Million Dollar Baby: Breaking Gender Stereotypes

Gender stereotypes are an ongoing conflict in modern society today and both women and men attempt to escape the generalizations that surround their everyday lives. Unfortunately, media does not help people escape these gender stereotypes. That is why it is so important to recognize when something in the media attempts to break these stereotypes.  A great example of this is the movie Million Dollar Baby that was directed by Clint Eastwood in 2004 and starred Hilary Swank. Million Dollar Baby tells the inspirational story of Maggie Fitzgerald, a hard working, dedicated, and inspired rookie boxer who will do whatever it takes to be the best. Maggie starts training in a gym and is immediately judged by others for being an older woman boxer. The men try to kick her out of the gym and discourage her, but she is determined to prove them wrong. She attempts to recruit the owner to be her trainer, but he quickly declines and states, “I don’t train girls.” After spending long hours in the gym the owner finally decides to train her and Maggie becomes the very best that she can be. Overall, Million Dollar Baby is a story about how far hard work and dedication can take a person. This movie and the character of Maggie are important because it shows how gender stereotypes are alive today and it breaks them and shows that they shouldn’t exist. Million Dollar Baby does not conform to traditional gender stereotypes by showing women are significant in sports, making women independent problem solvers, and allowing women to take on leadership roles.

To begin with, Million Dollar Baby breaks a gender stereotype immediately by having a female athlete be the main character in the story. Over the years, women have struggled to get coverage as athletes in the media and the situation has not been getting better for them. According to a study done by Margaret Duncan and Michael Messner, the sports coverage of women of three Los Angeles Networks was only nine percent of airtime. The statistics get even worse as women athletes are only given about 2 percent of airtime on ESPN (Duncan and Messner). Not only that, but the same study shows that men are described as being strong and aggressive while they play their sport while women are referred to as panicked, weary, and vulnerable. To make matters worse, there have been cases where journalists covering women athletes pay more attention to their beauty rather than how they are playing the game (Duncan and Messner).

A woman athlete being treated fairly is a big issue today. Not only does Million Dollar Baby confront this; it also successfully tries to break the stereotype with the female protagonist, Maggie. At the beginning of the film, Maggie is not taken seriously around the gym she attended because no one believed that a woman like her could become a boxer. Not only that, but no one would train or box with her because she was a girl. For example, whenever Maggie came to work out she would always go to a corner by herself and ignore the other men as they made fun of her. The owner of the gym even told Maggie that she could never become a boxer. However, all this negativity did not stop Maggie. She kept training by herself and her dedication and persistence eventually lead her to be coached by a once famous boxer. At first, he didn’t want to coach her because she was a girl, but when he saw the persistence and dedication that she had, he decided to change his mind. With the help of her new coach, she rises to the top of woman’s boxing and becomes a role model for woman everywhere. The movie shows that female athletes can be successful too, and deserve as much airtime as male athletes. Not only that, but not once does the film focus on Maggie’s appearance. It only focuses on Maggie’s fighting style, techniques, and persistence in the ring. 

Another concerning gender stereotype in the media is how women are portrayed as the “damsel in distress” and are only in trouble or need to be saved because they are women.  This is often seen in the media as the climax of films, plays, and television shows that are all about a male figure rescuing a woman who needs to be saved because she can’t save herself. Women are also normally portrayed as having a personal conflict. According to Jenn Shreve, the only way that girls are able to overcome this personal conflict in the media is by having a well-shaped and supporting environment. Shreve points out that women solve these problems in the media are by realizing that they need to conform to the normal gender roles. This is confronted in Million Dollar Baby and Maggie overcomes this stereotype. In the film, Maggie grew up in a poor neighborhood with an unstable family who tries to cheat the government into giving them money. Unlike other women in the media, Maggie has over come her problems by breaking away from her environment. She does this by working all day as a waitress and saving up money so that she doesn’t have to cheat the government like her mother. She doesn’t conform to what people want her to do. An example of this is when Maggie’s mom says to her, “When people find out what you do, they laugh.” Maggie doesn’t conform and continues to pursue her dreams and to not be the stereotypical woman that her family and childhood environment wanted her to be. 

Finally, Million Dollar Baby breaks the gender stereotype that women can’t be put in leadership roles. This stereotype is a big problem, especially since it is taught to children at a young age. Adam Taylor points out in his article The Undeniable Sexism in Textbooks Designed for the World’s Children that women are put in caretaker roles like teachers, nurses, and stay at home moms while men are displayed in leadership roles like firefighters, CEO’s, and doctors. This is not just an American problem, but Taylor explores how children’s textbooks present this sexist issue all over the world including in India, Australia, and China. Million Dollar Baby breaks this stereotype by putting the main character Maggie, in a leadership role. Although her coach is a man, Maggie made it very clear from the beginning that she was not going to follow blindly. If her coach did something that she did not agree with, she fought and ended up winning every time. For example, Maggie believed that she was ready for a fight while her coach, Frankie, tells her she is not. Maggie does not take no for an answer and makes him arrange her to partake in the fight by training even harder to show that she is ready for anything that comes her way. Another way she shows leadership is at the end of the film when her family is trying to trick her into giving them all of her money. Frankie tries to take care of the situation because he believes that Maggie is incapable of doing so. He starts to talk over Maggie and tell her family that she won’t sign anything. However, Maggie does not allow this and she tells Frankie that she can make her own decisions and makes him leave so that she can take on a leadership role and deal with her family herself. 

Another reviewer who doesn’t believe that Million Dollar Baby is a good film is Karen Wyman, who writes for Off Our Backs and wrote the article “Tough Ain’t Enough: Million Dollar Baby: No Real Options for Women?” In this review, the author starts off by claiming that the film portrays women in a negative way and that the only women in the film fall into hurtful stereotypes. He explains that in the film, Maggie’s only positive role model was her father. She did not consider her mother a model and eventually developed a father-daughter relationship with her trainer. Wyman believes that Maggie’s scenario falls into the stereotype that women need to be managed by men. She lets Frankie decide when she will train, what her boxing name will be, and whether or not she will die. Wyman then moves on to the next woman in the movie, the dirty boxer Billie. Billie stops at nothing to get what she wants and has the attitude of a man. Wyman explains that this enforces the stereotype that women must break the rules and act like men in order to make it in today’s society. 

Although Wyman has a compelling argument, she is digging too deep into the film and uses only what supports her argument. For example, Wyman argues that Maggie is dependent on men to do everything for her and she argues this by stating how Maggie develops a father-daughter relationship with Frankie. However, that is not true; Maggie doesn’t develop that relationship until near the end of the film. For a huge majority of the film, Maggie is seen as a strong-willed, independent woman. Even when she develops that relationship with Frankie after she needs to be nursed back to health as a result of a life-threatening injury, she is still an independent woman. She still makes her own decisions, like when she chose not to sign her family’s papers. When Frankie does something she doesn’t agree with, she rebuttals and refuses to cooperate. Next, Wyman argues that Billie had to become like a man to be successful in life, but that isn’t true. Boxing is a competitive and tough sport. To be a boxer, it requires someone to be mentally and physically tough because you have to take punches as well as throw them. Just because that is typically a characteristic of a male does not mean that the film is trying to depict that women must become manly to be successful. 

Million Dollar Baby does not display traditional gender stereotypes because it shows how woman are significant in sports, can solve their own problems, and can take on leadership roles. Although some people may argue that the film does portray women negatively with stereotypes, they only look at certain parts rather than the film as a whole. This movie is important because it breaks gender stereotypes that are alive in multiple countries around the world today. It’s rating, PG-13, allows it to be seen by many audiences, including young women who are about to go out into the real world. It is also critically acclaimed which means that people will be more open to making films like Million Dollar Baby that break stereotypes and help women define themselves as individuals personally, athletically, and in the workplace.