1 month ago
Monday, February 9, 2009
What a movie!!! If you plan on seeing it but haven't yet - you might want to skip this post until you do.
Hubby and I went to see it this last weekend. Man is it good. Clint rocks the screen!! Even though his character (Walt) was a rude, racial slur hurling, tough man, he was a good man. Now I know people will say he couldn't have been, because of his use of hateful colorful language, but he was a good man. He did what was right regardless of the cost to him. He took a young man under his wing and taught him how to be a man, even when this kid had tried to steal the gran torino. He stepped in when someone should have and helped when he could.
I found it interesting how the racial slurs were bantered around in regular conversation. There was pollock, mick, slopes, giunea, white devil etc. Can these words be hurtful - absolutely, but more often than not, as long as everyone in the conversation is okay with it, it's just playful banter. One of my CancerGramps favorite saying was "loud mouth guinea." It wasn't said with malice, it was two men bantering. In our society we've gone to where EVERYTHING is offense to SOMEONE. I say get the hell over it, 9 times out of 10, nothing is meant by it. Hell in high school we have eddie the whop, bennie the beaner, eddie's little brother was little whop, and a hawian kid was coconut tree. We weren't being mean spirited, or racist, we were all friends.
Back to the movie - Clint's character Walt - his family sucked, and I mean sucked. I actually said out loud in the theater "I'd slap the shit out of her" when his granddaughter walked into her grandmother's funeral (in a catholic church) with a midriff shirt on, showing her pierced belly button and then proceed to text on her phone. I'm serious people. If I was at that funeral I would have smacked that girl up side the head. Through out the movie I was more bothered by his family's actions than any of the slurs running around.
He later says, while at a diner with his next door neighbors - "I have more in common with these gooks then I do my own family." For me this sentence coupled with his granddaughter sucky behavior and her parents unwillingness to stop it, highlighted the complete lack of reverence on our society. Nothing is sacred anymore because supposedly everything contains the same value. Everything is okay now, nothing is better than anything else, everyone gets the same ribbon just for taking part. I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this line of thinking. Not EVERYTHING is okay. There should be some basic respect in our society. If an old lady drops her grocery's, help her out, hold doors for people, say hello, if you are at the grocery store and your done with your cart, give it to someone rather than wait for them to struggle and get a cart unstuck so you put yours back in place. I don't know, maybe I live in a very unfriendly place, but i see that kind of stuff all the time.
I have never ever in my life sat at a movie and watched the entire credits. But I did, and then I sat there awhile longer until the house lights came all the way up. I did this because I was trying to compose myself. I didn't enter snot from wrist to elbow status but i was crying.
I don't know if was the fact that Walt had lung cancer and used racial slurs just like my Cancergramps (whose name is Walt), I dont know if it was the craptasic family he had that reminds me of my mother's siblings, who except for one, treat my grandma like a leper. I don't know if it was because if the police came to my door and said my father was killed in the same situation Walt was, i wouldn't be surprised and would actually be proud. I don't even know if you take out 90 % of the slurs and add in a terrific ton of laughter - Walt is my father, honest to God.
I dont know what it was but damn did this movie move me in a way a movie hasn't in a very long time.
Hubby and I went to see it this last weekend. Man is it good. Clint rocks the screen!! Even though his character (Walt) was a rude, racial slur hurling, tough man, he was a good man. Now I know people will say he couldn't have been, because of his use of hateful colorful language, but he was a good man. He did what was right regardless of the cost to him. He took a young man under his wing and taught him how to be a man, even when this kid had tried to steal the gran torino. He stepped in when someone should have and helped when he could.
I found it interesting how the racial slurs were bantered around in regular conversation. There was pollock, mick, slopes, giunea, white devil etc. Can these words be hurtful - absolutely, but more often than not, as long as everyone in the conversation is okay with it, it's just playful banter. One of my CancerGramps favorite saying was "loud mouth guinea." It wasn't said with malice, it was two men bantering. In our society we've gone to where EVERYTHING is offense to SOMEONE. I say get the hell over it, 9 times out of 10, nothing is meant by it. Hell in high school we have eddie the whop, bennie the beaner, eddie's little brother was little whop, and a hawian kid was coconut tree. We weren't being mean spirited, or racist, we were all friends.
Back to the movie - Clint's character Walt - his family sucked, and I mean sucked. I actually said out loud in the theater "I'd slap the shit out of her" when his granddaughter walked into her grandmother's funeral (in a catholic church) with a midriff shirt on, showing her pierced belly button and then proceed to text on her phone. I'm serious people. If I was at that funeral I would have smacked that girl up side the head. Through out the movie I was more bothered by his family's actions than any of the slurs running around.
He later says, while at a diner with his next door neighbors - "I have more in common with these gooks then I do my own family." For me this sentence coupled with his granddaughter sucky behavior and her parents unwillingness to stop it, highlighted the complete lack of reverence on our society. Nothing is sacred anymore because supposedly everything contains the same value. Everything is okay now, nothing is better than anything else, everyone gets the same ribbon just for taking part. I completely and wholeheartedly disagree with this line of thinking. Not EVERYTHING is okay. There should be some basic respect in our society. If an old lady drops her grocery's, help her out, hold doors for people, say hello, if you are at the grocery store and your done with your cart, give it to someone rather than wait for them to struggle and get a cart unstuck so you put yours back in place. I don't know, maybe I live in a very unfriendly place, but i see that kind of stuff all the time.
I have never ever in my life sat at a movie and watched the entire credits. But I did, and then I sat there awhile longer until the house lights came all the way up. I did this because I was trying to compose myself. I didn't enter snot from wrist to elbow status but i was crying.
I don't know if was the fact that Walt had lung cancer and used racial slurs just like my Cancergramps (whose name is Walt), I dont know if it was the craptasic family he had that reminds me of my mother's siblings, who except for one, treat my grandma like a leper. I don't know if it was because if the police came to my door and said my father was killed in the same situation Walt was, i wouldn't be surprised and would actually be proud. I don't even know if you take out 90 % of the slurs and add in a terrific ton of laughter - Walt is my father, honest to God.
I dont know what it was but damn did this movie move me in a way a movie hasn't in a very long time.
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