salvation and aging white men: Gran Torino and The Wrestler

Last night we saw Gran Torino, and last weekend, we saw The Wrestler. Seeing both movies put me in mind of something I read back when I did my Women's Studies final project on feminism and film. According to one feminist critic, the late 1970s began to see a shift in masculinity in a post-Vietnam US context (see the aging WWII generation and the stars of the 1950s), and the 1980s and Reagan saw a re-enforcement and re-writing of masculinity - in international politics as well as film (see the Rambo films as exhibit A). I look at our context now: Our sense of ourselves as a nation has shifted with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our economic system may be reminding us of the 1970s downturn as well. I don't know much about the Carter administration, so I can't say much about the comparisons with Carter & Obama. And then I see the two white men, aging, in these films. For these two men, the world is changing rapidly, and something keeps them stuck. I saw both title characters struggling with the burdens of their past and the losses associated with aging and the specter of irrelevance.

[Here I may give away a few points about the films, just so you know]
In Gran Torino, I was noticed by the metaphor of Thao locked in a basement, and Sue unlocking the door. The person with the key represented literally the same role that she played metaphorically for Mr. Kowalski. In The Wrestler, I see a similar interplay, with Cassidy, who represented the possibility of unlocking the cage that kept Randy locked in his performance persona. In both cases, these women represented parallel processes for the main characters: Sue, as the translator between old and new worlds - and Cassidy in the tension between her performance on the job and her private life. I think there are lessons for us as the audience to learn about where to turn as we seek answers about how to live in a changing world.
I think there's a lot to be mined in these two movies (and also in Brokeback Mountain, which I insist is not a movie about homosexuality, but a movie about men and intimate friendship - I honestly don't think Heath Ledger's character was gay, so much as just lonely and vulnerable, but anyway...). I think there's a lot to be mined about the structures of masculinity that keep men isolated and at a loss when confronted with their own vulnerability. I think it works both ways - by demonstrating how some aspects of masculinity increase isolation, but at the same time how these characters can maintain their manhood while also admitting vulnerability and relaxing some of their rigidity in relationships with others.

I'm hoping that even if there's not a lot of explicit talk about this stuff, films can still seep into our collective imaginations and behaviors. I think it's an interesting time (economically, politically, culturally) to see the shifting shape of white manhood (and to some extent, all manhood) in the US. This may be a little disjointed, because I'm still mulling it over.

And P.S. - My viewing of Gran Torino was influenced by the presence of two obnoxious white college-age [likely drunk] men who sat in the back of the theater and made homophobic & sexist comments and who cheered at Mr. Kowalski's racist comments. They missed what I think is the larger point of the film - and to me, represent the flipside, what the 80s became in some senses. Also, I thought that toward the end of the film, the reference to crucifixion was annoying and tired as a metaphor. Also, the depiction of the young priest just out of seminary was pretty accurate. Those of us in seminary ought to take some valuable lessons about our levels of (im)maturity in religious leadership.