Why do people like the roles Clint Eastwood plays?

R

rebbons

Most so called "Badasses" in movies are men that treat people like trash, tempt people to get aggressive by staring them down and also treating them like their nothing because in their mind, everyone must earn respect in order to be respected so these badasses usually do a reverse psychology trick on them by not giving the leader respect at the beginning, causing the leader to become aggressive.

For example: It's great to meet you finally, I've heard such great things about you

*The other man turns his cheek, pulls out a cigar, and smokes it very calmly

"I don't shake hands" - He replied.

By the so called "Badass" doing that technique, he can cause the person in leadership to possibly become aggressive through words, and then the badass will use that opportune moment to get control from the people around him through his calm manner. Clint Eastwood and John Wayne usually do have manners like this so how can you justify that these mannerisms are good natured? Are they simply justified because the characters Clint Eastwood plays can kick ass?

Most of Clint Eastwood's movie roles generally treat women with disrespect, but in the end, no matter how whatever role Clint Eastwood played treated her, he gets that girl. If you're a woman, this should be a slap in the face to you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfnFF8VVbrw

Next, why would you look up to someone like Clint Eastwood if he primarily treats you like you're under him? Because he can kick ass? Does that give him the entitlement to treat you like shit? Please try and put yourselves in the roles around him and see if you would truly respect a role that Clint Eastwood has played in his old westerner.

I understand that his roles are fictional, and that in real life he seems like a very nice guy, but what makes his roles so respectable? I find his roles to be generally to be just of a drunk, nobody that wonders into some town, assumes control, barely talks, kicks ass, treats women like loud mouths and jerks, barely shows anyone any respect aside from himself, and then the town ends up loving him. I would probably be the man who shoots a role Clint Eastwood plays if his role actually existed.

Now from reading this, what can you justify about Clint Eastwood's roles respectable?

And I think a discussion like this is really a question as to why we love badasses so much when the majority of them are jerks? Lol Why do most people you think?
 
No one really likes his characters; his characters are anti-heroes. What people find attractive about his characters is that those characters oppose the bad guys on the bad guys own terms - he ignores the civilized rules and throws the contempt of the bad guys for civilized behavior back into their faces by using the bad guys own tactics against them.

"You can't shoot me; you're one of the good guys. You have to read me my rights and bring me in."

"No, I don't."

BANG!!!

What audiences like is that the bad guys (and, as the audience, we know that they truly are bad guys who otherwise will never pay the price for their evil ways) get what they deserve.
 
EDIT: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Clint has played many different roles, that is one movie. He's played cops, cowboys, disc jockeys, and crusty old men. He saved a young girl from being raped in Pale Rider, he went after a gang that was attacking a family in Grand Torino, and he went after some guys that had nearly murdered a woman in Unforgiven. That scene from High Plains Drifter was probably to show the brutality and harsh conditions of people as well as disrespect and cruel treatment of women during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Why would Clint be rude? Because he is cynical. Because he had a difficult life. In many of his films, there is redemption though. He saved a town from a group of evil men in Pale Rider, he helped a family in Grand Torino, he let a women box in Million Dollar Baby, he saved lives in Dirty Harry, and stopped crime and injustice in many westerns. In the beginning of Grand Torino, Clint hates everyone. He is a racist. He is cynical. He is hateful. But that changes as the film progresses, same with his other films. In other films, he is a villain. Like Alcove said, he is an anti-hero. He stays the same way he was. It shows that he will stay corrupted... he will stay the way he is.
 
Last edited:
I like the roles that Eastwood plays because they are varied;
some are strong and mean, many are strong and fair, some
are “badass”, some are flawed, several are gruff exteriors
hiding a good heart, some are just plain nice guys. I look at
his body of work and I do not see what you see. Eastwoods
roles are quite varied. I get the impression you are narrowing
down his roles to maybe 8 or 9 westerns and the dirty Harry films.

Take a deeper look. He has acted in over 40 movies. Are you
sure that in most of them women are treated with disrespect?

rebbons said:
Please try and put yourselves in the roles around him and see if you would truly respect a role that Clint Eastwood has played in his old westerner.
Click to expand...
Okay, so you are limiting your comments to his old westerns.
“The Beguiled” - McBurney genuinely tries to make amends
after he scares the women who help him but is stopped. “Two
Mules For Sister Sara” - Hogan stops a rape in the beginning
of the story. She lies to him and he still helps her. “Paint Your
Wagon” - Pardner treats Elizabeth with respect throughout the
story. The women are rather minor characters in “Hang ‘em
High” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales” and I do not recall his
characters treating either of them with disrespect.
rebbons said:
Now from reading this, what can you justify about Clint Eastwood's roles respectable?
Click to expand...
I wish I had the time to go through a list and tell you what
makes so many of his roles respectable; Walt Coogan goes
to great lengths to do the job he is hired to do; return a
murderer to justice. Dave Garver protects the people around
him from the crazy, violent Evelyn. Billy McCory is deeply loyal
to his friends despite overwhelming odds. Preacher makes
personal sacrifices to help a widow and her daughter fight off
a corrupt Marshal and a big mining company.

I could go on. There are many respectable roles Eastwood
has played.
 
rebbons said:
Next, why would you look up to someone like Clint Eastwood if he primarily treats you like you're under him? Because he can kick ass? Does that give him the entitlement to treat you like shit?
Click to expand...
How about a few examples? What films are you talking about? In
what films does Eastwoods character treat a good person like shit?
His characters treat the bad guys like shit.

I generally look up to characters who kick the ass of the bad guys.
Don't you?
 
I don't understand why people think certain actors play the same character in every movie. Adam Sandler, Jim Carrey, Billy Bob Thornton, Will Ferrell, Bruce Willis... I've heard this accusation for all of these and the list goes on and on. The thing is, their roles are always very different, and the only similarities lie in the actors themselves putting some of their own traits into their characters.

Seriously, the only person I can think of that played the same guy over and over again, with a different name is Pauly Shore, and he gave that up a long time ago.
 
And I think a discussion like this is really a question as to why we love badasses so much when the majority of them are jerks? Lol Why do most people you think?
Click to expand...

There's a difference between loving a badass and enjoying watching the performance. They can be quite interested as characters to watch. A lot more interesting than almost everyone else. In real life, it's a completely different matter.
 
"For a Few Dollars More" was the first English speaking movie I remember watching. I remember the friend whose house I watched it in, and I was quite young. I could read English, but I still could not fully understand English spoken from the TV (I grew up in Bangladesh). For this movie it didn't matter, because Eastwood hardly ever said anything, and I understood what was going on in a movie completely, for the first time.

It was the coolest thing. I went home, started rolling around my toy pistol in my finger all day. I saved money and bought a holster for it. My friend got the other Sergio Leone Eastwood movies and we watched them. We understood everything, and we started playing with our toy guns.

I loved Eastwood, and I was not even familiar with the Dirty Harry movies, until I actually came to the US. I probably still haven't seen them all. Edit: "Where Eagles Dare" was probably the only other Eastwood movie I had seen other than the Leone films. But in those movies, there was some sort of confidence he exuded, that made him so awesome. He was unflappable, under whatever circumstance.

He was absolutely likeable, and I agree with Alcove, that whatever he did to the bad guys, however he did it, seemed like deserved punishment. He was only killing people trying to kill him.

In the US, everybody talks about John Wayne, so I watched a few John Wayne movies to figure out what it was all about. I still don't get it. To me Eastwood is it. His body language, is just pure confidence. Any young boy anywhere will recognize it, whatever language he speaks. I don't know about the treating women with disrespect part. I was too young to understand social implications, but I thought at the time that it would be cool to be like him.

Also, in real life, Eastwood is not a particularly nice man, when it comes to the women in his life. He has treated some of them very poorly, and made one of them get two abortions (according to a book not looked upon favorably by Hollywood "The good, the bad, and the very ugly"). I don't know much more about him. But I have a fondness for him, because I associate him with English Language movies, a few of the memories of the neighborhood I grew up in, and my toy gun, that lasted me forever.
 
Last edited:
trueindie said:
In the US, everybody talks about John Wayne, so I watched a few John Wayne movies to figure out what it was all about. I still don't get it.
Click to expand...

John Wayne is (sort of) Clint Eastwood in the 1930'a and '40's restrained by the Hollywood code of the era. Try one of his very early films like "Stagecoach." His WWII films are great American propaganda of the day. "The Shootist," one of his last films, is pretty good, and "True Grit" isn't too bad either.
 
I guess that's the generational gap. I grew up on John Wayne - and Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Paul Muni, George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, etc. Eastwood is the second generation heir of these original movie tough guys.

When they played the bad guy, they had to lose; when they played the good guy, they could (almost) never break the rules - the Hollywood code of the era required it.


I wonder... If we compared "favorite films" lists how many pre-1960's films would be on the list of all you youngsters? We love - and understand and identify with - the films we grew up with.
 
Alcove Audio said:
I guess that's the generational gap.
Click to expand...
I'm sure that has a lot to do with it. But in some cases its just "taste".
My longest standing friend (3 years younger than me) is a huge Wayne
fan and I appreciate him by am not a fan. "The Searchers", "The Man
Who Shot Liberty Valance" and "Hellfighters" being the only Wayne
films I like. I'm an Eastwood fan all the way. My Dad (Eastwoods age)
is an Eastwood fan.

So, rebbons, what say you?
 
Alcove Audio said:
I guess that's the generational gap. I grew up on John Wayne - and Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Paul Muni, George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, etc. Eastwood is the second generation heir of these original movie tough guys.
Click to expand...

Yep. Although I do enjoy some/most Bogart/Cagney films.

When they played the bad guy, they had to lose; when they played the good guy, they could (almost) never break the rules - the Hollywood code of the era required it.
Click to expand...

That's probably it :(

I wonder... If we compared "favorite films" lists how many pre-1960's films would be on the list of all you youngsters? We love - and understand and identify with - the films we grew up with.
Click to expand...

Huh. Interesting idea.

Hunger
The Lives of Others
Do the Right Thing
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Magnolia
Grand Torino
The Master
Half Nelson
Lost in Translation
Somewhere
Anatomy of a Murder
Sunset Blvd.
Leon: The Professional
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
The Maltese Flacon
The Deer Hunter
The Lady Vanishes
Sling Blade
Apocalypse Now
Raging Bull
Taxi Driver
Rope
Moonrise Kingdom
Rushmore
The Royal Tennebaums
The Shawshank Redemption
Cache
American Beauty
Vertigo
Being John Malkovich
21 Grams
The Devil's Backbone
Pan's Labyrinth
Badlands
Strangers on a Train
There Will be Blood
No Country for Old Men
Midnight in Paris
Tokyo Story
Annie Hall
American History X
Casablanca
Ben X
12 Angry Men
The Great Dictator
Rashomon
12 Monkeys
Brazil
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The Exterminating Angel
The Godfather
Rear Window
Letters From Iwo Jima
A Perfect World
 
Last edited:
I love Eastwood's roles, especially westerns. He took it to new heights that John Wayne did not. Look at his bounty hunter character in For A Few Dollars More. He is forced to shoot everyone of his men he is bringing in for a reward, and just rides away with a wagon piled up with dead bodies. You won't get that by watching Dog, The Bounty Hunter.
 
I like him very much as a director also, although so many fellow filmmakers seem to disparage his directing abilities. I thought "Letters from Iwo Jima" was absolutely brilliant. Every war film is from the point of view of the victor. A story may sympathize with a situation of the vanquished, but I can't think of another film that portrays the enemy in this light. The enemy too is scared. They too, hurt, and bleed, and mourn their dead, and perform feats of incredible heroism. To me the best moment was watching scared Japanese soldiers watch scared American soldiers as they landed. It was a phenomenal scene. Just unbelievable.

Some really good films on your list there chimp.
 
trueindie said:
A story may sympathize with a situation of the vanquished, but I can't think of another film that portrays the enemy in this light. The enemy too is scared. They too, hurt, and bleed, and mourn their dead, and perform feats of incredible heroism.
Click to expand...

Not to divert the thread, but that is the irony of war; it brings out the best (and worst) on those on both sides who must fight at the behest of their political masters. Eastwood masterfully points this out in "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima."
 
Most of Clint Eastwood's movie roles generally treat women with disrespect
Click to expand...

I disagree. He is credited as having acted in 67 films, I think you would struggle to find 20 to back up your point.

You have to remember to look at films in the context of the times they were made and the audience they were for; the 1960's were a lot different to today. Why did people like Clint Eastwoods 'badass western persona' so much? Perhaps, as Alcove suggested, because John Wayne was never allowed to kick @$$ and treat women in quite the same way, so we were seeing something new.

The only real 'bad' good-guy I can think of John Wayne playing, was his character in 'The Searchers', but even he was brave and determined, and seemed to come good at the end by saving the girl. I'm sure someone could tell me if there were others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfnFF8VVbrw
Click to expand...

High Plains Drifter is a very interesting movie, a really complex character I think, and I don't think you can even lump him in with the man with no name from the dollars trilogy (who besides accidently punching a woman in the face, isn't all that disrespectful, is he, just a loner?) . High Plains Drifter is something else. The whole film is more like
a ghost story than a western
and maybe his character has reason to be disrespectful.

As for Dirty Harry, he was disrespectful to everyone, not just women. We liked him because he didn't let bureaucracy stand in the way of justice, and because he gives the real bad guys what they deserve.

What films are you referring to specifically, and what scenes in particular?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top