past, and the reason he would not allow the fight to happen. We then get the idea that Frankie doesn't want to initially train Maggie because everyone he has previously trained has left him. Like Eddie and Maggie, Frankie also seems to be alone in the world, as we see his letters to his daughter being returned to him and unread. The three protagonists become each other's family, and the gym becomes their home.


The huge and most obvious moral decision however is when Maggie asks Frankie to pull the plug after she hits her neck on the stool inside the ring after a huge punch during a fight. She becomes tetraplegic, and will barely be able to move, never mind boxing. In the hospital, she tells Frankie that once her family arrives, he will no longer have to take care of her. However, once her family arrives, all they insist for her to do is sign the papers transferring her money to to the rest of her family. Frankie tries to help Maggie, but her family sends him away, and Maggie sends her family away too.


Maggie bites her own tongue in an attempt to bleed to death. Frankie is woken up and asked to go to the hospital. Maggie then asks him to pull the plug on her, and reminds him of the story she told him about her father and his dog. Frankie decides to pull the plug because he sees that it is better than for her to live a suffering life.


Another somewhat hidden key moral decision, was Eddie's decision to write to Frankie's daughter. The narration of the movie was Eddie's letter to her, and we realize that in the end. He writes to her that after what happened, he never came back, but he would like to remind her what kind of man he was, what kind of father. It leaves us wondering wether it really was his place to have done that, but then again, throughout the movie, the audience really does see what type of man Frankie was, and that his daughter deserves to know the truth.


Was it really Frankie's place to have pulled the plug? Personally, I believe so. Maggie and Frankie grew a father-daughter relationship, and it fit perfectly with the story of the dog. Maggie did not want to suffer, and all she ever wanted was to box and be recognized for being good at something -especially since her family was only interested in her when it came to her money-. It was Maggie's wish to die knowing that "maybe she did alright" -according to Eddie.


The whole movie is a whole moral/ethical dilemma, with the constant struggle of the three protagonists to find their place in the world, as the world seems to have forgotten them.

Million Dollar Baby Review

Wow…
I saw this movie for the first time this past weekend and I was left speechless.
Let me start by analyzing the artistic aspect of the movie itself. The lighting in the movie played a huge part throughout. Depending on the lighting in the gym it would set the mood for that specific scene. It is key to note that Maggie was usually in the light and I think that's because she brought a sense of life and in a way light to what was a lifeless scene. The constant narration throughout by Morgan Freeman gives perspective to each scene and of course at the end we realize that the constant voice throughout the movie serves a purpose that I am not willing to to expand upon for those of you that haven't seen the movie…

Now for the tough part, which is to somehow discuss the ethics and morals throughout the movie without picking a side. The first question is if it was really alright that Frankie wouldn't train girls and the way he viewed female boxing clearly as something less than it really was? It is clear the biologically males and females are not structured the same so a competition between men and women who play at the same level would be quite unfair, although it should be kept in mind that women can beat men in sports. Frankie eventually gave in and broke his rule of not training women after he saw that Maggie brought the fighting attitude with her to every fight and that she wouldn't be willing to cave in, this of course was something that worried Frankie as we later find out from Eddie (Morgan Freeman). The loaded question here is if men and women can truly be treated as equals when there are certain clear differences? It is possible to answer the question in a very simple and clear manner by saying no, but couldn't it be argue that certain activities and competitions such as sports are geared more towards men than they are for women? A great example is basketball, which consists of skills and height. Males on average are taller than females, which makes the fact that the rim is 10 feet above the ground a little bit of an unfair advantage . I think that if men and women were compared and placed in situations that were proportionally fair for each then the comparison would be possible.

The second ethical issue/moral issue is that of Billie "The Blue Bear" who hit Maggie illegally throughout their fight together and of course delivered quite the blow to her at the end of the fight. What Billie did can be seen as something completely immoral just because she was simply fighting dirty. It could be argued that boxing as a sport promotes that competitive environment due to the nature of the sport, but that final punch thrown by Billie clearly carried certain implications with it that she couldn't have imagined. The issue here is how can we make certain decision if we can never truly control the outcome of the decision? In any decision we make it's possible to have a negative and positive outcome, and although we might have an idea of which is better to take how can we ever truly know that it's the right choice? When Billie made the decision to take a shot at Maggie after the round had ended could she have possibly imagined the following chain of events? Taking it a step further is it possible then to ever justify our next action if deep down we have a reasonable enough doubt? I thought long enough and came to the conclusion that it would be easier to just not make any decision or pick a side, until I realized that by doing that I would be taking a decision with implications that I might not be able to take into account, in which case I realized that I was screwed no matter what I do.

The third moral question is of course the decision that Frankie is faced with at the end of the movie. He based his choice off of what Maggie wanted, but how can one follow through on such an action in general? (I am trying not to say exactly what happened for those who actually want to see the movie) What if the person asks you to, but you love them? Does the idea of human nature being selfish come into play or do we have to overlook our selfishness and try to make a decision based off what the person in that current situation would want? Frankie based his decision off of what Maggie wanted and although it could possibly bring him endless regret he knew that it would maker her happy. What if the situation had been different though? If Maggie hadn't have been able to communicate what she wanted to Frankie or anyone else how would one make that decision? If she was in a coma then of course the decision would be different because you don't know if she will come out of it or what she wanted deep down and it would make for further complications. Continuing with the idea of human selfishness I will try to tie in the Fitzgerald family as well because they clearly lacked ethics as a whole. They had been in town for almost a week knowing Maggie's situation and decided to visit on the last day with a lawyer with the intentions of taking advantage of Maggie's financial situation. As a mother or even as a family member how can one sink so low as to try and do what the Fitzgerald family tried to do? Does human nature truly get to that point of selfishness or was that one extreme case that rarely occurs? It can be justified that the Fitzgerald family wasn't financially fortunate, but Maggie had done what she could to try and take care of her family and even with that unselfish attitude they tried to take more from her. This then leads me to the question do we enable selfishness in each other? By being kind to others does that enable them to take advantage of us? I think that there are a variety of ways of looking at this question and in various different contexts which makes the question hard to answer, but at least in the context presented in the movie the Fitzgerald family aside from Maggie lacked any decency, morals, and or ethical values.

Overall the film itself was inspirational throughout, but it was packed with endless amount of moral and ethical values that I couldn't possibly cover in the span of this blog (Shawrelle vs Danger). I don't really suggest this movie for anybody that isn't willing to go through a bit of an up and down roller coaster and accept that life isn't always full of happy endings.
Great performances though.

Morality in Clockwork Orange

Please watch one of the following films carefully. Keep one eye on the ethics portrayed in the film, both by the characters and the filmmaker. Keep the other on the artistic elements of the film. Then consider this: Does the film have a moral vision? Should art be moral?

When approaching the question of whether or not the film "A Clockwork Orange," directed by Stanley Kubrick, has a moral vision, we first have to define what exactly is to be moral. To have a moral vision is to be concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior, strongly relating the ethical philosophers we studied, where their goal with their philosophies was to define what exactly is right and wrong behavior, and, in some cases, how to achieve it. Therefore, I will look through some of the lenses such ethical philosophers provided to see if the film has a moral vision, before answering the second question, which relates to art and morality in general.

The central theme in this movie, as uncomfortable and unmoral as it may seem, is exactly what constitutes morality? Betrayal in many cases is seen as an immoral act, just like corruption would be. When discussing about ethics, some extreme cases, such as psychopaths, often occur as counter-arguments to some of these philosophers' reasonings. What if their true happiness is to kill and rape people for no reason than for the sake of violence itself? This is definitely not the case for everyone, but these exceptions make things difficult to make concrete. Alex was living a perfectly happy life, in his eyes, until his friend's betrayed him and he was caught by the police. Is betrayal always immoral? In this case, in the eyes of society, it definitely is not -- if it weren't for the four friends' backstabbing, the police may have not apprehended this killer. 

Another instance of immorality in this movie is when Alex opts for the anti-violence treatment after 2 years in prison. There, the doctors would make him undergo experimental aversion therapy, where they would give him medicine to feel sick, make him watch a film with extreme violence, so later his brain would associate the feeling of sickness to the simple act of watching those images. This brings up a first order question which is "Is moral corruption better than forced morality?" If we had a morality pill would we all take it? And most important, should we? 

Immanuel Kant's "categorical imperative" would state that if we let Alex kill and rape whoever he wants, as soon as the protagonist made those decisions, he agrees that everyone else in the world would. On the other hand, if we delve deeper into what exactly goes on inside Alex's head, what drives him to make these decisions and whether that makes him truly happy, then the categorical imperative would shift to "let people do what makes them happy" instead of "let people kill and rape each other." Although, Alex being the psychopath he is, I don't think he would mind other people killing and raping each other, as was seen in the movie. 

Clearly, this film has many criticisms regarding how people perceive morality, how things are not black and white in life, and how sometimes people act morally, yet still do not achieve Bentham's utilitarianism, regarding other people's happiness, such as is the case of the end of the movie. At first, this film may seem very heavy and extremely violent, but sometimes these brutal aspects of the movie are needed to portray the message of morality that the director attempts at, and to make this film truly a piece of art.

The most controversial pieces of art, especially those of the modern times, challenge something about life, whether it is the government, capitalistic system, or what. And as I mentioned earlier, if art was moral, then the message would not necessarily be transmitted because as we will see later in the art unit, shock is an art factor for beauty (not too much of it, though!). On the other hand, there are several pieces of art that are completely moral, yet have a very controversial message to send to the audience, and the morality is just the camouflage for the piece, whether it is a book, a song, or a play. Now, the camouflaged morality actually becomes beautiful in the public's eyes. 

When judging whether art should be moral, I think it depends on the intention of the creator -- making my argument a very relativistic one. Still, from what I have seen in my time, the more immoral art is, the more beauty people find in it. 

A Moral Look at "I Heart Huckabees"

            The movie I Heart Huckabees portrays several moral and existentialist questions in a very interesting and entertaining way. The film does have a moral vision in the sense that it portrays moral in a specific way to the viewer, and ultimately transcends a very clear core morality.

            Albert Markovski is an activist trying to protect the marshal and woods of his hometown. As he goes about his life he encounters an African guy at three different occasions. He considers this a meaningful coincidence and after, also coincidentally, finding the card of two existentialist detectives in his jacket, he decides to set up a meeting. Upon awkwardly meeting Vivian for the first time, he declares that he wants to know the meaning of his coincidence with the African guy and also, as a plus, the ultimate truth of the universe. A TOK connection becomes very clear in this initial scene. Vivian asks Albert if he is sure that he wants to know the truth about his perception of reality. She says that most people, upon briefly seeing the truth for the first time, are scared and would rather simply remain in the surface of things. Albert, very determined, says that he wishes to know the truth, even if it’s not consequently a happy ordeal. This reminded me of how we should “go to the swamp” when analysing something with TOK eyes. Albert wanted to, and certainly did, go to the swap in this movie. And boy - What. A. Swamp.

            The idea of infinite interconnectedness is first introduced by Bernard through the blanket analogy. A random blanket symbolizes the infinity of the universe, and the composition of the blanket is meticulously sewed together in the same way that everything in the universe is connected. Albert has an epiphany when shown this and, in a cathartic moment of truth, says: “Everything is the same even if it’s different.”  Well if that was it then the movie could have just ended there and there would be no swamp – but also no self evident and contended truth. In the movie, Albert first recognizes interconnectedness and then severely deviates from it while he spends time with Caterine, a mysterious and dark French existentialist philosopher. However, he comes back to it by the end of the movie.

            The “real life situation” of the movie is that Albert is trying to preserve the marshal and woods while cooperate man Brad is not so willing to support environmental issues. This is technically a moral dilemma but a very straight-forward yes or no dilemma compared to everything else that appears in the movie. The more important dilemma of the movie is: is everything infinite and interconnected, or is everything nothing and meaningless? Existentialist philosophers, and married couple, Vivian and Bernard will argue that there is no nothing because everything if part of the fabric of infinity. Dark French author Caterine will argue that there are moments of connection with the universe but there is always going back to human drama, desire, and deceit. To her, human existence is “chaos, cruelty, and meaninglessness.” She makes this very clear when she, right after Albert has a moment of pure being in which he stops thinking and just feels, engages in sexual relations with Albert.

            Albert was doing fine with Vivian and Bernard at the beginning of the movie. He underwent moments in which he faced his mind and thoughts while in the magical black plastic bag, and also tried to understand what his detectives were saying. However, this all went downhill (or down-swap) when Brad and Tommy (and eventually Caterine) come into play. Brad, in a cooperate move, uses the detectives to drive Albert away from his job. Tommy, after reading Caterine’s book, influences Albert with very dark ideas about the nothingness of being. Albert is now in a very award place. Who is he? What is the meaning of everything? It holds to Albert that in order to learn the truth, he must give up his everyday perceptions and usual identity. However, this gets way out of hand when Albert is presented several different perceptions. He gets lost in the midst of opposing and divergent philosophies, for some time he lands on the confusion of existence because he cannot decide between the philosophies.

            The ultimate moment of epiphany for Albert about his confusion between clashing philosophies is right after he burns down Brad’s house. He probably burns it down in the first place because he’s been sleeping with a woman (Caterine) who says that nothing that anyone does matters because the universe is cruel and chaotic by nature. He and Caterine are standing outside the burning house when Brad gets home, and Caterine takes a Polaroid of Brad crying. As soon as Albert sees that picture he realizes: he is Brad and Bras is he, they are both interconnected and so is everything else. He says that Vivian and Bernard’s philosophy is not dark enough and Caterine’s is too dark. But by placing one on top of each other two partial and meaningful philosophies are created. He realizes that there is cruelty and suffering, but that neither cruelty, suffering, happiness, or identity are actually separate from one another in the infinite fabric of reality. It’s very interesting that his epiphany happens in the form of a photograph, which is considered art. It is when he sees the photo, and not Brad in person, that he understands the meaning of the situation. This shows that art can be moral, and by portraying something real externally, one might be able to identify its meaning more easily. Brad in the picture showed a very isolated and strong image of suffering. Brad in real life was surrounded by other events and people, which did not isolate the meaning of Brad alone. Therefore, could isolating a particular object give it a different meaning that when it is in the context of reality, or does it create a different, but nonetheless real, reality for the object? Looking at different realities helped all the characters in the movie understand new things about existence. Art does exactly this, it places things in different contexts to portray different (and not one pinpointed) emotions. Art should be moral because, as seen in the movie, viewing morality itself and not only life with different perspectives and lenses helps create a more clear vision of the reality of morality for an individual.

I would like to end with a quote by Tommy (Albert’s other): “Why do people only ask themselves deep questions when something bad happens? Then they forget all about it.” In the movie, Albert does not exactly only ask the questions when he sees Brad suffering, but he does attain a new and fresh perspective which leads him to new conclusions. He joined Caterine’s idea of cruelty in the world when he saw Brad crying with the self-evident truth that he felt of interconnectedness. He showed that both opposing philosophies, of Caterine and of the detectives, are true together but none are true separately.