Two Trailer Park Moms

Hilary Swank, named best actress in last night's Academy Awards for her performance as Maggie in the best-directed best movie, Million Dollar Baby, says she personally connected to her character:

I can relate, because [like Maggie] I lived in a trailer when I was growing up, and my mom didn't have a lot of money.... So when I read this script that made me laugh and cry, and inspired me, I said, "OK, I've got to go live as a boxer."

[Hilary Swank lands new shot at an Oscar, Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 6, 2005.]

Swank recalls that when she was 15, her mom "was at a crossroads. My father and her were getting separated, and she said, 'Let's go to California.' And so $75, and a Mobil card, we drove down to California."

They lived in the car for a couple of weeks. "We had a friend who was selling their house. And so they said, 'You know, there's no furniture, but you can stay there at night. And then, during the day, you have to leave so we can try and sell it,'" says Swank. "So we got air mattresses. Blew the air mattresses up. Slept on the air mattresses. And left in the morning."

Notice: Movie Spoilers Follow

The Clint Eastwood movie indulges right-wingers by presenting Maggie's mom as a poster child for the poverty-class, welfare-cheating, trailer park trash whom they love to loathe. Eastwood looks like he wants to vomit whenever Frankie, the noble character he plays, lays eyes on the mom. She is vulgar, low, fat, lazy, ungrateful, greedy, and bereft of maternal instincts. She has never supported Maggie's aspirations (to work hard -- terribly hard! -- and achieve her dreams). And when Maggie is tragically paralyzed and bed-ridden (not because of any honest turn of fate but, inevitably, because of an act of evil treachery), the mom visits her in hospital, a chubby, contemptible-looking lawyer in tow, and sticks a pen in Maggie's mouth (her hands don't work) so she can sign legal papers to turn the wealth which that hard work has earned her over to her mom.

"It's what your father would have wanted," the mom urges Maggie, exploiting her daughter's faint and mournful memories of her long-departed dad to prod her to sign over the cash.

Such are the fairy tales that nourish right-wingers and give them their sense of the world. But Swank's real-life mom turns the right-wing fantasy on its head. The Philadelphia Inquirer report notes a "key difference" between the real mom and Eastwood's creation:

[Throughout her life], Swank says, her divorced mother, Judy, championed her.

"The biggest gift I've ever been given in my life was when my mom said to me, 'You can do anything you want as long as you work hard enough.'"

Although the two moms are opposites, the report's next sentence quotes Swank seeing a "parallel" between the reality and the movie:

"That's another parallel to this movie. Frankie believes in Maggie. That power of belief in another human being is one of the most powerful things in the world."

The movie has "paralleled" real life, in other words, by shoehorning the Eastwood character into the real mom's role.

Swank aims to render real life faithfully, as she tells Mike Wallace in an interview:

She's sophisticated and worldly, but she grew up in a trailer park.

Swank lives in New York City, and she's a movie star who rides the subway.

"I use the subway all the time. It's my form of transportation," says Swank. "Because it's quick. It's inexpensive."

And she says it's a great way for her to study her craft.

"My job is about playing people. And I think once you lose touch with people, what do you play," she says.

"So I'm here, and it's the best people watching in the world. You know? For instance, take their glasses on and off while they read their paper. Or how someone who's really tired, how they hold themselves when they're exhausted."

"You sound more like a reporter than an actress," says Wallace.

"Well, in the end, that's part of my job," says Swank....

Like her character, Maggie Fitzgerald, Swank grew up in a trailer park in Bellingham, Wash. Her mother was her main supporter and they remain close to this day. "My mom said to me that I could do anything I wanted in life. As long as I worked hard enough," says Swank. "And to this day, it still makes me really emotional, because I just never questioned it, you know? She just always believed in me."

[Swank: A Star Who Takes Risks, cbsnews.com, Jan. 30, 2005.]

See also: Mean Mother's Oscar Wins discussion at the Straight Dope Message Board.

Above article also appears at blogcritics.org.

Minor portions of above other than marked quotations copied from indicated sources.