Clint Eastwood: “The political correctness era that we’re in is really not doing anyone any good”

Political correctness is “taking everyone and weakening society.”

In the film Gran Torino, Clint Eastwood played a cantankerous Korean War veteran that really didn’t care what people thought of him. During the film, his Korean neighbours, the local Catholic priest and various gang members were all given a verbal smackdown by Walt Kowalski.

To many people, the film stands out because Eastwood’s character is unashamedly un-PC and he’s happy to say the first thing that comes into his head. Truth be told, it’s unlike anything that you’ve seen before. With an 80% on Rotten Tomatoes and various award nominations, it’s clear that Gran Torino really resonated with people.

On that note, Eastwood was recently speaking with HeyYouGuys while promoting his new film,  The 15:17 to Paris.

During that interview, the four-time Oscar winner was asked about previous comments that he made regarding the world becoming too PC.

In May of last year, the director of Unforgiven was at the Cannes Film Festival where he was asked about the production of Dirty Harry. He said: “It was far-out at that time, so I brought it to [director] Don [Siegel], and he liked it. A lot of people thought it was politically incorrect. That was at the beginning of the era that we’re in now with political correctness. We are killing ourselves, we’ve lost our sense of humor. But I thought it was interesting and it was daring.”

During his most recent interview, the Hollywood icon elaborated on those comments.

He said: “I’m never cautious about what I say because, you know, I’ve been around a long time, what can they do? The political correctness era that we’re in is really not doing anyone any good. It’s taking everyone and weakening society. It doesn’t seem that people have to take themselves so serious. It seems like, I’m just lucky that I grew up in an era where we all lived in an area where everybody joked about everything. Nothing was politically incorrect because everything was always a joke with a sense of humour. People sometimes are losing that and taking themselves and everyone else seriously. I think they’re missing a lot and not enjoying the differences that we all have.”

Here’s the interview in full.

As for The 15:17 to Paris, Eastwood’s new film tells the real-life story of three men whose brave act turned them into heroes during a highspeed railway ride. The drama is in theaters from February 9.

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