The recently released film “Gran Torino,” which Clint Eastwood stars in, directs and partially scores, is being hailed as a tour de force of filmmaking and a harbinger of a hopeful future by many critics.   The review of the film that appeared in The New York Times entitled, “Hope for a Racist, and Maybe a Country,” written by Manhola Dargis, is characteristic of the kind of praise the film is receiving ( photo credit: Daquella manera).  The film also reveals a good deal about white masculinity and racism.  [WARNING: *SPOILERS* follow]

The plot of “Gran Torino” revolves around Walt Kowalski (played by Eastwood), a Korean war veteran, a retired autoworker, and an extremely misanthropic and apparently deeply racist man.  The film opens just after the death of Kowalski’s wife.  His grandchildren are shallow and self-absorbed, and Kowalski has no interest in nor affection for them.   His two grown sons are anti-Eastwood figures of masculinity: weak, ineffectual men, dominated by their shrewish, materialistic wives.  He has no interest in bonding with his parish priest, another representation of weak, white masculinity.   Kowalski is a loner and he likes it that way as he sits on his front porch, growling at people and drinking can after can of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.   Kowalski seems incapable of interacting with a non-white person without using the most offensive racial epithets, and his racism is played mostly for laughs throughout the first part of the film.   This snarling character represents a particular form of white masculinity that relies on overt racism as a constituitive feature. Continue reading…