Gran Turino at School

February 18

12:00 p.m.
235 Nolte Center
Gran Torino, Perpetual Warriors and the Performance of Hmong Masculinity
Louisa Schein, Departments of Anthropology and
Women's and Gender Studies at Rutgers, New Brunswick campus


Professor Schein read a paper explaining how Hmong viewers justifiably feel ambivalent about the portrait of Hmong people in the new film Gran Turino. They "crave" the recognition, but they might also realize that on one level they are only the nameless, violent, uncivilized, 'foreigner' sidekicks to a tale that is really about Clint Eastwoods vigilante-turned-martyr figure.

One of the most interesting things to hear is that much of the Hmong dialogue is not subtitled, especially the lines of a crabby Hmong grandma who complains a lot about the "white devils." A theme throughout the talk was that you can give Hmong some visibility, but subtly work to mute them. I found the talk itself an unwitting example of this: Hmong scholar Va-Megn Thoj is the co-author of this paper, but he sat quietly in the corner of the room while Prof. Schein read the paper, and his name does not appear on any of the publicity materials for the talk. I'm not sure what to make of that, except perhaps that the Hmong are unfortunately both difficult to understand and easy to forget.