Response to Gran Torino - Essay Example

Response to Gran Torino Gran Torino as a film features different themes with different appeals to both the audience and different characters in it. This essay seeks to illustrate how the use of different themes in Gran Torino film elicits different emotions and feelings, as well as justifications. The language used in “Gran Torino” is one that indicate no respect whatsoever for political correctness when it comes to expressing events and people throughout the film as shown by Walt. His language can be termed to be rather descriptive, and overly descriptive at that, rather than racist considering that he uses terms that at are depictive of racism, and his words also show emotion. The language used by Walt goes ahead to describe Asians and African American, as well Caucasian Americans per brutally racist terms, although this racism is done all so tastefully that it is difficult to term the film as fully racist in its communicative language (Gran Torino). In addition to this tastefully crafted racist language, the key goal can be termed as that of eliciting humor throughout then film, as it occurs throughout the first part of the film. This is because it does not go as far as the extremes of racist language and that there is not a single character that takes offence to the language used. However, the language may be offensive to the audience watching the film as most of the terms, though witty, are in bad taste of conventional anti-racist terms, especially when used by Caucasians, as is the case with Walt. This makes the language to be in bad taste of the audience in addition to the presence of random Hmong chatter to make up of Asian language scenes in the film. The use of this language in the film is not entirely appropriate although it serves its purpose in creating realistic scenes of Asian language speech. There is also extensive use of dirty speech or language throughout the movie with swear words and cursing with words such as goddamnit, bitch, fuck and shit, which make the film a bit language unfriendly although it is common in most modern movies. Gran Torino also features aspects of racism that are incorporated in language and other activities depicted in the film. The first one is in the definition and names assigned to different ethnicities such as Asians, who are called chinks, African Americans who are called niggers and Polish Americans, who are called Polacks. This shows the degree of ethnic intolerance throughout the film, in addition to the dissatisfaction of Walt Kowalski in his hatred towards Asians. This is because he is a Korean War veteran and is intolerant attitude towards Asians, until he starts mentoring Thao, the next-door teenage boy. Although there is this form of reconciliation in the film through mentoring the boy, it appears as if the racial tension between the Caucasian man and the Asians does not entirely go away. The above is due to the presence of Asian gangs who target the family of his mentee, which brings up the concept of revenge. In regard to portrayal of revenge in Gran Torino, Asian gangs are portrayed as largely unforgiving; in the same way that Walt Kowalski is, when one tries to mess with his family. Walter Kowalski holds the concept of family dearly and carries his family with high regard in regard to the Hmongs who live in is neighborhood. Following the rescue of Thao from the influence of the Asian gang operating in his neighborhood by Walt, the Asians seek their revenge against Walt (Gran Torino). This is in addition to punishing Thao’s sister, Sue, for receiving Walt’s help and helping the two stands up against the gang to stop with their oppression. The Hmong gang beats up Walt and drives by Thao’s house shooting at it, and in the process wound Thao in the neck, while the revenge mission of the Hmong gang goes beyond this in that they abduct Sue, beat her up, rape her and then discard her at her house. Revenge in the film appears to be taken seriously through vicious actions by gangs and individuals, although Walt and Thao remain victims of revenge missions by the Hmong gang. Another theme or concept that comes up clearly in the film is that of family, where family is taken seriously by all characters in the film, starting with Walt, and going all the way to his neighbors. Walt is portrayed as deeply hurt by the death of his wife and does not approve of his sons conduct in not taking family issues seriously, as they only seek him out when they need him to do certain things for them. The Hmongs, on the other hand, focus on family by looking after their own and their neighbors, as evidenced by how Sue and Thao look after one another, as well as how their parents look out for Walt after he protects them from the gang. Family in this case is expanded to cater to all those that are beneficial to the society as a whole. Further, family is taken as a valuable aspect of the film in that when Walt realizes that his health is not good, he calls out to his son, to whom he is not able to relay the grave information about his poor health. However, the Asian gang in Walt’s neighborhood is portrayed as merciless in family issues, where they would rather destroy an entire family to get their own means through the case of the shootout at Thao’s house to get him into their gang. Sacrifice, in the film is also portrayed as an important aspect through the death of Walt as a last resort to get the Hmong families in his neighborhood to live peacefully without disturbance from the game. This he does by getting himself killed so that the gang can be arrested with plausible evidence, and without involving Thao and other families. The sacrifice of other families is also expressed where they all prepared to testify against the gang members. In conclusion, the film Gran Torino appeals to the audience’s emotions, especially from the moment that Walt chooses to mentor Thao and protect his family from the gang. This part of the movie shows the importance of the family, and is just heartwarming and touching to see Walt cast aside his racial bias just to protect his neighborhood. Work cited Gran Torino. Dir. Clint Eastwood. IMDb. 2008. Film. Read More