CCC in "Gran Torino"

Last week, I attended a screening of the film "Gran Torino", starring Clint Eastwood as a grumpy World War II veteran who overcomes his prejudices and ethnocentric beliefs to befriend a Hmong family and protect them from a neighborhood Asian gang. I had already seen the film, so I wasn't as caught up in Eastwood's racial epithets or the shocking twists and turns of the plot as my friends who had never seen the film before. The night before, I had just finished chapters 1 & 2 of "Intercultural Communication in Contexts" and I was amazed at how many of Martin and Nakayama's ideas in the book I spotted in the film. I will specifically discuss the self-awareness, demographic, and peace imperatives for studying intercultural communication.

Clint Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, is very similar to many Americans in his ignorance and reluctance to learn anything about people of other cultures. He views foreigners as intruders to his country who ruin the "American way of life" he has grown up in and been used to. By the end of the film, he is a changed man, one who considers his Hmong neighbors his only friends. The textbook's imperatives for why one needs to study intercultural communication are featured in the film quite prominently. Peter Adler's theory of the self-awareness imperative was correct, in the idea that studying intercultural communication begins with another and ends with one's own. By learning about the values and lifestyles his neighbors possessed, Walt is able to gain a deeper understanding of the world he lives in and his place in society.

The demographic imperative is essential to Walt's closure at the end of "Gran Torino". Whether he likes it or not, Walt's world is becoming more and more diverse and his whitewashed memories of the 1950s are no longer the same. Martin and Nakayama introduce the idea of nativism and Walt embodies that concept. In an early scene, the audience is told that Walt worked at a Ford company his entire life, only to be shown two seconds later that his materialistic son and his family are driving Japanese cars. Walt values "American" values to the point that he sees everyone who does not believe in them to be a traitor to the country. The book discusses assimilation and how some disapprove of the "melting pot" metaphor, and I agree that America is not a melting pot at all. Just look at any high school cafeteria, even TDR here at American! Walt's experience with the Hmongs increases his knowledge of other people, which is absolutely necessary in a world where nearly everyone is an "other type of person".

The peace imperative comes into play when Walt protects one of the Hmongs, a teenaged boy named Thao, from a gang that wishes to recruit and convert him to a life of crime. Although the book connects the peace imperative to more worldwide issues, it is still an idea that can be apply to neighborhoods, families, schools, churches, etc. Although Walt's understanding of intercultural communication cannot stop the presence of gangs and violence itself, it can help him figure out why certain people behave in certain ways. During a conversation with Thao's sister Sue, Walt realizes that many Hmong male immigrants feel incredibly isolated when they first move to America and that they tend to stick together. Since most Hmong boys have little to no support structures (Thao and Sue are an exception), they end up in a life of crime. By understanding the complex multicultural world we live in today, one gets closer to understanding the roots of the atrocities that occur on a daily basis.

Intercultural communication can be found anywhere and everywhere. It can be found in a global basis, it can be found in our dorm rooms (especially with the high number of international students here at AU), it can be found in movies, television, radio, music, sports, politics, economics, business, you name it. The ethical imperative is what I feel applies to us, as students. We can spend all day on Facebook or Skype chatting with people all over the world, but it is our duty to step back and think about the implications of this type of technology on our society. We can sit in our dorms all day with our two best friends from home, but we must also go out and meet people of all different ways of life. Martin and Nakayama write about self-reflexivity, understanding the self as well as one's place in the world. Walt Kowalski gained his own cultural self-reflexivity, but if you look at "Gran Torino" as a whole, it appears that it happened by accident. As students who deliberate study a world that has shaped us and that we shape in return, imagine what we can accomplish.