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Gran Torino

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Gran Torino

The movie “Gran Torino” is based around an older racist man named Walt. The movie starts with Walt being an old grumpy man who lives in the ghetto by himself, due to the recent death of his wife. After Walt finds the boy who lives next door named Thao trying to steal his car; Thao’s family orders that Thao will now work for Walt to repay his debt to him. Walt at first does not care for Thao and his sister Sue because they are asian, but after getting to know them Walt secretly warms up to them. Through the movie the pastor keeps on eye on Walt to see how he is doing and offers to talk with Walt if he needs it. Walt usually shuts him down on the spot and doesn’t want to talk to him at all. Walt soon finds out that it was Thao’s cousin and gang where the ones who put Thao up to it to steal Walt’s car. Walt tries to help Thao and gets him a job as a construction worker. Soon after that the gang approaches Thao while he was walking home from work one day and attack him and burn his face with a cigarette. After Walt finds this out, he goes to one of the gang member’s houses and beats him up warning him not to mess with Thao anymore. The gang counter attacks by raping Sue and attacking her and doing a drive by on Thao’s house. Walt knows that for Thao and Sue to have better lives in the future he was going to have to get rid of the gang. Walt goes alone and sacrifices himself so that they gang would get locked up and sent to jail were they couldn’t hurt Thao and Sue anymore. Overall through the movie you witness Walt change for the better and become a more accepting man and how he ends up giving his life for people he looked down upon at first. In “Gran Torino” there isn’t much discrimination between police and the people. It’s mainly focused on Walt and how he views others that aren’t white. Walt would be considered as the dominant group in the movie. In the beginning of the movie Walt believes that he is dominant and is superior to all other races. He bad talks them and puts them down every chance he gets. In his mind if you aren’t white then you shouldn’t be near him or associate with him. Walt’s neighbors who are mostly asian are the minority group. They are the ones who have the least amount of power. If you compare Walt’s house and his neighbors you can see a huge difference in the way they are kept. Walt’s house is always kept clean and the outside flawless. While his neighbor’s houses look run down. This shows how life is different between the two, Walt being a white male and the neighbors being the immigrants to the country. There are many times in this movie where there are instances of racism. Throughout the movie Walt is always making negative assumptions about people just by their race. For example when Walt sees his neighbors and their tradition of cutting the chicken he calls them “barbarians”. There are countless times through the movie where he calls people names based on their race. An example of this was when Walt was at Thao and Sue’s house when all of their family was staring at him. Walt replied with “What are all of you fish heads looking at?”. Walt wasn’t the only one through the movie making racist comments. There was a time in the movie were Sue was stopped by three black guys while walking down the street. The harassed her and pushed her around calling her names about her being an asian. Even though the main focus was on Walt’s racism the movie shows how little respect people had for one another who weren’t the same race. Throughout the movie you can see Walt changing as a person. As the movie goes on Walt becomes less prejudice towards others. After Walt gets to know Thao and Sue and spends more time with them he starts to warm up to them. Walt becomes more humble and gets in a better mood as the movie progresses. There is one scene were Thao and Sue are in their backyard hanging out while Walt is cooking them food on the grill. Sue says “Wow Walt I’ve never seen you like this?”. This scene shows how much Walt has really changed from the beginning of the movie. At the end of the movie is where you can tell that Walt is a totally different person now. The final scene were Walt goes to the gang member’s house. Walt sacrifices his life for Thao and Sue so that they will have a better future. This is where we see Walt a racist man totally changed sacrifice himself for people who aren’t the same race as him. In “Gran Torino” there is a lot of conflict between people. In the movie we see a conflict between Walt and the asian gang. There is also many instances were different races get into arguments and fights with one another. The movie has many groups in it who are competing against one another. For example in the movie there is a scene where Thao is being harassed by a gang and his cousin’s gang comes over and pulls next to the gang’s car. Both gangs get into an argument and pull at guns on one another. The town that they live in has many people with different race and ethnicity. The movie shows how much conflict goes on when this happens. The main conflict in the movie is focused on Walt and the asian gang. It’s a power struggle between them both with Walt wanting Thao to be safe and the gang wanting him to join. There are many scenes were to two conflicts meet. For example when Walt goes to beat up one gang member and warns him not to mess with Thao anymore. Another would be the final scene were Walt dies when the gang shoots him. The whole movie itself was based around the conflict between one another because they don’t share the same ethnic background. Overall the movie shows how hard life can be when there is conflict between races. Walt comes out at the end a changed man who has learned a lot of lessons in life even though he thought he already had it all figured out.

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