Clint Eastwood's bittersweet masterpiece - Gran Torino

this isn't really edited, i just threw it up here...

After seeing this movie, I left the theater feeling many things - a deep and overwhelming sadness, hope for a world that seems lost, a nagging wish to return to the days when I would follow my grandfather on his errands, spouting off wisdom in the same tough guy manners Clint Eastwood used.

But the alarming emotion - the one I never expected, and at first didn't really understand, that took the longest to diagnose - was shame.

I'm ashamed of how close the movie has hewn to modern family dynamics, including my own. I'm ashamed for the times I insisted on wearing inappropriate clothes to church, and the times I begged to leave family events early, basically for the entirety of my youth in regard to my familial obligations and general treatment of my elders.

But even more surprising, I became aware of a numb but certain shame for being part of a world that lets this kind of thing play out, for being part of a masculinity that tolerates and even idolizes this dangerous and violent culture, and consequently ruins young lives by the thousands.

I feel guilty for the hours spent on Grand Theft Auto, for the 2Pac and Biggie CDs, (shame for Eminem is a long-established thing), my copy of Scarface. Because the truth is, for kids from strong families and supportive communities, music, video games and movies don't really make a big difference. Its the kids without steady guidance that pay the price of our drugs-and-violence culture- entertainment for us, reality for them. As much as my late twenties have made clear the importance of being a good man, this movie showed me I hadn't even scratched the surface. Because this movie was unapologetically about manhood; about the things it drives us to and from, the ways it is broken and the ways it can be the solution. I want to say it's bigger than manhood, but it's not bigger than that, it's just additional; it applies to things beyond it. This movie may encompass the entirety of what it means to be a man in this world, in simplified, abstracted terms.

But the shame i felt is not the kind you wish you didn't feel - it's the kind you wish you had felt a long, long time ago, and that you are grateful to feel now.

I hope everyone, everywhere sees this movie- its a movie that reminds me of the power of films, and how important they are for our wide-flung world.