I’m hardly the only one to note the overlap between Million Dollar Baby’s narrative and the Terri Schiavo case Congress took up today. Just do a Google or Technorati search on those terms and you’ll get plenty of matches. Most that I’ve found, however, use the film as an intro to talking about the case and thus miss what I think is an obvious point: the national GOP would not be taking up Schiavo right now were it not for Million Dollar Baby.
The Schiavo case has gone on for some time. For all I know, the pro-lifers have taken it up as a cause for nearly as long. But the Oscars galvanized those on the right who were upset that MDB won such the awards season (and that Passion of the Christ was snubbed). Michael Medved and the National Review criticized the film. Conservative blogs upped their calls for intevention in Schiavo’s case: see, for instance The Free Republic or the blogswarm started in February. In short, the deadline timing of the Schiavo case gave Republicans an occasion to address a grievance they’d harbored for the last month, not to mention the last decade.
For this reason I disagree with Kevin Drum’s sentiment that the Republicans are only acting out of a cynical attempt for political advantage. This is not pandering in the usual sense. GOP lawmakers and party rank and file see this as yet another volley in a war against Hollywood. To think Delay and company are not sincere in that fight is to misunderstand the cultural and media universe they live in.
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