It’s been more than a decade since Bee Vang starred alongside Clint Eastwood in the 2008 film “Gran Torino.” But Vang is speaking out now about the film’s role in furthering discrimination.
Amid the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans across the country, Vang, 29, who played the lead role ofThao Lor, denounced the film’s repeated use of racial slurs — as well as the audience reaction to harmful stereotypes — in an opinion piece for NBC News published Wednesday. Directed by Eastwood, “Gran Torino” tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a racist Korean War veteran Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) and a Hmong teen (Vang). Hmong people are a Southeast Asian ethnic group, mainly coming from southern China, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
“At the time, there was a lot of discussion about whether the movie’s slurs were insensitive and gratuitous or simply ‘harmless…
