3 1 12 Gran Torino Set in Detroit Because of a tax incentives to film in Detroit and Michigan Not originally supposed to take place there Decisions based on economic concerns Not a large Asian population in Detroit Walt and his relationship to his Asian neighbors Hmongs Point of View One of the ways movies go about producing meaning The protagonist as a figure through whom the film s activities take place You are watching a film through they eyes of a protagonist A good movie will make you forget you are watching through another s eyes Will make you believe you are watching through your own eyes Will motivate you to see things the way the main character sees things Accept these things as the norm The norm is always constructed Walt played by Clint Eastwood Has a very famous persona successful as an actor director over an extended period of time Easier to identify with him because he is so familiar Often played characters referred to as the Man with No Name Cowboy in spaghetti westerns Responds to events in overtly violent ways Came to be recognized by 2 distinct personas The Cowboy Dirty Harry Through the 70s and into the 1980s It is this character that most informs Eastwood s Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino Becomes difficult to distinguish between actor s persona and the characters they play His persona superseded the character in the film Hard to look at the character objectively Dirty Harry Coded in an interesting political way A cop that emerged in Hollywood in the 1970s in the period following the 60s hippy culture civil rights era demonstrations riots etc Para military cop Ultra aggressive Does not abide by the rules takes things into his own hands Takes on stereotypes from this particular era An especially conservative representation of a cop Took on people who associated with the leftist liberal wing Cheered for his aggressiveness and disregard for the law that stopped him from doing his job Good and evil were very defined sides He was good all else was evil Laws were too lenient Scene in Sudden Impact Quoted by President Reagan Popularity of Dirty Harry character True cop representing the interests of the people Though he is acting way beyond how he should in his capacity as a cop Gran Torino plays on this information when constructing the Walt character Walt is much older and cannot act in the same manner but similarities are quite apparent Scene when he saves Sue from the three young black guys Utter bullshit There just happens to be three black thugs standing on a street corner waiting for someone to hassle Similar to his interactions with Asian gangs Eastwood s character then and now would kill minorities liberally and bullshit with them while doing it Film opens with the funeral of his idealized woman She is now dead does not exist Disapproving gaze at his granddaughter Clothing text messaging asking inappropriate questions Suggests that the decay surrounding Walt and modern society is tied to his granddaughter and the ways in which she conducts herself Especially as compared to her grandmother Alienated from his family and his neighborhood has changed No longer white working class Now a neighborhood of disrepair with Asian immigrants Walt is now the minority Next door neighbors The other very foreign in all their actions and communication In many ways it seems that Walt s traditional ways are complimentary to his neighbor s traditional ways But no matter old school traditional he is he is much less than this foreign culture Sue and Thao Representative of interesting but problematic stereotypes Asians as the model minority Their activities are approved of by mainstream society Sue as the helpless Asian woman Once she is raped Walt comes to in save the day Thao is consistently made effeminate Walt makes him a man a surrogate father and a defender Problem with model minority narrative Those who don t fit with this idea are problems Walt Kowalski An old man veteran of the forgotten war Korean war Uses slurs that were common when he was in the military For all intensive purposes he is a racist The challenge of the film is to make the audience identify with a main character who s actions speech should be reprehensible They are represented as not reprehensible just the traits of an aging man Because he is older from a different generation his attitudes about race are okay Represented as funny laughable Walt and the barber If these two people can carry on a conversation with such racial slurs running rampant but can still be friends then language does not matter Lessening the venom racism is not that threatening Problem some people will get a pass if they are of a certain age Not only is he not held accountable but he also becomes a hero Sacrifices himself opportunity for redemption of his racism and actions in war Becomes a maryr