Gran Torino and Race Relations and Ethics - Essay Example

Gran Torino and Race Relations and Ethics In the movie Gran Torino, there are complicated issues that implicate both social justiceand racial tensions and relations. The evolution of the main character in the movie, Walt Kowalski, shows an evolution of his own sense of race and social justice, while giving him a measure of redemption about the past and the things that he did when he served in Korea. The movie can teach people about how to act ethically in the face of difficult circumstances. The movie has things to teach about ethics to people in the world. Racism is still very much an issue in today’s world(Bonilla, 2010), and Walt was as racism as anybody could be. He called the next door neighbors “gooks,” even after he came to love them and protect them. He called his barber a “Dago” and “Italian Prick.” It was obvious that he was a man who had a lot of bad feelings in his heart about people who are of different races. He was, perhaps, representative of many people who see people of different races as being somehow “other.” These people from Laos, who live next door, were people that Walt evidently felt were beneath him from the beginning of the film. However, Walt changed throughout the course of the film, and, soon, he was taking Thao and Sue under his wing. Walt went out of his way to bond with young Thao, showing him the ropes of carpentry, once he figured out that Thao had an interest in carpentry and tools, and making sure that Thao got to meet the barber and know how to converse with other men in a way that would be acceptable in America. When Sue was raped by some men who were relatives of Thao and Sue, Walt became protective of her and went to confront the men. In fact, all through the film, Walt comes to the aid and protection of these neighbors. It was feasible that Walt could have lived his life in an insular way, and stayed out of the way of the gang members who were harassing his next door neighbors. However, Walt chooses not to do so, which virtually ensured his death, which did come at the very end of the film. Therefore, the ethical lesson that came about during this film is that sometimes you cannot just think of yourself – you have to think of others (Saslow, 2013). We are in a social contract with one another in this world, which means that we all have to be our brother’s keeper (Levitt, 2013). What happens to our brother or our sister is what happens to us, and we have to make sure that we do everything that we can to help those who are oppressed. Walt learned this lesson, even though he personally had feelings for the Hmong that were not so flattering. There was some possible indication that Walt was also redeeming himself for things that happened during the Korean War – he implied that he killed some Korean men even though he wasn’t under orders to do so. So, this might have also given him his sense of ethics as well. My own personal feelings about what happened during the movie was somewhat mixed. While I understood the need for Walt to do what he did in the movie, it was also difficult to see. Yes, the gang members were harassing the family of Sue and Thao, and, yes, the black men were harassing Sue and there was the distinct possibility that they were going to rape her. So, in a sense, what Walt ended up doing at the end of the movie was extremely justified. In fact, he didn’t really do anything at all, except stand outside the house of the gang members and pretend that he had some kind of weapon on him. Considering that he had shown the gang members earlier that he had access to these types of weapons, it was reasonable for the gang members to assume that this was still the case, and that he, in fact, was packing heat when he went to visit the boys. Another point is probably the most important point to make about the movie – the movie portrays a society that is color blind, in the end. The surface of the people in the movie was that everybody is segregated and that Walt was somebody who didn’t want anything to do with others from a different race. But he changed, rapidly, and this is something that would happen in a Utopian world (Levitas, 2010). His sense of ethics, his sense of social justice, transcended racial and cultural boundaries, and he went to bat for Thao and Sue as if they were white people. He defended them no differently than he would others of his own Caucasian race. Do I believe that this would happen in real life? I would surely hope so – that everybody in this world would defend others as if those others are not of different races and creeds, but I doubt it. Especially not when the person who is doing the defending is an ingrained racist such as Walt. But to think that we might live in a world where this could happen is comforting. So, this movie was instructive on how to behave ethically. Perhaps the main thing that it instructs is that ethical behavior transcends race. If there is a person of a different race who is being treated unjustly, then an ethical person would go beyond the color of the person’s skin, and defend that person the same as if the person is of the same race as the person doing the defending. In fact, the argument can be made that minorities need even more protection than do members of different races, so a truly ethical person might go above and beyond the call of duty when the person who is being treated unjustly is a minority. Minorities in this country have so many other problems to deal with – bigotry and prejudice are just two of the problems that minorities in this country face. To see them being treated unjustly by members of their own race, as was the case in Gran Torino, makes the plight of these minorities that much worse for them. So, Walt did the absolute right thing in defending these people, even if he ended up sacrificing his own life in return. Conclusion In the movie Gran Torino, there is a real sense that Walt is like many people out in the world. He’s trying to adjust to a changing world, and resenting every second of it. Because people of different races are supplanting the white people in his neighborhood, he understandably feels that his way of life is under assault. He is very disparaging of people from other races for this very reason. However, Walt eventually sees the light, and realizes that he needs to protect these people. These people next door, the Hmungs, become a surrogate family for Walt, because his own family was a bunch of self, ungrateful and spoiled individuals. This is a heartwarming drama, because it shows that even the most racist of us can still act ethically, and be his brother’s keepers, no matter what the color of the other person’s skin. Reference Gran Torino. Dir. Clint Eastwood. Perf. Clint Eastwood. New Line Cinema, 2007. DVD. Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. Racism Without Racists: Color-blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States;[new Chapter on the Obama Phenomenon]. Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Saslow, Laura R., et al. "My brother’s keeper? Compassion predicts generosity more among less religious individuals." Social Psychological and Personality Science 4.1 (2013): 31-38. Levitt, Peggy. "A New Social Contract Social Welfare in an Era of Transnational Migration." Tikkun 28.3 (2013): 44-46. Levitas, Ruth. The concept of utopia. Vol. 3. Peter Lang, 2010. 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