The Media and Manhood: Gran Torino

The other day I was looking for a movie to watch and came across our copy of Gran Torino.

For those who have not seen the movie; see it.

The movie is rated R for language and violence, and the characters are definitely not politically correct by any means; but it is a great movie.

In the movie Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) is a recent widower who finds himself living in a world that has changed a great deal while he remained firmly planted in 1950's America. He has a strained relationship (that is putting it mildly) with his two sons and seems to be haunted by the atrocities he witnessed during the Korean War.

As the movie plays out, Walt is surprised to find that he seems to have more in common with the Hmong immigrants who have taken over his neighborhood than he does with his own family. Through the process of a strange event, Walt finds himself acting as a mentor for the young man who lives in the house next-door.

What struck me most about the move, and particularly about the character played by Eastwood was the "realness" of the man.

Far too often the way men are characterized by the media are skewed in someway. Either they are big screw-ups with no real redeeming quality or they are perfect.

Many times I feel lost. Somewhere between the man I know I should be and the man I see in the mirror.

I get caught up in the mistakes I made in my past and let them rob me of the peace that should be mine now.

I told my wife that if it were not for her and the boys being a part of my life I would not be surprised to find myself very much like Walt Kowlaski in my later years. Yeah, I would be the surly old man down the street grumbling about people on my lawn and complaining about how the neighborhood has gone downhill.

Walt was a real man with real problems.

Life taught him to be tough, to be strong; but it never taught how to care for and how to communicate with those around him. He had learned how to fix things around the house but it was evident that he never learned how to fix his home.

At one point in the movie the 27 year old priest, Father Janovich, comments that Kowalski seems to know a great deal about death but very little about life; and he was right.

The best part about the movie is that in the end Kowalski learns what it is to be a real man and not just manly. It is wonderful to watch this crusty old war veteran open his heart and learn to love. He learns that it is not enough to just take care of things for people, but to be a real man means you have to care about them as well.

I hope that in my life I can learn to be the man I know I should be, and I hope that it does not take me my whole life to figure out how to know more about life than I do about death.