It tells the story about a man named Walt Kowalski, a cranky old retired Korean War veteran, who recently lost his wife. The movie focuses on the relationship Walt develops with his Hmong neighbours. Walt literary and figuratively saves the life of the boy next door, Thao. Walt helps Thao get his life back on track the right way. Thao has been forced to side with his cousin’s gang.
Walt often calls Thao "Toad." With no father in the family, he is expected to be the man of the house, but he lacks direction and initially does chores at the direction of his sister Sue. Thao is soon coerced into joining the Hmong gang by his gangster cousins. After Thao clumsily attempts to steal Walt's car as part of his forced gang initiation, he returns home instead of fleeing with the gang. After confessing the attempted crime to his family, Thao's mother and sister bring him to Walt to apologize and make amends to the community as Walt's servant.
Gran Torino is a good example to show a situation where acculturation occurs. Acculturation mentions the process of meeting between cultures and changes which result from such meetings (Wikipedia, 2011). Gran Torino shows how can people from different cultures understands each other and live harmoniously in the same village. According to the movie, Walt Kowalski is a retired Polish American and Korean War veteran (IMDb). He is a grumpy, unhappy an old man who cannot get along with either his kids or his neighbors.
He is clearly being short with her but responds that nothing has happened. Later he explains how he kept falling asleep on his way home. Linda wants Willy to get a job that he doesn’t have to travel, for his own health. The two sons Happy and Biff are in town. They come down to the kitchen and catch up talking, they remember the good ‘ol days when they were younger.
Walt and his buddies share racial stereotypes in their everyday vocabulary which are all older white men. This itself is a stereotype in the sense that many immigrants or members of different ethnicities view these figures in the way depicted in the film which is not true. Seen to live in the past and reminisce throwing racial terms out every other sentence, older Caucasian men do not only idealize the days where the vast majority of population was predominantly white. Living next door to the prejudice old man is Tao and his family, a model example of what society believes to be an Asian household and customs. Stereotyped by Mr. Kowalski from the beginning by
He never knew his father so he doesn’t have a good sense of his own identity, he makes poor decisions in raising his son’s by instilling a false sense of what it takes to be successful, and allows them to steal and cheat. Willy’s father left when he was a baby and he only has one memory of his dad, “All I remember is a man with a big beard, and I was in mamma’s lap, sitting around a fire, and some kind of high music” (Miller 1232). After his older brother Ben leaves shortly thereafter to search for their father, it is assumed that Willy doesn’t have a male figure in his life during his upbringing to teach him the things that a father would teach a son, such as morals, and a sense of values, possibly helping him form a sense of identity. Because of this Willy feels a tremendous sense of loss. Willy confesses his sense of loss over his father’s abandonment to Ben.
Neighbors -- actual residents of Dorchester -- grab their moments of immortality before the TV cameras. The disappearance of the adored kid has given rebirth -- so it appears -- to neighborhood solidarity. But heat does not lead to progress. So, Aunt Bea (Amy Madigan) hires a local PI, Patrick Kenzie, (Casey Affleck, the director’s younger brother.) The skinny but explosive man with a baby face and a large gun also grew up in the hood.
The narrator walks a distance considered lengthy even for adults. He is willing to push himself out of the comfort of his own world to go to an unknown city and join his brother. In contrast to the first story’s family, the family in “the Stone Boy” is more dysfunctional. After the death of their eldest son Eugie, the entire family becomes chaotic and slowly breaks apart. When Arnold is sent to the sheriff’s office, his uncle Andy was
Trey’s family is a single parent family with trey’s father being the only parent in the household. Doughboy’s and Ricky’s family is also a single parent family with the mother being the parent. Trey’s father is intelligent and teachers his son a strong sense of responsibility and values. Trey grows up to become soft-spoken young man with a strong sense of loyalty to family and friends, he is ambitious and intelligent. Doughboy and Ricky mother is very tough and high-spirited.
His father was very laid back and accomplished nothing in life and Okonkwo hated him for it. Okonkwo’s eldest son Nwoye is lazy and weak from an early age. Okonkwo’s fear of his father’s laziness rubbing off on his son Nwoye changes Okonkwo from hero to villain when he beats him to make himself more masculine. What he thinks is helping his family is actually causing pain. Okonkwo’s wives are often beaten for the simplest of things, sometimes even for not explaining to him where they have gone.