Gran Torino

I finally saw Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino.  Among other things, it is an interesting look at masculinity.  There is a train of thought in some psychological circles that sees socialization into traditional forms of manhood as more or less synonymous with violence, and that the primary object of such violence is one's self.    Of course, if that is the case, violence really can't help but spread from there, can it?

Or maybe it can--but only if one is willing to pay a very high price.

One of the lines that really hit me came when Eastwood faces the seemingly inevitable escalation in violence that comes in fighting for what you care for.  He says something to the effect, "In war you see it coming, and you steel yourself for it."  What goes unsaid is that in life, it is not what we expect to come from our caring--but it is what we often get.   We don't see our greatest losses coming, our deepest hurts and pains, and so we find ourselves terribly unprepared to face them.

You hear a lot about how Christians are presented unfairly in the media.  I guess I don't really watch enough of it to know.  But I do know that one of the main characters in the film is a Roman Catholic priest, and it is a very favorable portrayal.

Comments

[Jan]

My own opinion (for whatever that's worth) is that traditional forms of masculine socialization were to *control* violence, not create it. Violence is inherent in the human animal, it takes a lot of socialization to train the pre-frontal cortex to self-control. But they think that by describing the old way as encouraging/creating violence, they'll hide the fact that current trends in socialization are to create zoo animals of us all. Bound and caged and under *their* control instead of self-control.