Unless Scrap has some secretly awesome family stashed away in Alaska, families in Million Dollar Baby are pretty terrible across the board. We're talking about traditional, blood-related clans here: Maggie's family is greedy and openly mocks her career path, which doesn't stop them from trying to totally rip her off while she's helpless in the hospital. Frankie and his daughter Katy are estranged. Heck, even Danger was abandoned in the road by his mama's new man.
There's little wonder why, then, the movie's central characters come together to create a new, non-traditional family. Its home base: the Hit Pit gym. If Frankie and Scrap aren't fighting like brothers, they're bickering like an old married couple. And Frankie and Maggie form an especially strong bond, ultimately growing to love one another as fiercely as any biological parent and child.
Questions about Family
- Why does Frankie go to church everyday?
- If Frankie and Maggie have a father-daughter relationship, what's Scrap's role in the family?
- Why is it important for Scrap to tell Katy this story?
Chew on This
By story's end, Maggie is more Frankie's daughter than Katy is.
Million Dollar Baby proves that the families we create on our own can be more meaningful than the ones we're born into.