Dr. Kent Ono, Asian American Studies 365 Christopher Vecoli , Fall 2011

Yellow Peril and ambiguous representation of Asian-Americans in Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino

As of this writing (November, 2011) the website for MANAA (Media Action Network for Asian Americans)

still features a generally positive review of Clint Eastwood’s 2008 film Gran Torino on the front page of its

“Movie Reviews” section (http://www.manaa.org/movie_reviews.html, accessed Nov. 13, 2011), despite

a spirited challenge by the Critical Hmong Studies Collective (Schein and Thoj, 2009, 23). Louisa Schein,

(the preeminent academic scholar on the Hmong people) and her Collective colleagues contended that Gran

Torino offends on at least 8 of the 16 MANAA guidelines for identifying negative media stereotypes of Asian-

Americans, yet they received no satisfaction from MANAA in response to their critique. Let us note that the un-

attributed author of the MANAA review does fault Gran Torino for its tiresome racial epithets, for its image

of the Hmong as helpless and in need of a white savior to save them from their own bad guys, and for stereo-

typical simplifications (“the girls go to college and the boys go to jail”), while going on to praise the openings

the movie seems to offer for progress in intercultural understanding. It is unclear exactly which MANAA

guidelines are being offended here from the perspective of the Critical Hmong Studies Collective, but Schein and

Thoj (2009) mainly focus on the film as perpetuating stereotypes of the Hmong as “perpetual warriors” or as

defenseless “fresh-off-the-boat” newcomers, for its lack of positive masculine Hmong role models, and for its

often inaccurate portrayals of the Hmong culture. Numerous other reviews of Gran Torino, from pro- and

con- postings on Racialicious, to the Washington Times, the New York Times, the Racism Review, the Twin Cities

Daily Planet and Roger Ebert essentially repeat these bifurcating arguments, taking one side or the other on the

provocative and seemingly ambiguous film text of Gran Torino. I hope here to establish a context both broader

and deeper than these reviews to make sense of the contributions as well as the profound flaws in the film.

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A brief outline of the paper follows. In Section 1, I will suggest that Nick Schenk’s script and Clint

Eastwood’s directiorial style conspire to deny spaces for any in-depth intimacy with or exploration of Hmong

culture. Nevertheless, the Hmong culture has a significant presence in the narrative, despite its inaccuracies.

Then I will note the domains of Gran Torino which are, I think, finely observed and developed: that of the

working class Korean war veteran likely suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its concomitant

“Yellow Peril Syndrome,” and his alienation from his shallow, greedy, self-serving children and grandchildren.

Finally, I will briefly compare Gran Torino to three other films (Stand and Deliver, The Karate Kid and Forrest

Gump) in order to demonstrate just how limited the horizons of Gran Torino are. Section 2 will address the

article by Schein and Thoj (2009) above, and argue that their postulation of a stereotype of the Hmong as

“perpetual warriors” is weakly supported in fact, and leads them into contradictory assertions. Rather,

a broader theoretical platform of Yellow Peril (Ono and Pham, 2009, 25) not only provides a more compelling

reading of the film but also locates racism more firmly where it belongs; that is, in the willfully ignorant per-

spectives of mainstream society rather than in the actual lived history or characteristics of this minority group.

In Section 3 I will look at the wonderfully assertive and astute character of Sue, at the intersection of race and

gender, and use Roberta Julian’s notion of a growing transnational Hmong women’s “translation” of Hmong

culture in adaptive and creative ways, to see the extraordinary potential in this filmic character; potential which

is crudely wasted by, and for, male power at the end of the film. Section 4 discusses the gradual emergence of

the character of Thao under the begrudging tutelage of Walt, and tries to locate the value of this oddly avunc-

ular cross-cultural relationship despite its coming to an ignominious end. Lastly, I will take up the character

of Walt, and show how the star discourse showcasing a Clint Eastwood production with real Hmong actors ex-

tends Eastwood’s career themes, but also provides a platform for future Hmong media initiatives and creativity.

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I. Nick Schenk, the screenwriter of Gran Torino is celebrated in his home town of Minneapolis for this

accomplishment, yet not without chagrin- the movie was to be set in Minnesota, but the state of Michigan

offered substantial tax incentives. Schenk basically learned on the job, that is, in blue collar jobs such as truck

driving, working at a liquor store, and packing VHS tapes. He says that he learned about Korean veterans

at his job in the liquor store: “Little by little, as they came in every day for their bottle of ‘medicine’, they’d tell

you a little bit more… I had a lot of guys telling me stories for years” (Yuen, MPR News, 2009). Later, Schenk had

a number of Hmong co-workers at his job packing VHS tapes for ten hours a shift, so he go to know them

“pretty good.” He also visited the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul to do some research for the script.

The screenplay was offered to Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, and Anthony Hopkins, but Clint Eastwood

“snapped it up, hustled it into production and shot it verbatim” (Covert, 2009). In the Blu-ray extra for the

film, “The Eastwood Way,” Clint says that “When I read it, I thought somebody sort of tailored this for me.”

Deborah Allen (Senses of Cinema, Volume 60) describes Eastwood’s approach to directing as lean, efficient and

economical , avoiding spectacle and special effects. While one or two Hmong cultural consultants were hired to

avoid major errors in the portrayal of the Hmong, the production stayed true to the screenplay: “Other than

Michigan [e.g., Lions instead of Vikings season tickets+, they didn’t change a single syllable” Schenk says

(Covert, 2009). While I have no doubt that Schenk is sympathetic to the Hmong community, his knowledge of

them is clearly not intimate or extensive, and Eastwood’s directorial style left no room for further development.

Schenk may have also been influenced by a series of articles in the Star Tribune in 2006 stating that “ scores of

Hmong girls in Minnesota… have been raped or forced into prostitution over the past several years, often by

Hmong gang members” (Browning, 2006). With the colorful novelty of the Hmong immigrants and the dark

side of the gang threat as a foil, Clint Eastwood’s bitter vigilante Korean War vet could make one last stand..

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I believe that Nick Schenk’s blue collar background helped him to shape the character of Walt Kowalski.

Polish-Am. Kowalski is an industrial working-class holdout in a grim Detroit neighborhood in decline, formed in

an oppositional grid of essentialized identities of race, ethnicity and gender. The verbal sparring (“doo-wop

dago,” “drunken Irish goon”) maintains a masculine distance, while socio-economic anxieties are verbalized

as sexual vulnerability (“they really screwed me hard”). Both the older white ethnics and the immigrant Hmong

share strongly patriarchal family-oriented social structures with communal responsibility and respect for elders.

Walt is extremely ill-at-ease with modernizing multiculturalism (the health clinic and the retirement brochures),

and he is deeply alienated from his own upwardly mobile but selfishly consumerist sons and grandchildren.

His lawn is sacrosanct (a synecdoche for the USA), and he frequents masculine spaces sporting American flags

such as the barbershop, the hardware store, and the bar (possibly with red, white and blue bunting).

The character of Walt Kowalski, more than these, however, is a veritable poster boy for post-traumatic

stress disorder. The front page of the website of The PTSD Help Network (for military veterans) features this

quote from Gran Torino: “The stuff that haunts a guy is the stuff he wasn’t ordered to do.” There is evidence in

the film that this is the hard core of Walt’s abrasiveness, hostility, intolerance and inability to let go of the past.

Four times in the film as Walt goes for his rifle (or pistol, or lighter) to protect his car, drive the gang off his lawn,

beat up Smoky the gang leader, and trick the gang into shooting him, a military snare drum takes over the

soundtrack. Then, in a series of confessions, he first admits that he reacted to the invasion of his lawn like

“a thousand screaming gooks coming over our line” (“We’re not in Korea, Mr. Kowalski!” says Father J.), and

finally tells the bare truth to Thao before going off to face the gang alone: “I shot him right in the face with

that rifle…Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it, and you don’t want that on your soul. Now I got blood

on my hands.” Nick Schenk seems to have learned a lot from his veteran customers at the liquor store.

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I have suggested that, based on his background and experience , the screenwriter for Gran Torino was

able to offer a fairly intimate and detailed portrait of masculine blue collar values and the psychological burdens

borne by veterans of wars that have already been forgotten by mainstream America, such as the Korean War

(and what of the Secret War of the CIA using the Hmong in the inferno of SE Asia, forgotten and unknown?)

Schenk’s knowledge of the Hmong is clearly more limited, and Eastwood (as opposed to Walt) is uninterested

in going deeper into the Hmong culture. Comparing Gran Torino to other movies can give us a clearer sense

of the severely circumscribed horizons of this film. For example, in Stand and Deliver (1988), starring Edward

James Olmos as the real life LA barrio math teacher Jaime Escalante, the movie takes us into the lives and

homes of several Chicano students. A gang member (chollo) is torn between the gang life and education, and

yet cares for his grandmother, and we the audience can feel what is at stake. A female student puts her

brothers and sisters to bed before studying, then must turn off the lights when her weary mother returns.

While not a documentary movie, Stand and Deliver gives us an intimate sense of the students’ lives and their

various backgrounds. By comparison, Gran Torino shows us nothing of the daily life or past of the Lor family.

The Karate Kid (1989) portrays an Italian-American kid transplanted to Southern California and trained to save

himself from the evil fascistic white gang by the kind Mr. Miyagi (his wife and son died at Manzanar: “land of

free, home of brave; doctor no come”). In this film as well as Gran Torino, the boys undergo a kind of

initiation into hard physical labor (the only scene within GT that is accompanied by the Gran Torino theme song).

The Karate Kid, however, foregrounds generativity (caring for the next generation; Erikson, 1950), whereas the

main hero of Gran Torino remains Walt to the end. Finally, it might have been brilliant to give Gran Torino some

of the historical depth that suffuses Forrest Gump (1994). This could have shed light on the struggles of the

Hmong related to the Vietnam War and after, as well as giving more depth to the veteran’s bitter burden.

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II. For “Gran Torino’s Boys and Men with Guns: Hmong Perspectives” (Schein and Thoj, 2009), as I have noted

above, the foremost criticism of the movie is that it perpetuates a stereotype of the Hmong as “perpetual

warriors, ferocious killers ill-fit for American society” (p. 1). In support of this they suggest an ancient pedigree:

It is arguable that an imaging of Hmong as warriors extends back to an oft-repeated history of conflict

with dominant populations beginning in China and carried forward to the ravages of the Secret War in

Laos in which Hmong guerilla capabilities have been so retrospectively emphasized. (3)

Few quotations are used to buttress this argument (mainly related to General Vang Pao, the most visible

Hmong leader, who died in January of 2011; and to the tragic shooting of six white hunters in Wisconsin in

2004 by a single Hmong, Chai Soua Vang). From this they argue that Gran Torino feeds into “the relentless

attribution of hyperviolence to Hmong men, especially youth” (6). The argument made here by Schein

and Thoj strikes me as itself sensationalistic at best, and disingenuous at worst; and more importantly, not

the best choice for conceptualizing racism in Gran Torino.

There are many Hmong youth in violent gangs, and they prey primarily on Asians and other Hmong (who

“tend to keep their mouths shut,“ as Father J. says in Gran Torino, thus inhibiting successful prosecution),

and they often use rape to intimidate their victims and promote gang solidarity (Straka, The FBI Law

Enforcement Bulletin, 2003). Violent gangs not only reflect an obsession with guns and territoriality and a

mistrust of government arising from the USA’s neocolonial heritage, but are clearly not a problem that can be

“solved” with the resources of an ethnic group which itself experiences daily misunderstanding and barriers to

socioeconomic advancement. For the Hmong in particular, the breakdown of the patriarchal family structure,

with the young learning English and adapting more quickly, means that traditional parental guidance may not be

strong enough to prevent youth from falling for the least common denominator of hormone-fueled violence .

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Note that there have been Hmong-based initiatives, especially promoting career counseling and employment

services to serious juvenile offenders. Lee Pao Xiong, formerly Executive Director of the Hmong Youth Assoc.

and now Director of the Center for Hmong Studies at Concordia University in St. Paul, describes overcoming

prejudicial barriers to working to help the “ Plaza Boys” (a Hmong youth gang): “Several of the key

organizational leaders came to me and said, ‘Why are you wasting resources on these kids? They’re lost kids;’

and I said, ‘Well it just so happens that they are our kids’” (from Paul Hillmer’s excellent six-part History Channel

funded 2008 documentary, “From Strangers to Neighbors: A Story of the Hmong in St. Paul,” citation inform-

ation unavailable; I have a copy). Of course the movie Gran Torino simply demonizes the young gangsters and

wants them to “go away forever,” and it is Walt himself who escalates the violence with his vigilante inter-

ference. However, for scholars of anti-Asian-American racism, I believe that the concept of Yellow Peril is more

realistic and productive for an analysis of Gran Torino than suggesting that Hmong gangs are some kind of myth

based on a stereotype of the Hmong as “perpetual warriors.” To quote again from Schein and Thoj (2009, 17):

Because of the secrecy around the war in Laos, its illegitimacy on ostensibly neutral soil, it remains chronically

underrecognized in the U.S.- and indeed is arguably one reason that after 35 years Hmong are so little

known in mainstream American discourse.

In fact the Hmong have repeatedly sought recognition for their service as US allies in SE Asia to support their

status as refugees deserving of assistance, now that they have been forced to flee to the USA (Vang , 2010,

126). That they remain invisible or unknown to the majority of Americans is itself a factor in their being useful

in the movie Gran Torino and its development of “Yellow Peril Syndrome” in the character of Walt Kowalski.

Perhaps the term “Yellow Peril Syndrome” can be coined to reflect its filmic recognition as early as 1963 in

Ingmar Bergman’s film Winter Light, in which one of the characters hears that the Chinese have “got the bomb”

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and therefore is driven to suicide, fearing an “Oriental” absolute indifference to human suffering. Be that as it

may, the character of Walt Kowalski can be seen as an ultimate exemplar of an obsession with Yellow Peril.

One key to this is precisely the confused perception of nationalities or ethnic groups within Asia, and among

Asian-Americans. Kowalski’s PTSD derives from his horrific war experiences from three years in the Korean War,

while his beloved American automobile industry is threatened by extinction from the Japanese competition

(“It’s always rice-burner this and Jap-burner that,” grouses Walt’s son, who himself has betrayed the old man

by selling Japanese cars for a living). Even Walt’s new doctor is a female Asian-American (“Dr. Chu”), so that

he is threatened on the Model Minority level as well. (Walt says to Sue, “I thought you Asian girls were smart,”

and to Thao, “All you slopes are good at math, aren’t you?”) Meanwhile the Hmong/Asians have “invaded” his

neighborhood/lawn: “Why did the Chinks have to move into this neighborhood?” When Walt takes Thao to his

barber for “manning-up,” Martin says:”Oh good, a Polack and a Chink…who’s the Nip?” (Vincent Chin, R.I.P.).

Precisely because they are unknown (“So where is Humong anyway?”), the Hmong serve as a blank

screen for the representation and crystallization of Walt’s “Yellow Peril Syndrome.” His ugly barrage of racist

epithets are, for the most part, not a response to the gangbangers or to a perception of the “fierce Hmong.”

In fact, when he uses hate speech with the gang (aside from “swamp-rats” and “gooks,” of course) he says “we

used to stack fucks like you five feet high,” and “shrimp-dick midget.” In fact the worst example of hate speech

in the movie arguably comes from the Italian-American barber In a joking situation suddenly turned ugly:

“Get out of my shop before I blow your head off you dick-smoking gook.” In my view this crosses the line of

decency in the film, as it is not motivated and ironized as Walt’s character is by PTSD and “Yellow Peril

Syndrome,” it is not motivated by the context, and it is uttered with an unprovoked threat of physical violence.

Schein and Thoj (2009) provide many excellent insights into GT, but they neglect to invoke Yellow Peril.

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III. In the few remaining pages I will briefly discuss the characters of Sue, Thao, and Walt/Clint Eastwood,

but first I would like to summarize some of the rites of passage that seem to dominate the film. Two funerals:

of course- but the first one, for Walt’s wife Dorothy, is almost obscene in its erasure of her from her own

funeral; “She was a real peach”…”Thanks, Al” is about all we get through the whole funeral and “the mourning”

at the house afterwards; Walt’s sons and grandkids are especially egregious in their disrespect. Two sacrifices:

the chicken in the Hmong ceremony for the new-born child, and Walter Kowalski at the end. And lastly,

five initiations: 1) Thao’s botched attempt to steal the Gran Torino (gang initiation); 2) Thao’s initiation into

Walt’s world of domestic masculinity through working on the neighbor’s house, then getting tools and a tool-

belt ; 3) Thao’s “manning-up” at the barbershop ; 4) Sue’s entry into Walt’s world through her fearless resistance

to the young Black men; and, 5) Walt’s entry into the world of the Hmong under the kind but firm guidance of

Sue. Before I proceed let me say that the sudden erasure of Sue’s agency as an active character after her rape

by the Hmong gang seems to be a plot contrivance to allow the ascendance of Thao to become, if not the man

of the house, at least a miniature sheriff (incongruously wearing Walt’s medal), and to come out from under

Sue’s “domination.” (“He does whatever his sister tells him to do,” laments Grandma). This is a travesty,

and a grievous insult to the character of Sue as we (the audience) have come to know and admire her.

Roberta Julian (2004-05) provides a fascinating comparative study of the Hmong in Hobart, Tasmania, and

the Hmong in the USA. She contrasts the global narrative of a fixed, masculinized and heroic Hmong diasporic

identity with the creative attempts of Hmong women at local levels (and in communication with Hmong

women in other countries) to “translate” Hmong culture into new forms that allow them more latitude and

adaptive agency. “The dominant identity narrative in the global discourse on Hmong identity can be described

as the quintessential ‘refugee story’…dominated by the voices of (predominantly male) Hmong leaders in the

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United States” (Julian, 2004-05, 10). “While this dominant narrative is predominantly articulated by male

elites, it is also reproduced by women” (ibid., 12; see for example the Hmong story cloth chronicling the

flight from Laos which hangs on the wall by the stairs in the Lor household, which Walt walks by on his way

upstairs.) Julian goes on to cite Hmong women’s creative writing as resistant voices “translating” Hmong culture

to new environments, while the efforts of Hmong women to organize themselves in mutual aid societies (usually

over strong male opposition) are well-documented in Chia Youyee Vang’s (herself a female Hmong scholar),

new history of Hmong immigration, Hmong America: Reconstructing Hmong Community in Diaspora (2010, 74).

Schein and Thoj (2009, 26) devote a couple of excellent pages to discussing the character of Sue: “Sue is

outspoken, virtually fearless, gregarious, and fiercely protective of her brother.” She vigorously offers a

memorably resistant reading of Asian womanhood to the Black and Hmong guys who threaten her, and

more gently corrects Walt in his ignorance and despite his constant racist patter. She can see through Walt.

It could be argued, then, that Sue exemplifies a strong Hmong American womanhood, forged through the

hardships of immigration in families where fathers are weakened by culture shock or deceased during the

war. Language strength is one of the chief hallmarks of such women, and Sue exhibits it in spades…. (ibid.)

Three questions with regard to Sue’s character remain. First, given that most of the screenwriter’s knowledge

of the Hmong came from working long night shifts with the Hmong guys, and his own probably patriarchalist

blue collar background, where did this strong female character come from? Second, and more urgently,

why does the script allow her to be more or less summarily obliterated from the plot, even in the reading of

Walt’s will, since she seems to have done more for Walt than anyone else since his wife Dorothy? And, thirdly,

why does she say that she wishes her father could have been more like Walt? (Walt: “I’m old school… Sue:

Yeah, but you’re an American! … Walt: What’s that supposed to mean? ….Sue: shrugs her shoulders…).

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IV. Bee Vang of Minneapolis, Minnesota, played the often-despised character of Thao in Gran Torino.

This, along with the support of Louisa Schein and her interviews with Vang, quoted in his own words

below, has given him a platform for working and speaking on social justice issues: “In terms of my own activism

I’ve been working on Hmong and Asian visibility stuff. I’ve done a lot of speaking on Gran Torino, and I try to

increase awareness of some of the racial issues in the film” (Schein, 2010, 9). Also, he and other Hmong have

been empowered to explore the possibility of creating their own media productions: “One thing about the

whole Gran Torino experience is that it’s made a lot of us younger Hmong people more serious about making

movies. We need to get behind the camera and tell our own stories” (ibid.). However, Vang has mixed feelings

about having played the role of Thao:

It’s the fact of the character being unsympathetic because of his weakness. It’s an odd thing, as a first time

actor, to have to step into a role that’s disparaged by the script and humiliated by the other characters.

Playing him well is like making a deal with the devil. To the extent that I did a good job, I reinforced the

idea of effeminate Asian guys who are wimps, geeks and can’t advocate for themselves. (ibid. , 5)

Vang tried to influence the portrayal of Thao through physical manner, although the verbal script was fixed.

This reminds us of Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa’s speech in the documentary on male Asian American actors,

The Slanted Screen: “We had a choice of playing wimpy businessman or evil bad guys…and my intention was,

I’m going to play a bad guy, because you know what, I got balls” (The Slanted Screen, 2006). However, Bee

Vang neglects to acknowledge that a lot of the abuse Thao received from Walt was due to his having tried to

steal Walt’s Gran Torino, the apple of his eye (“Ain’t she sweet,” says Walt with satisfaction, of his car).

Also, in my view there is a redeeming sequence in the move which lifts the debate beyond the binary geek

or gangster choice. It’s not the lame ending, which implies that the ultimately self-serving materialist ideology

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of Walt’s kids has won - even though they lost the car to Thao (who drives away; with only Daisy, Walt’s

dog, by his side, not Youa- the “charming girl” as Walt says, though to the end he rather offensively insists on

calling her “Yum Yum”); nor is it the manning-up English for Men session in the barbershop. This last is skewered

on YouTube in a bit of media activism by Vang in a perfect exemplar of “vernacular pastiche” (Ono and Pham,

2009, 118): a gay Asian barber and the wise old Asian master Thao try to “man up” a geeky white guy, in

“Lost Scenes from Gran Torino: Thao does Walt.”

The redeeming sequence I have in mind is the scene in Walt’s workroom, where Walt begins to share the

secrets of how to be a handy-man around the house with Thao, and the essential tools of domestic masculinity

(perhaps “handy-person” would be better in some contexts). Walt gives Thao a can of WD40, a pair of

vise grips and some duct tape, saying “Any man worth his salt can do half of the household chores with just

those three things.” (While I might substitute super glue for duct tape, on the whole I think this a gem of wisdom

for the uninitiated, and I wish my Pa had taught me that). This affirms a side of Walt that we have not seen,

his sense of himself as a guy “who fixes things, even a door that wasn’t broken yet” (to Youa at the Hmong

party), and also a breakthrough in his being able to care about the next generation (cf. Erikson’s “generativity,”

as cited above). This exchange goes beyond race, and allows Walt to ask Thao a sensitive question about the

Hmong gang; Thao says they were “pissed” that he screwed up his gang initiation challenge. “What was that?”

Walt asks, and Thao just nods In the direction of the car. “Steal my Gran Torino??” Thao nods yes. “Christ all

Friday” breathes Walt, delighted that even those Hmong gangbangers know the priceless value of his car:

“mint condition.” Unfortunately for Walt , he must sacrifice his life to the gangbangers so that Thao, and Sue

(what’s left of her!... another round of PTSD) can “live in peace.” Sue is reduced to a shadow, Thao is ascendant.

Now he can stop doing the dishes and gardening, and go into sales- “a license to steal,” said Walt- very ironic.

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V. To introduce the topic of the synergy between the career of Mr. Clint Eastwood and Walt Kowalski,

I would like to quote from John G. Cawelti’s Preface to the Second Edition of his The Six-Gun Mystique:

It’s hard to understand at first how the city can be treated as a heroic frontier until one remembers that,

in this suburban age, the inner city is a strange and frightening place associated primarily with increasing

crime and violence by most middle-class white Americans. To these persons, the inner city is a dark and

bloody ground, and it is comforting to imagine a lone individual hero acting out the Code of the West

against gangsters, drug dealers *and the like+….Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry Callahan is obviously an urban

avatar of some of his earlier Western heroes, but his ambiguous attitude toward law and order is...a theme.

(1984, 12-13, emphasis added)

Many reviewers of Eastwood’s Gran Torino have ultimately seen the significance of the movie to lie simply

in an inner city re-enactment of Eastwood’s famously callous gunmen such as Dirty Harry and The Man

With No Name. The Hmong in this scenario become mere props to the re-celebration of the great white hero.

In this regard it is interesting to note that the role that catapulted Clint to fame was in the Italian Spaghetti

Western A Fistful of Dollars (1964), which itself was such a close remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961) that he

sued for plagiarism and won. Eastwood recalls the character of his cool gunman as modeled on Toshiro Mifune,

in the documentary on Kurosawa (Kurosawa, 2001): ”He was a wandering samurai , or in my case a wandering

gunman, and it’s fun to enter into a character that has absolutely no feelings about anything, in fact he resists

any compassion he might have along the way.” Just as in Yojimbo, the Fistful of Dollars hero’s sole moment of

weakness is an act of compassion (saving a Mexican family named Maria, Jose and Jesus, from a Mexican gang)

which almost gets him killed. It becomes clear why Walt Kowalski’s vigilante veteran saving an Asian-American

family from a gang of Asian-Americans might seem eerily familiar, and “tailored” to fit Clint Eastwood.

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While the “star discourse” (Feng, 2002, 47) of Clint Eastwood undoubtedly runs strong in Gran Torino, I would

like to suggest several factors that complicate a complete reduction of the movie to the white savior narrative.

First, after Walt reads his birthday horoscope (which he proclaims to be “a load of shit”), he ends up under Sue’s

mediating sensitive guidance at the Hmong baby-welcoming feast next door. When the Hmong shaman offers

to “read” Walt [perhaps incongruent with Hmong shamanic practice of communication with spirits], Walt

accepts, and hears his life and deepest core problem stated simply and effectively: “You have made a mistake

in your past life; you are not at peace.” In my view Walt then experiences an epiphany; as the camera slowly

pans around the room at the assembled warm and natural sociability of the Hmong guests, he seems to be

seeing Asians, or Asian-Americans, or people, as real human beings for the first time. Then he coughs blood,

escapes to the upstairs bathroom, and meets himself in the mirror, perhaps also seeing himself with some

insight and compassion: “I have more In common with these gooks than I do my own spoilt rotten family.”

He goes to leave, then remembers that it is his birthday, and returns to the mirror to say “Happy Birthday.”

Clearly this is a dramatic re-integration into humanity, particularly in the setting of the Hmong gathering, which

goes to the heart of his PTSD and “Yellow Peril Syndrome.” Such a transformational experience could never

have awakened the cool gunslingers of Eastwood’s earlier roles.

Second, Clint Eastwood was never gunned down before in his entire long and celebrated cinematic career.

The ending of Gran Torino not only sacrifices Walt to the Hmong gangbangers in the diegesis of the movie,

but it also confers an historical celebrity on the young Hmong actors who can claim to be the first to have ever

“slain” Clint Eastwood (Schein and Thoj, 2009, 34). Furthermore, Walt’s death seems to create a space

for a successful mature Hmong masculinity, which has been sensed around the edges of the Hmong gatherings

but never recognized or given agency. “The overdue appearance of a respectable figure of Hmong masculinity…

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*is as+ a bilingual Hmong policeman…when such a figure of Hmong bicultural malehood finally emerges,

he too is gun-carrying, but now uniformed and wielding the authority of the state” (ibid., 30-31).

Finally, I believe that the movie Gran Torino invites multiple co-existing and overlapping interpretations.

Undoubtedly the image of the bullet-riddled Walt on the ground in a Christ-like pose is not accidental;

and yet I think we can also identify him with the sacrificial chicken of the Hmong ceremony, as he has been

sacrificed because of a spiritual awakening prompted by a Hmong rather than a Catholic Christian power.

(Earlier in the film, the old Grandma next door tells Walt to leave the neighborhood: “strut away, you old

rooster”). Two other details of this finale are worth mentioning: as Walt faces the gang for the last time, the high

and lonesome sound of a passing train is heard in the distance. And upon re-viewing, we can see Walt’s last day

as his answer to the question, what would you do if you only had one day left to live? “Oh, I am at peace.”

Conclusions

I contend that the character of Walt, traumatized by PTSD and “Yellow Peril Syndrome,” does undergo a

re-education through contact with his Hmong neighbors, and is able to fulfill a fatherly role to Thao and Sue

which he couldn’t with his sons. In that sense Gran Torino is an anti-racist film, yet with strong traces of racism;

an anti-war film, yet with a narrative celebrating vigilante violence; a proto-feminist film, yet erasing the two

main female protagonists in Walt’s life; shot through with minor inaccuracies regarding the Hmong culture,

but failing to take advantage of the opportunity to explore this unique culture and its recent history more

deeply; and seeming to provide yet another white savior narrative, yet influenced by the real touch of another

world view. The film is ambiguous and ambivalent, yet I hope that Gran Torino will help to raise awareness

of the Hmong people and the racism they face, while empowering their own more active media participation.

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