Spike Lee And The Sympathetic Racist In Gran Torino

The film entitled Gran Torino defines many aspects of not only an iconic American muscle car but, a man who in current times has American non-traditional values. Walt Kowalski is a elderly decorated Korean war veteran who is living in a predominantly non white neighborhood. Struggling to recover from his wife suddenly passing away, Walt finds himself in a situation where he reluctantly befriends his next door neighbor who happens to be Hmong and also tried to steal his beloved Gran Torino. In this event, Walt soon finds out that he has more in common with his neighbors than his own family. In relation to Dan Flory’s theory in the article “Spike Lee and the Sympathetic Racist” the character of Walt Kowalski does not function as a “sympathetic racist” because the viewer cannot easily admire or relate with him due to his behavior and choice in verbal repugnancy to people of other races.

In the film Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee, Sal, an Italian pizzeria owner is seen to fall under the category of being a sympathetic racist as defined by Dan Flory as being “characters with whom mainstream audiences readily ally themselves but who embrace racist beliefs and commit racist acts”(68). Sal is a likable character in the film from the beginning, yet he commits subtle and blatant acts of racism in the film that would be considered to be abhorrent and highly disrespectful, yet the audience feels a sense of sympathy for him. On the other hand, in the film Gran Torino the character of Walt Kowalski is man who lives in constant feeling of disdain and flagrantly uses unabashed racial slurs throughout the film. Viewers of Gran Torino are at odds with Walt, along with trying to feel sympathy or empathy for him in regards to the viewer's own viewpoints of race and watching hostile attributions Walt shows to everyone in the