Clint Eastwood

You are currently browsing articles tagged Clint Eastwood.

Thursday RNC

The Esquire interview Michael Hainey did with Clint Eastwood (and his son Scott) is getting a lot of play, but it’s awful.

The Q&A is an example of dereliction of duty by the inquisitor, in much the same way that Maureen Dowd failed miserably in her early-campaign exchange with Donald Trump, treating him like a slightly naughty uncle, allowing him free reign to use the world greatest news organization to portray himself as something other than a dangerous bigot. Dowd seem to think it was a laugh riot at the time, though the campaign has since proved to be to serious as sin and literally riotous at times. 

Trying to get a subject to talk himself into a corner usually isn’t a good gambit unless you’re willing to ask the tough questions once his nose hits the wall. If you accept the assignment and the conversation crosses into politics or race or any important matter, you best offer more than a nodding head and a blank slate for any opinion offered.

When Eastwood tells Hainey people troubled by racism (non-white folks, mostly) should “just get the fuck over it,” the interviewer should have pointed out to him that those same protesters might tell him to get over his dismay with their struggle for civil rights, a matter as grave as can be given our history of legal double standards based on skin color. It also would have been wonderful if the writer had pointed out to the actor-director that the reason many people call Trump a racist is because his pronouncements and policy proposals are often explicitly racist. That should have been the minimum expected of the interview, but, unfortunately, the empty chair at the 2012 RNC offered more pushback.

An excerpt:

Esquire:

Your characters have become touchstones in the culture, whether it’s Reagan invoking “Make my day” or now Trump … I swear he’s even practiced your scowl.

Clint Eastwood:

Maybe. But he’s onto something, because secretly everybody’s getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That’s the kiss-ass generation we’re in right now. We’re really in a pussy generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist. And then when I did Gran Torino, even my associate said, “This is a really good script, but it’s politically incorrect.” And I said, “Good. Let me read it tonight.” The next morning, I came in and I threw it on his desk and I said, “We’re starting this immediately.”

Esquire:

What is the “pussy generation”?

Clint Eastwood:

All these people that say, “Oh, you can’t do that, and you can’t do this, and you can’t say that.” I guess it’s just the times.

Esquire:

What do you think Trump is onto?

Clint Eastwood:

What Trump is onto is he’s just saying what’s on his mind. And sometimes it’s not so good. And sometimes it’s … I mean, I can understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t always agree with it.

Esquire:

So you’re not endorsing him?

Clint Eastwood:

I haven’t endorsed anybody. I haven’t talked to Trump. I haven’t talked to anybody. You know, he’s a racist now because he’s talked about this judge. And yeah, it’s a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He’s said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody’s going, “Oh, well, that’s racist,” and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just fucking get over it. It’s a sad time in history.•

Tags: ,

Mohammed Ali

Muhammad Ali and Clint Eastwood hitting the speed bag for David Frost in 1970. Ali, who was in the midst of his Vietnam Era walkabout, was correct in saying that athletes from earlier periods weren’t as good as the ones of his generation, which wasn’t likely the conventional wisdom at the time.

Tags: , ,

By the way: Merv Griffin, who was a meditator, was taught TM by his frequent tennis partner Clint Eastwood. So he told Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in 1975.

Tags: , ,

Clint Eastwood: Help me find my shoes, sonny.

I’ll say nothing else except that, yes, Clint, Jon Voight is a great man.

Tags: ,

It’s funny that some conservatives are upset about Chrysler’s “Halftime in America” Super Bowl ad, the best commercial of the night. Clint Eastwood, a Herman Cain-loving conservative himself, ambles around all Dirty Harry-ish in the spot, extolling the reversal of fortune that the U.S. auto industry has enjoyed, promising that America is headed back to greatness, and seemingly threatening to murder other countries with his bare hands. I suppose some right-wingers see it as tacit support of Obama.

But it is completely tacit. The commercial conveniently doesn’t mention that without the intervention of the government, the Detroit recovery would likely have never occurred. Those jobs probably would have been gone for good if people like the politicans Clint supports had gotten their way. Sometimes big government is good and sometimes it is not, and anyone who doesn’t realize that we need to figure out these things on a case-by-case basis is too ideological for their own good–and America’s.

Tags:

Clint Eastwood interviewed in 1974 in New Orleans for Canadian TV. Eastwood has, of course, usurped much of his own violent, macho image in late-career work, but he remains a staunch conservative politically, recently extolling the virtues of Herman Cain.

Tags: