Gran Torino and the "Authentic" Asian American Voice

Throughout this class we have discussed what it means to be an Asian in American and Asian American. It seems appropriate now to question what it means to have an authentic representation of Asian/Asian American identity. The Clint Eastwood directed film Gran Torino makes an attempt to display an "authentic" Hmong community. What does it mean to have a white director create an "authentic" Asian American portrayal? And in our final class we read the poems of our fellow classmate, MFA student Lisa Kwong, which focused on her experience as an ABC (American Born Chinese), and we discussed the feedback she received about her writings from other students in her program.  I am particularly interested in our discussion of what constituted an Asian American voice concerning Chinese food.

Our discussion on Gran Torino focused a lot on masculinity, Walt’s and Thao’s, but I found myself drawn to the depiction of the Hmong community in the film. For the most part the Hmong community had their “Asianness” on display more than their Americanness. There was little inclusion of the Hmong community doing normal “American” activities, but instead they were shown having large gatherings where many of the people seemed to have an inability to speak English and where they practiced Eastern traditions. The only Hmong people who seemed to be a part of the American community were the youth in the film, specifically Sue, Thao, and Youa. Never are there depictions of Hmong people going to work. And they seem to be incapable of even keeping their homes in a decent condition, evident through Walt having Thao doing repair work on the homes in the neighborhood.

Denise introduced a few other facts about the film that I found interesting, one being how the Hmong people in this film were perceived as being a new Asian group in the U.S. Another was that Clint Eastwood wanted the Hmong people in the film to act as “natural” as possible and cast actors with little previous acting experience in order to capture an “authenticity”. And perhaps more thought-provoking on this topic was Bee Vang’s (Thao) criticism of the film’s portrayal of the Hmong community and how the film was edited to render him a pathetic figure. This last part seems a direct challenge to Gran Torino’s attempt at authenticity. But why is it even important to have an authentic Asian/Asian American portrayal on the screen? I think the biggest indication is the fact that however unfortunate and inaccurate it may seem many people still take what they see on screen to be a truthful representation, as evident through the questions Bee received asking whether or not he was actually in a gang.

As we ended our discussion of Gran Torino we included the voice of an Asian American poet. Even in the discussion of the poems she shared with us we somehow turned to the topic of what being Asian American actually means.  She shared with us some of the feedback she received from people in her program who suggested she change the food items in her food because they seemed stereotypical.  Even in this instance there seems to be an issue of authenticity, which seems ironic considering Lisa’s poems deal a lot with the frustration of feeling outside of the Chinese community and the fact that she is perceived intragroup as being too American. 

I’m not suggesting that I am any closer to an idea of what constitutes an authentic Asian/Asian American identity, or that there even is an authentic identity or portrayal. It seems there isn’t even a clear concensus about this within group. If Lisa’s poems are any indication, authentic Asian/Asian American identity or portrayal is a very contested and complex question.

The Gran Torino in Gran Torino

A few times in class over the week we touched on the idea that Gran Torino’s title refers to something that has a relatively minimal presence in the film. Why is this movie called Gran Torino? Is that really a comprehensive statement of the film as a whole, literally or thematically? I’m more and more convinced that it is.

So, first, and perhaps most obviously, the car is a clear marker for masculinity throughout the film, just as it is in American culture. The Hmong gang members test Thao’s masculinity by making him steal the car (he’s previously done “women’s work” by gardening and working around his house), importantly signaling the defunct nature of their masculinity, which is achieved illegally. When Thao “correctly” makes advances into Walt’s form of American masculinity and asks Youa out, Walt lends him the car in a tentative yet authorized form of its ownership. Finally, when Thao has proved himself a “real man” with the nerve and desire to avenge his sister (after previously refusing to engage with the gang when he is attacked coming home from work), Walt legally wills the car to Thao in a highly symbolic gesture. The final image of Thao driving into the sunset in his car is a classic image of American masculinity.

As I’ve been clearly hinting, the Gran Torino also functions as a symbol of Americanness and its rightful inheritance. It is American made, and plays on nostalgia for a magical time when great cars were made, bought, and loved by “real” Americans. Walt’s son, Mitch, as Walt constantly reminds him, owns a Toyota, signaling his eventual displacement as heir to Walt’s essential American identity. By legally (and through institutionalized channels) leaving Thao his car, Walt bypasses and redefines the classic system of Americanness, which, as we’ve talked about throughout the semester, is traditionally built on birth and an ancestry that hopefully stretches far enough into the past that the inevitable immigrant source is buried in history. In this way, the title of Gran Torino points to the way the film attempts to divert classic American narratives and perhaps classic American thinking, if not about masculinity, at least about race (whether or not it succeeds is another, fairly large, question).

But I also think the car is presented, at core, as simply a vessel of meaning in a movie that has a lot to do with emptiness and soulless tradition. Walt sits on his porch every night with his dog and a cooler full of beer not necessarily because it does anything for him, but because he’s always done it. Walt’s children visit their father out of duty and necessity, not because they value him at all. Father Janovich gives a paint-by-numbers sermon and chases after Walt’s confession only because he wants to keep a promise made to a dead woman. Through all this, Walt looks out at his Gran Torino parked in the driveway and says, with genuine feeling, “ain’t she sweet.” The car seems to be the only thing in Walt’s life that bears any meaning at all. Significantly, Walt’s granddaughter sees the Gran Torino as nothing more than a commodity, “a cool old car” that she’d like to add to a list of meaningless items Walt could pass on to her as his age makes them unnecessary. The film demands, then, that items such as the Gran Torino maintain their meaning by being passed on via a non-normative pathway of significance. As the movie tries to grasp at the remaining threads of American substance, it argues that the car, if it had been inherited “normally” would have lost its meaning and become almost demagnetized, stripped of its ability to carry significance (be it masculinity, American identity, honor, family, etc.). Thus the plot of Gran Torino is wrapped entirely around this Gran Torino, desperately urging us to hold onto its meaning.

Hand Imagery in Gran Torino

In class Monday, we discussed the symbolism involved in Walt’s cough and his death at the end of the film. The way in which both these ideas become manifest in the film involves an extensive use of the visual imagery of Walt’s hands covered in blood—first the blood he coughs up, then the blood streaming from his bullet wounds onto his outstretched hands. There is another particularly intriguing moment involving Walt’s hands, namely the close-up on his hand dropping his water glass when Sue walks in after her beating and rape. I’d like to discuss how each of these images in turn fill out Walt’s character and problematize his model of white masculinity.

The blood on Walt’s hands from his cough carries with it a variety of connotations. First, it bears the obvious symbolism of the blood on his hands from the Korean War, something that he cannot let go of and that constantly resurfaces unpleasantly, just like the blood coming from his lungs. The image also gives us a reminder/representation of his impending death, and the visual nature of that memento mori keeps us from being able to escape it. Such a reminder of Walt’s mortality functions to make him more sympathetic, since we pity his shortened lifespan; to provide a sense of urgency, since we now know he has little time to atone for his deeds; and to complicate his highly foreshadowed sacrifice, since laying down his life is less of a cost to him if he already knows he will lose it soon (and perhaps more unpleasantly).

Later, when Sue walks in visibly having been beaten—and even in this moment it is not difficult to presume she has also been raped—there is a cut to a close-up of Walt’s hand holding a water glass, which he promptly drops. As a technician who spent 50 years building cars, and a self-professed person who fixes things, Walt’s hands are symbolic of his power in the world. Dropping the glass, then, is a failure of his hands and indicates his sudden awareness of his own helplessness. This moment is emblematic of many of the problems with the film as a whole. It is an extremely powerful moment showing a crack in Walt’s toughness, which carries with it the connotations of Clint Eastwood’s toughness. However, the focus on Walt’s loss of power in that moment takes the focus away from Sue’s loss of power; her rape becomes, like the rest of the film, all about him.

Finally—and I’ll go into this a little less because we discussed it so thoroughly in class—there is the blood running down Walt’s lifeless hands as he lies in a crucifix-like pose. In a way, in addition to being a Christ reference, this brings together the implications of the two images discussed above. The promise of mortality is realized, and his hands are both powerless in death and far more powerful than they have been before. If we take it in the context of the other hand images, we can read the crucifixion imagery as having more specific character meaning than just its Jesus-figure implications. I think an exploration of hands as a symbol throughout the film could be far more rewarding than what I’ve done here—such an exploration could delve further into Walt’s fake “hand-gun,” for example, and could even incorporate a reading of Walt’s faux pas in touching the child on the head. It might also be valuable to include readings of the hands of other characters, such as the symbolism of Thao’s hands washing the car, etc.

Spirituality & Faith in Gran Torino

As I mentioned in class, I am interested in interrogating Gran Torino’s investment in a Christian spiritual narrative of redemption. As we discussed in class, the film’s critique of organized religion (specifically Catholicism) is rather obvious and heavy-handed. Although Walt’s dismissal of Father Janovich as a naïve “boy just out of the seminary” (and, therefore, unworthy to receive his confession) proves correct, the film still places a great deal of value on Walt’s confession and atonement. Whether or not Walt’s self-sacrifice leads to absolution is not explicit. However, if we consider Thao to be Walt’s confessor, than perhaps the final scene of Thao driving the Gran Torino into the sunset can be considered a pardon of sorts.

Even more complex than the film’s attitude toward organized religion, is its endorsement of mysticism/spirituality. For instance, Walt’s birthday horoscope (which he dismisses in typically profane eloquence as “a load of shit”) is actually accurate: the horoscope states that “this year you have to make a choice between two life paths, second chances come your way, extraordinary events culminating in what might be called an anti-climax.” On that same day, the Hmong Shaman also reads Walt and describes his life in stunning accuracy: “The way to you live your food has no flavor, you’re worried about your life. You made a mistake in your past life. . .you have no happiness in your life, it’s like your not at peace.” The Shaman’s pronouncement is so spot on that it actually drives Walt into a consumptive coughing fit that literalizes the blood on his hands. However, I can’t help but wonder to the extent that the mysticism of the horoscope and Shaman is an Orientalist gesture that implies that religious “truth” resides not within the Western Catholic Church, but, rather, Eastern spirituality. If the film depicts a “crisis” of Western faith, it seems to be pointing East for a revitalization of Christian faith. And so, just as Walt’s death reanimates the masculinity of both Father Janovich and Thao, I think that Eastwood's cinematic appropriation of Christian iconography is indicative of how Walt's death can be read as an attempt revive Western faith via Eastern spirituality.

NAVIGATING THE WORLD AS AN ASIAN “BROWN” BODY

The idea of the “impossible subject” proposed by Ngai (2004) is important to understand the manner in which bodies have been constructed historically, in the United States, as desirable or undesirable. For Ngai the illegal alien is the “impossible subject”, “a person who cannot be and a problem that cannot be solved” (2004:5). This suggests that the “impossible subject” is at once slippery and ambiguous, while framed as a “problem” that has a particular function in the nation-state. The “impossible subject” is dehumanized (“a person who cannot be”) yet constructed in a particular manner (“a problem that cannot be solved”) as troubling the imagination of the nation. Such a subject is undesirable to the nation, and this concept allows us to think through “desirability” and “undesirability” in post 9/11 America. In this personal reflection I will attempt to demonstrate the manner in which the war on terror constructed “impossible subjects”, and the contradictions in the discourse of “desirability” and “undesirability” that such constructions produce.

When I first arrived in the in United States of America in 2006, I came on a cultural exchange visa, as the Ford Foundation funded my studies in the US. Entering the US as a student the visa application process was thorough and extensive. In South Africa the US Embassy determined my “desirability” and framed me as a particular type of migrant in the US. Upon entering the US for the first time I did not encounter any problems. The process was swift without any hassles. Being a student I presented my passport and other documentation that demonstrated a thorough check had been done and successfully passed. A friend who traveled with me at the same time on a visitor’s visa was not so lucky. He was ushered into the private room and questioned extensively before being allowed through customs. While settling into life in New York City, I met many travelers from around the work, many also on cultural exchange visas. I found out that many people on the same visa type as myself were subject to a two-year home residency requirement, which had to be fulfilled once their studies were completed. I was not subject to this rule! This baffled me and made me think about the purpose of this two year home residency requirement and those who had to fulfill them. Not surprisingly, most of those who had this requirement where Pakistani and Indian nationals. I am of Indian origin but I am a South African citizen, which placed me in a different category of “desirability”. However this was challenged on many occasions when I visited Canada.

Leaving the US through New York was not problematic at all. My passport was stamped and I was on my way to Toronto. However when I was leaving Toronto to come back to New York, I quickly discovered that the process was longer and more extensive. Being of Indian descent (not Middle Eastern or Pakistani), I was under more scrutiny. My passport was checked more thoroughly, I was looked at in peculiar ways and I was asked questions that my documentation provided. However, upon reentering the US I was perceived as threatening and my “desirability” was in question. My desirability was based on my “ethnicity”, not my nationality and I, like many others, was over-determined by my “Indian” features – dark hair, brown skin and accent. However, I noticed that I was perceived as being more threatening if I was not clean-shaven. Every time I traveled between the two countries and I had facial hair, my boarding pass was immediately marked with a highlighter at the check-in counter, and I was subsequently scrutinized and searched even further. Having traveled internationally often I performed the behavior of the “desirable” subject, smiling, patiently waiting, even though the looks I was given was hostile and at times threatened my entry into the US. What I encountered through these immigration checks is a slippage between my passport identity and my ethnic identity. Being South Africa was not problematic and constructed me as “desirable”, however being of Indian origin threatened my desirability (although it is ironic that at that stage I had never been to the sub-continent).

The events of 9/11 certainly constructed a newer image of the “undesirable” subject. The events also consolidated the US nation as a newly imagined community who could define the enemy as the other from the Middle East (Afghanistan, Pakistan and other “brown” people). Immigration policies were tightened; people were scrutinized more critically and new categories of “undesirable subjects” were constructed. From my observations men from the sub-continent and the Middle East posed the greatest threat. Women were next, especially Muslim women who chose to wear the hijab. However, I have often wondered how this post 9/11 panic has consolidated racial categories in the USA, especially in an attempt at constructing desirable and undesirable subjects, and the impact that this has had on immigration to the USA since 1994. Another point to think about is how has this re-created the category of the “migrant”, the alien, the impossible subject– with all its negative connotations – and how has this affected the lives of ethnic South Asians and people of Middle Eastern origin who are citizens of the USA. Although they may have assimilated, their ethnicity clearly marks them as the “other”. 9/11 constructed them as political threats to the nation.

Categorization appears to remain at the core of how citizens are constructed, racial categories are mobilized and subjects created. It is important to note that such constructions are nation-state based, and does not account for the multiplicity of identities that people navigate on a daily basis. Ngai’s book allows us to understand the power of categorization and the manner in which nation-states mobilize categories, more as a way of reflecting its own insecurities.

What is the true conflict in Gran Torino?

At first the conflict in Gran Torino seems to be West vs. East, as we experience Walt Kowalski's extreme resentment towards his Hmong neighbors.  Then there are the conflicts within Walt's family, his inability to get along and relate to his own sons, and within Thao's family, his cousin questions his ability to be one of the gang, to be a man.

It seems that a central question the film asks is, what does it mean to be a man?  We are presented with several interesting characters for different representations of masculinity.  Walt, obviously, but there are also the sons as symbols of material wealth, Father Janovich as a symbol of spiritual health, Thao as the emasculated Asian male, and "Spider," Thao's cousin, and his gang friends, as symbols of violence.  Ultimately, I don't think the film privileges one representation of masculinity over another, but rather each representation has its faults.  Walt's sons may be materially wealthy, but lack emotional depth and compassion.  Father Janovich is naive, according to Walt, and doesn't know "the difference between life and death."  Spider and his friends also lack emotional depth and compassion and have to act tough in order to compensate for what they lack.

Thao is emasculated early on in the film by Spider and his friends.  They claim he does "women's work" because he is gardening.  Walt calls him "p**sy" on several occasions.  His own family members question his ability to be man of the house, because again, early in the film, Thao is seen washing dishes.  So what does it mean when Walt takes Thao under his wings, advising Thao on his love life and also how to get a job?  Walt, for all of his faults, becomes a father figure to Thao, and eventually Walt becomes the martyr in the conflict between Thao's family and the gang.  One interpretation of this film could be Walt as the "white knight" (albeit very very flawed) saving the feminized East from the "savagery" aka Spider and his gang of their native land.  And the Hmong people do hail him as a hero, after saving Thao from the gang the first time they harass him at Thao's house.  I am still trying to figure out, though, what the death of Walt means in the context of this film and all the other texts and films we've covered this semester.  Could there have been a different ending?

Gran Torino and the Inheritance of the American Dream

Watching Gran Torino for a second time after taking this class, the film felt a bit like all the tropes and narratives we’ve been discussing this semester thrown into a blender (with a shot of Clint Eastwood-style Western mixed in). I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s various observations about the film!

Moving on from my mixed metaphor, what really struck me on this viewing was the film’s attention to the transfer of resources from Walt to Tao. Even before Walt leaves Tao the Gran Torino that his granddaughter expected to receive, their relationship develops through a series of “property relations.” Their relationship begins with the potential theft of Walt’s car, then grows through Tao’s unpaid labor for Walt and the food gifts Walt’s neighbors offer him, and their friendship is fully achieved when Walt decides to give Tao’s family his refrigerator (it’s old, but it “runs like a clock"). Although Tao pays for the refrigerator, Walt sells it so cheaply that he essentially “gifts” it to Tao, and he then uses his connection to get Tao a job and gives him a set of tools. I think I could argue that, through the depiction of these gifts, the film is advocating for a transference of influence and resources from white or more established immigrant groups (the film constantly reminds us of Walt’s “Polish” descent) to these apparently “newer” American immigrant groups like the Hmong. The film strongly critiques the materialism and greed of Walt’s biological family while suggesting that his “adopted” Hmong family “deserves” his legacy, an idea affirmed in Walt’s final gesture of willing his Gran Torino to Tao.

For me, this film recalled the structure of multiple “inheritance” or “true heir” novels, in which the question of who can rightfully inherit a property becomes a question of the fate of a nation or ideology; for example, in E.M Forster’s Howards End, the battle over who will inherit the estate comes to represent a larger conflict over who will “inherit” England---the business-minded Wilcoxes or the romantic Schlegels. I think Walt’s Gran Torino has a similar function in the film, introducing the question of who is the “worthy” or “true” heir of Walt’s legacy.

So what does the Gran Torino represent? We learn that the car is strongly associated with Walt’s long-term career in a blue-collar job at the GM factory: the car seems to represent American technical skill, innovation, and the kinds of jobs that are actually disappearing from America through outsourcing. Strangely, the film seems to offer a critique of “foreign” labor and the consumption of foreign products---Walt growls, “Buy American!”---while also suggesting that the legacy of American labor and innovation belongs to new immigrant groups. So what Tao seems to be inheriting is the ideology of the “American dream,” an ideology that can no longer be the property of Walt’s successful and apparently “decadent" family. While the film’s final shot of Tao driving off into the sunset in Walt’s Gran Torino seems to suggest that America’s “future” belongs to these new immigrant groups, Tao’s vehicle is also an emblem of nostalgia for a family’s and nation’s past. The film figures the Hmong as both a “return” to a time of shared cultural values and as the nation’s potential future.

As Walt’s description of his old refrigerator as running “like a clock” suggests, the film’s depiction of Walt’s neighborhood is deeply concerned with producing an oddly-nostalgic vision of America’s past (considering the film’s potential critique of the Korean War and Walt's racism) to advocate for a particular kind of national future, a future that is perhaps equally exclusionary. As Walt demands of Tao: “I leave my 1972 Gran Torino on the condition that you don't choptop the roof like a damned spick, don't paint any idiotic flames on it like some white-trash hillbilly and don't put a big gay spoiler on the rear-end like you see on all the other zipper heads' cars.” At the same time, the name of the car---"Gran Torino"---also references America’s history of non-white populations; was Walt merely a temporary and unstable “holder” of the American dream? Is the "dream" itself transformed in its passage from Walt to Tao?