Over at Esquire there’s an interview with Clint Eastwood, and I just had to post some excerpts here. This has been a rough year for Hollywood in regards to the passing away of some awesome actors and directors from an earlier era. An era before political correctness and sensitivity training ruled the day.
We’ve lost the likes of old greats like Roy Scheider, Charlton Heston, Paul Newman and Sydney Pollack (among many others). And I’m already dreading the day we lose Clint Eastwood.
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In my brief and utterly inadequate eulogy of Roy Scheider, I took some heat for saying:
Roy Scheider was one of a now dwindling number of “man’s man” actors. Tough guys who drank whiskey, smoked cigarettes, had craggy facial features and wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with a metrosexual.
To me, the few comments I received about that exemplified exactly the sort of thing Clint Eastwood said in a recent interview. I’m going to break my rule of no profanity on the site so that his comments come across as he intended. Clint is 78 years old now (and still looks like he could kick anybody’s ass), and he had a few things to say about society, or people in general today:
“My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.”
“We live in more of a pussy generation now, where everybody’s become used to saying, “Well, how do we handle it psychologically?” In those days, you just punched the bully back and duked it out. Even if the guy was older and could push you around, at least you were respected for fighting back, and you’d be left alone from then on.”
“I don’t know if I can tell you exactly when the pussy generation started. Maybe when people started asking about the meaning of life.”
Amen, Clint. Amen.
Of course in today’s online world, people are “tough” behind their little keyboards - saying things to people who disagree with them that are so vile and reprehensible that they defy description. Of course this is done anonymously, behind some clever nickname and perhaps a fake email address.
But “real world” toughness? God forbid there’s a problem with someone’s iPod or they hit a “no cell reception” zone - it’s the end of the world. Oh, and as far as saying something vile to someone’s face? Highly doubtful - although they might say “yeah, I’d say it to your face!” Again, online and anonymously. 
God forbid the U.S. encounters any real hardship on a broad scale - I think most of us would fold like a house of cards.
Clint Eastwood directed and will star in Gran Torino, opening on January 9th - and you can bet your ass I’ll be seeing it (and reviewing it here).
Thanks to Neil at FilmSchoolRejects for finding this little gem.
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31 Comments
Gran Torino opened in select theaters and I was fortunate enough to see it. What a great flick, he represents everything America used to be. Bravo Clint.
My daughter is seven. She knows were to hit a boy who is bullying her.
She doesn’t know why, but she knows it’ll work because daddy said so and because mommy has used it to great effectiveness in the past.
J/K
INK, if that was true, you probably wouldn’t even have your daughter now, lol.
@Ken
lol. Over my years I have gotten quite a few mental kicks to the groin … luckily not from my wife though.
Okay, I have to say, when a child can act up and do whatever they want and simply threaten their parent with child welfare that we’ve become a p***y generation, I use the asterisks because I dont know if the site will let me comment without them, Read a news article about a 12 year boy fatally shooting his mother over doing his CHORES, when children grow up with no concience and no realization of right and wrong then we are living in the very Generation Clint implies… I got spanked, or I got smacked when I did wrong as a child and when that happened I knew I had done wrong, Children nowadays kill their parents because they have no perception of right and wrong.
Clint is right about pretty much everything he had to say, and as for what Cali said you dont have to beat your child unconcious or black and blue to punish them, in my day you got your @$$ tanned and you got sent to your room, no TV no video games no toys no nothing, and it worked, it cleaned up my attitude AND I have a very healthy relationship with my parents…
I’m reminded of a time when I was younger, probably 14 or 15, and I was being a jerk to my Mom and pushed her beyond her limits, and she smacked me, right across the face, and then she started crying. Boy I’ll tell you the sting from her hand didnt hurt nearly as bad as seeing how much I hurt her by having to do that, I think all children should get a dose of that.
The thing is also parents need to show that they are parents. Now-a-days it seems like people have kids, but they continue to live like they don’t. Then when they try to punish their kids, their kids don’t care because they don’t have that connection with them. Both parents working, the kids being raised in day-care or through schools, so they see their peers and teachers more than they see their parents, I don’t think that’s healthy either. It’s true, you don’t need to actually physically punish your children, I did, but it doesn’t have to be that way. I think I did good not really to avoid the lashings I knew would follow, but because I didn’t want to let down my parents. And I think if kids don’t care what their parents think, they don’t care about letting them down.
I went to one of these highschools in a “bad” neighborhood. It’s weird, you have most of the students that don’t care about their education, they vandalize school property, they fail every class, they don’t even make an attempt to complete the work. Then you have the kids that actually care. Same school, same teachers, different attitudes. Some politicians want to make it seem like to make schools better, they simply need more money. Well, everytime our school spent money on new equipment, fixing damages, etc. the kids that don’t care just destroys it all anyhow. The problem cannot be fixed by throwing our tax dollars at the school, student grades will never improve until the students choose to improve them. The best teacher in the world cannot force a student to care about his/her grades. The problem is with the parenting.
The kids who performed well had parents that pressured them into doing well in school. The ones that didn’t, doesn’t. That’s why different students in the same school with the same funding and the same teachers had very different results.
The government doesn’t put enough emphasis in this and acts like they can simply throw some money at the schools and their hands are clean. When some politicians try to actually raise standards in schools, they are criticized for not giving enough money to them. I think this parenting/education attitude of the people now-a-days is partially responsible for this thing Mr. Eastwood is referring to.
He should probably look at people who live outside of large metropolitan centers, before making such broad statements.
WOW!!! Is the hypocrisy completely lost on the author of this article. Its almost ironic, ranting about this generation being a bunch of pansies hiding behind keyboards (what did you use to type this website)! As for Eastwood, what a typical angry old man. We became a generation of pansies when we questioned the meaning of life? What is religion then? Our generation has more atheists then any other. Sorry old boys but these are new times, we respect women, elect black presidents, and know that fighting isn’t always the right answer. If you can’t evolve then you’ll just fizzle out.
@Michael
Hypocrisy? Really? I was referring to the anonymity of the internet, and if you look at the top of the page you’ll see I provide my full name instead of some “handle” like “moviedude.”
“and know that fighting isn’t always the right answer. If you can’t evolve then you’ll just fizzle out.”
Funny how you reference evolution but don’t seem to have a grasp of “survival of the fittest.” You’re right, sometimes you don’t have to fight - but quite often you do. Try being a woman and reasoning with a rapist or reasoning with the guy who breaks into your home in the middle of the night.
I will give you props however for using your real name and an actual email address to post your comment.
Vic
We “elect black presidents” because it makes us feel better about ourselves like we’re being progressive. I don’t believe in voting for someone because of their race. I vote for people based on their qualifications. I’m Chinese, and if a Chinese candidate has a good chance of winning, but is some little pansy politician that gives excuses for criminals, want to make it illegal for people to defend themselves, and other STUPID things, I won’t vote for him, I can care less if he’s “my kind.”
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