My Left Foot

I recently watched the movie, My Left Foot. This is a movie about a boy with Cerebral Palsy. So much occurs throughout his life. Christy is affected by those around him affect him in physical ways, in emotional ways, and in social ways. Society butchers him through out the movie. They tell him he can’t do anything, and because he can’t move they seem to assume he can’t feel anything. And as a result of it all, everyone around him treats him like a baby and they are embarrassed to take him places.

Christy was born with Cerebral Palsy due to problems during birth. There were complications when he was born and it changed his family forever. Everyone assumed that his family would put him in a home, but his parents refused. His mother is the only one who ever seems to be in his corner. His father is constantly looking down on him and assuming that he cannot do anything; this is a problem that seems to be less of a problem, but still a huge problem.

The turning point for Christy really happens at about the age of 10. The scene shows his pregnant mother carrying him up the stairs, over her shoulder. Once they make it to the top of the stairs, Mrs. Brown appears to get a bit light headed. She begins to walk down stairs to make a phone call and at that moment you hear a loud thud and you can’t see anything. Christy, being the only one home with her, makes his own way down the steps for the first time. He ends up on the floor next to her, by the door. He begins beating on the door with his left foot as he tries to draw attention to the situation. Help finally comes and Mrs. Brown is rushed to the hospital.

After Mrs. Brown is taken in the ambulance, Christy works his way outside. He is sitting up against the lamppost outside the door ...

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... him like an animal. Each morning they would get him out of bed and bring him downstairs to his palette, under the stairs. He would watch the family eat breakfast and when they left his mother would feed him. After he saved his mothers life, people were talking about him as they stood in a circle around him pointing and gesturing, they assumed that he didn’t know what they were talking about. They said his brain was not better than that of a three year old. I loved, though, that in the very next scene he proved them all wrong when he wrote “mother” with his foot. To me, that itself makes a statement. After watching everyone in his family use his or her hands he figured out a different way to function.

At an event where Christy is recognized, he meets a woman who hears his story. Christ Brown and Mary Carr fell in love and got married on the 5th of October of 1972.