GRAN TORINO

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and traditions were accepted by all and everyone. However, as in the last hundred years waves of immigrants who are dominated by people of color who come from Asia, Africa or South America, become more frequent, more new custom, traditions and values are being brought to these, erly white and mono-racial countries. As a result the white population is shrinking due to its age demographic as it is most commonly made up of people who are aged 60 or older, while the population that consists of people of Asian, South American or African decent who are in their mid 20s and therefore bound to found families of their own is on the rise. This change in demographics contributes to a feeling which has, especially in recent years become more popular among white citizens, of being foreign in a country that they have lived in for their whole life and which has now shifted entirely. Following, many feel like they do not belong anywhere any more. Consequently, they try to protect themselves and solve their lack of belonging by making ,,others" who look different or have a different ethnic background other than white feel like they do not belong by creating some sort of ,,us" and ,,them" scheme. The excerpt from the novel ,,Americanah" which was written by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie deals with the story of a young Nigerian woman who has moved to the US and is now especially due to the fact that she has a white boyfriend, confronted with prejudices and race relations who are closely connected to Americas white population who is discriminating against and making people of color feel less than they really are. The Western world which the novel deals with is the US during the time Obama was running for president for the first time. Ifemelu, the Nigerian protagonist, thereby stands as a person of color, for an immigrant who seems to be in the whites ANALYSIS populations opinion different from themselves and is therefore by some regarded as a threat to their country and home. This is why Ifemelu is constantly being confronted with situations that are supposed make her feel like she des not belong to America or her boyfriend who is as a partner of hers regarded as a loss to the white populations „tribe". These sort of situations are most commonly made up of white girls who look at Ifemelu in a surprised and judging way when finding out about her being Curts girlfriend. This behavior makes her feel different and as if she was part of some kind of otherness that a great majority of people is afraid of even if they are afraid to commit to this sort of feeling as they pathetically try to grasp onto their world view that conveys them a positive light of the country they were born in and does not allow them to see that in reality everyone and everything who looks different from the old ancient way is not accepted and lastly pushed away. This inner conflict between accepting the reality and facing their own fears and pretending that everything is okay and very good and on its way to become better in some sort of format poses the identity crisis of the western world which the novel deals with. The movie Gran Torino, on the other hand, takes place in a neighborhood in Detroit which has undergone a lot of change since the downfall of the automobile industry. More and more white blue collar workers have left the area leaving it to a growing population of Asian, Black and Hispanic immigrants who eventually become the new inhabitants of the neighborhood. Walt, the protagonist of the movie, remains one of few white residents who continue to live in the now multiracial community which is being terrorized by gangs who claim victims every single day. Walt undergoes an identity crisis as well which can be seen as a result out of the new customs and traditions which are being brought to the neighborhood by for example the Hmong people and community which Thao and Sues family, who lives in the neighboring house, belongs to. The Hmong culture seems very different, unfamiliar and therefore unnatural to Walt who represents the ideal Western masculine image of a physical strong, self-reliant and emotional reticent man. Walts perception of the Hmong culture being unnatural can be seen in his attitude and reaction to observing his Hmong neighbors performing a baptism ceremony as he calls it barbaric. As a consequence concerning his feeling towards the Hmong culture Walt refuses to deal or talk with his neighbors. Following, he, for example, refuses to help Thao out by giving him his jumper cable. Moreover, Walt who thinks in boxes of black and white and in a ,,us" and ,,them" scheme thinks that the otherness that the Hmong people represent in his opinion need to be fought off. The reason for this sort of thinking lays within his past in the military and the time that he has spend as an American soldier in the Korean War. During the war good and evil have always been clearly defined by the army for the US American soldiers. In the name of the US the soldiers were fighting to liberate the world by defeating evil, different communism and by defending their comrades. However, Walts identity crisis does not only issue from his PTSD that he is still suffering from but also from a lack of belonging which is a result out of the change in demographics that has happened in his neighborhood in recent times. Walt has to face these changes and the lacking feeling of belonging every single day even at his doctors office when he realizes that he is not only the only white person in the waiting area but also when the nurse cannot help it but to pronounce his name wrongly. Walts feeling of not belonging to the neighborhood is also being supported by the setting since Walt who likes to fix things and keep everything clean, tidy and nice, is the only one whose house does not seem to fall apart within the ANALYSIS neighborhood and who owns a Gran Torino which is an expensive and shiny car that stands for the old American core values of performance, hard work and therefore for the American dream. Besides, his ever changing neighborhood, Walts identity crisis is being enforced by the aging process that he is currently going through and which has caused him not only the loss of the love of his life but also the loss of a good health as he is suffering from a terminal illness which is weakening him physically and which is subsequently contradictory to his own values of physical strength and hardness. Walts reaction to his identity crisis comes in the format of him trying to follow his own day to day routine which is an attempt of him trying to hold his life together when really everything around him seems to have changed drastically. In conclusion, you could say that the Western World is facing an identity crisis which can be observed in many different ways. One of them, which is being portrayed by the novel ,,Americanah" is that the white population is trying to keep together by alienating everyone else. Another way can be observed within the movie Gran Torino as Walt is initially refusing to come in any sort of contact with his Hmong neighbors and constantly, even at the end of the movie, trying to implement American values in Thao and Sue and therefore to make them assimilate to the country they live in. This sort of behavior can very clearly be seen by Walts mentoring strategies that he uses to transform Thao into a „man" as defined by Western ideas. Walt thereby teaches Thao how to talk aggressively, how to rely on himself by using tools and fix things in his home without calling a service and how to be self-confident by encouraging him to ask his crush out on a date. At the end it is possible to say that the identity crisis the western world is facing due to the changing demographics within its countries can easily be overcome by accepting the otherness" the new fellow citizens seem to pose and by implementing it a bit into ones day to day life and by trying to build relationships based on common values and principles. Walt who does just that, at least partly, can at the end, thanks to his fatherly relationship to Thao and Sue whose starting point poses Sue showing him that they have common perceptions concerning family and a persons value that is connected with the effectiveness of the persons actions, be at peace and therefore solve his inner conflict on where he belongs to and how much he is worth, before he dies. ANALYSIS 3