Lang: The Real Problem With ‘American Sniper’
[su_right_ad]Nico Lang at The Daily Dot focuses on what’s been missing from the criticism of Clint Eastwood’s movie. At it reflects the racism that Chris Kyle was know for.
…the real-life Kyle was anything but tortured and morally conflicted. The Guardian’s Lindy West (also a contributor at the Daily Dot) reminds us that Kyle was “a racist who took pleasure in dehumanizing and killing brown people.” Kyle’s only regret was that he didn’t kill more…
…the movie so narrowly zeroes in on Chris Kyle as a character that it forgets to take even a basic stance on the morality of what he’s doing—and not a single other person in the film comes across as a flesh-and-blood human…
At best, this portrayal of the Iraqi people is lazy, and at worst, it’s racist and outright dangerous. “Every single Iraqi in the film is presumed guilty, and thus, deserving of the twisted justice Kyle is more than willing to dish out, over and again,” write Khaled A. Beydoun and Abed Ayoub in Al-Jazeera. Beydoun and Ayoub argue that American Sniper portrays all Arabs as the same: “unyieldingly wretched, menacing, and bent on the destruction of everything pure and civilized.”
fancypants February 5th, 2015 at 3:13 pm
…the movie so narrowly zeroes in on Chris Kyle as a character that it forgets to take even a basic stance on the morality of what he’s doing—and not a single other person in the film comes across as a flesh-and-blood human…
————————————————
if you saw the movie ? there doesn’t seem to be anyone worth their paycheck except kyle. Maybe that’s the problem…
ExPFCWintergreen February 5th, 2015 at 4:05 pm
The other characters are pretty cartoon-like, that’s true. Which is one of the things that surprised me when I was seeing an Oscar nominee. The dialog is awful, too.
fancypants February 5th, 2015 at 4:10 pm
I found it hilarious when kyle was told in the movie ” with you out there they feel invincible ” as if no other sniper could do his job.
At that point it was time to throw your soda and pop corn at the movie screen and im sure its been done
ExPFCWintergreen February 5th, 2015 at 4:13 pm
My giggle-snort moment was when Kyle is visiting his wounded buddy (who later dies) at the hospital: “They’ll pay for what they did to you.” Randolph Scott said it better. About a thousand times in every service picture Paramount ever released.
fancypants February 6th, 2015 at 6:13 pm
yea I remember that scene Ironically kyle didn’t remember saving the dude he met in the automotive shop who was telling his kid what a hero he was. funny how main characters have selective memories.
golfnutz1935 February 7th, 2015 at 11:32 am
“Selective memories” is an indigenous characteristic of the human psyche. You seem to be implying that there is some nefarious connotation to it when a person cannot recall one of thousands and thousands of ‘events’ that occur in their lives.
fancypants February 7th, 2015 at 8:55 pm
Your right
it does bother me when someone makes a movie about himself then points out he has selective memories about what took place . I never seen a war flick so low budget ( in content ) for a guy who is supposed to be a national hero.
golfnutz1935 February 7th, 2015 at 11:29 am
If anyone in any audience did as you say with their popcorn and soda, it would have been splashed all over the media for a week. When we went to see the movie, the entire audience stood up at the end, clapping and cheering. They weren’t celebrating killing. They were celebrating a young man who did his military job exceedingly well, saving countless U.S. soldiers lives. When he killed Mustafa, the terrorists’ top sniper, the act saved more American lives. If you oppose what Chris Kyle did, then you must be FOR the enemy’s goal to take out as many U.S. soldiers lives as possible. If you are against Kyle, then you must be against ALL U.S. military snipers. You must also be also be against ANY U.S. soldiers being trained as snipers. You don’t (logically) get to pick and choose which you support and which you don’t.
fancypants February 7th, 2015 at 9:01 pm
you also shouldn’t make a war flick without giving credit to those around you ( by name and rank ) its disrespectful to your fellow soldiers who are fighting for the same cause but what would YOU know about duty and honor ?? your all for a one man band who takes all the credit.
or should I say you and people who think like you
viva_democracy February 5th, 2015 at 3:14 pm
It’s part of why this film is pure propaganda. “Every Iraqi is presumed guilty”, yet all those cheering the American flag, apple pie, freedumb and such forget that WE invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. WE were the invaders. If someone invaded this country, we, as individuals or groups, would do whatever it took to take back our country or survive. That’s what many Iraqi’s did. WE invaded and stripped the country and people of everything, then brought in greedy contractors who did nothing but took the money and ran. They up-charged everything, were supposed to rebuild, were supposed to be part of the “liberators”, but instead they took the money and ran. Now we have ISIS.
It’s like with Bin Laden. I realize that in the heat of the battle, they may have had to kill him so they were not killed, but based on what we do know, it sounds like they could have brought him in alive to stand trial. Do I think he’s innocent? Hell no, but I bet he may have given up some Saudi names who financed the mission, but I’ve got a feeling that we’re not supposed to know those names.
Red Eye Robot February 5th, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Wow! This movie really has the left’s collective panties in a wad. Rave On!
Mike February 5th, 2015 at 4:04 pm
Thank you for the compliment.
To the right, everything is a simple false dichotomy…a mere Hobson’s Choice. Those on the left, including combat vets like myself and others on this page, we are willing to search a little deeper for the truth and maybe admit we could have been manipulated. We’re not afraid to ask ourselves to do better in the future and sometimes that takes looking at the past as more than a movie.
You and I are citizens of a country that used lies and deceit to attack and invade a country that posed little or no threat to our security (other than in Bush/Cheney’s imagination) Close to a million Iraqi’s perished, 5k of our young men died and tens of thousands were wounded…but that’s where the similarities end…You have been completely brainwashed by the government that this was somehow honorable or necessary, I am willing to explore the possibility they are just lying again. Your comment merely verifies my claim.
Again, thanks for the compliment.
golfnutz1935 February 7th, 2015 at 11:05 am
Have you ever researched who for promoted the assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and needed to be ‘taken out?’ No? Of course you haven’t, or you’d know that the list includes all the top Democrats that come to mind…Clinton, Kerry, Pelosi, Kennedy, Gore, Byrd, Berger, Albright, Levin, Daschle, Rockefeller, Graham, for starters. Here’s just one link for you…http://acsa.net/demsay.htm Everything the Hussein dictatorship did pointed to the accuracy of these assertions, especially continually stone-walling the UN inspectors. Saddams use of WMDs against his own people who opposed him is a well-known fact. U.S. intelligence pointed to the accuracy of the assertions. Why were the WMDs not found when the invasion occurred? Well, given the years that Saddam knew that the U.S. and its allies suspected that he had them and seemed hell-bent on proving it, what would YOU do if you were Saddam? Keep them? Or, would you either destroy them or MOVE THEM ELSEWHERE? If you truly didn’t have them, wouldn’t you welcome any and all inspections to PROVE that you didn’t? If you did have them, wouldn’t you stall and stall and stall, buying sufficient time to make sure none were found?
Mike February 7th, 2015 at 11:21 am
In fact I have, and discovered this…
President Bush and his top aides publicly made 935 false statements about the security risk posed by Iraq in the two years following September 11, 2001, according to a study released Tuesday by two nonprofit journalism groups. In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.
The fact they were able to control the narrative and convince a large number of democrats to go along with the fiction doesn’t excuse their illegal or criminal actions. (For me at least, you seem to believe otherwise)
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/
golfnutz1935 February 8th, 2015 at 9:56 pm
Mike, that may well be true. I can believe it, because it is now common knowledge fact that Lyndon Johnson lied about who attacked who in the Gulf of Tonkin, which started the Vietnam War. He said the VietCong fired on us first, which of course was an outright lie. Personally, I don’t support either war. We should have stayed out of Vietnam and Iraq. Now we’re back embroiled in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria because Obama lied about getting us out of all of it, just as he lied about the first act when taking the presidency would be to close Gitmo. They ALL LIE!!! Nothing new about that. Just pick the party of the liar whose lies you most want to believe and then head to the ballot box!!!
Mike February 9th, 2015 at 3:47 pm
“They all lie…” (whether written in caps or not) does not negate anything I have posted. Your logic would imply two wrongs make a right and I think a child could see past that.
Having served in the Vietnam War I think I have a pretty good idea of the catalyst behind it’s inception. As a much wiser adult 47 yrs later, I think I’m capable of coming to my own conclusions about who invaded Iraq after 19 terrorists (15 from Saudi Arabia) crashed 4 planes into the Twin Towers…You might want to do a bit more research, your post shows you’re still slightly confused.
burqa February 9th, 2015 at 11:05 pm
Another use for MotorKote!
ExPFCWintergreen February 5th, 2015 at 3:40 pm
Look, I’m no fan of this movie (I thought it was a serviceable war picture, nothing special) but Nico Lang and these putative “critics” he cites completely miss the target. I don’t know if Kyle was a racist in real life or not. But nothing he does in the movie is inherently racist. The character behaves like a combat soldier. Now I happen to have been in one of our recent wars — not that this makes me an expert — but I also happen to be an amateur military historian who has read perhaps 500 combat memoirs: American, British, Egyptian, French, German, Japanese, Mexican, Ottoman (author wasn’t a Turk), Russian, Venezuelan and more. Here’s the news: in combat, the enemy is ALWAYS a “savage.” The enemy is ALWAYS “unyieldingly wretched, menacing, and bent on the destruction of everything pure and civilized.” Dehumanizing the enemy is a necessary adjunct to making war on him. Eastwood himself knows this, which explains his film-pairing of “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.” One of the disappointments of this picture is the fact that Eastwood didn’t give that awareness its proper due. But to suggest that the character is a “racist” because he does the thing that is necessary in war dilutes “racism” conceptually to cartoon-like proportions. There are lots of things to object to in “American Sniper” — the notion that it’s “racist propaganda” simply because one disagrees with the Iraq war is the least of them. Every Iraqi is “presumed guilty” in the picture because the Rules of Engagement made them so — anyone approaching Coalition forces or carrying a weapon was a legitimate target. Now one can take issue — as I did and do — with those Rules of Engagement. But that doesn’t mean that it’s reasonable to expect a Special Operations sniper to engage in a kind of moral calculus about them every time his job requires him to pull the trigger. War is ugly, friends, and it makes us do ugly things. Don’t hate the player — hate the game.
Mike February 5th, 2015 at 3:45 pm
I have to agree.
Many of these stories lack any eye witness accounts or quotes and seem to be based on hearsay. Kyle’s dead and can’t defend himself, short of a video or some sort of empirical evidence I tend to not believe stories like this.
jasperjava February 5th, 2015 at 3:49 pm
You’re right that soldiers are trained to dehumanize the enemy. But a filmmaker is under no obligation to follow the same script. Eastwood could have made a more balanced film.
As for combat soldiers, there are some who go through the same training and the same experiences without being gleeful racist killers when back in civilian life. The fact that Chris Kyle never expressed any moral qualms, but rather a certain joy at killing, is significant. I’m sure that most combat veterans don’t lose their humanity in quite the same way.
ExPFCWintergreen February 5th, 2015 at 3:57 pm
I don’t know about either of those propositions. For one, not every Iraqi character in the picture is portrayed in a negative way. In one of the key scenes, the young son of a Fallujah sheikh is tortured by one of Zarqawi’s lieutenants to punish the sheikh for having spoken to the Americans. It is actually one of the more horrifying — yet sensitive — scenes in the picture, because the sheikh’s agony (and that of his family) is made plain — and not just for a couple seconds of screen time, either.
For another, the Kyle character doesn’t shoot anyone he’s not entitled to shoot; every target is a legitimate combatant under the Rules of Engagement. Now that might well offend people, and understandably so, but it’s an important distinction in the moral evaluation of war (and in the juridical evaluation of what does and does not constitute a war crime).
As for “never expressing any moral qualms,” the fact is that we don’t know that. We know what appears in his highly edited, ghost-written autobiography. We know the lines the actor recites in the film. But we don’t know what he *actually* said in his private counsels, whether to other SEALs or in his own internal monologue. But this is something that many liberals have yet to grasp — it’s actually not common to express “moral qualms” about killing your enemy among veterans, especially not among professional soldiers (and they don’t come much more professional than Navy SEALs). Even among old-timers what you get is regret that killing was made necessary by politics, but not regret at killing the enemy. For example, in the “real life” old-timers’ narratives that are features of the HBO “Band of Brothers” production, one of the old paratroopers recalls his thought that the German he killed “might have been my friend” in a different life. “He might’ve liked to fish” just like the American did. But, the veteran then adds, it was his job to kill the German, just as it was the German’s to kill him.
Suzanne McFly February 5th, 2015 at 4:35 pm
Chris Kyle did express moral qualms with kids where one was being given arms/bomb by his mother or when the other one picked up the grenade launcher. You expressed it so well and the trials he was dealing with. I become overwhelmed when others question what someone does in war, I never was in a war environment (I flew in P3’s during the first Gulf War) and I can not imagine what it does to a person. A soldier has to be able to live with themselves after they kill someone because their government told them to.
Mike February 5th, 2015 at 4:17 pm
Saying Eastwood “…could have made a more balanced film.” is akin to saying we should try to understand Radical Christians are just following their god while they work to deny LGBT’s equal right’s. Eastwood is free to use his judgement as a film maker. You and I are free to go see that film or not.
I agree we don’t all come back gleeful and proud, but again, that might be a projection. Kyle is dead and not here to defend himself against these accusations.
Suzanne McFly February 5th, 2015 at 3:55 pm
I did see this movie and I liked it a lot, and for anyone to criticize who this man became after fighting in this war is pitiful. We send people into war as we demonize the other side, we tell our soldiers they are fighting the devil and we train these soldiers to kill then we have the nerve to question how they reasoned this in their heads? If there where a group of people any of us had to sort out and kill before they kill our loved ones, best believe we will be going into that fight assuming they are the most heinous, nefarious creatures ever known and go in and kill them. You can’t humanize someone you are trained to kill, stop criticizing this man, he is dead and all this does is perpetuate ignorance and our naiveté 99% of us have because we have never been in the shoes of a military member who had to go and kill a human they have never seen before.
burqa February 7th, 2015 at 11:22 pm
Awesome!
burqa February 8th, 2015 at 10:28 pm
I enjoyed your post.
One thing I would add is we Americans do a poor job of honoring our war heroes.
Many of us can name quite a few top athletes or entertainers, but how many Medal of Honor winners can we name?
In my opinion, we citizens have an obligation to get to know, to remember and make sure generations after us are familiar with those who have done great deeds on the battlefield in service to us.
I remember one time I was at a commemoration at the Marine Corps War Memorial at Arlington one day and afterward on this fine day, who do I see walking my way but Jim Webb! I had enjoyed his Pulitzer-winning book “Fields of Fire” and was also familiar with what he did to earn the Navy Cross in Vietnam. I stopped him to shake his hand and he was kind enough to stick around a while and have a visit. He was a bit surprised that a civilian would know just what he did that day in Vietnam.
Really nice guy. We talked about all kinds of stuff and a year or so later we elected him to the Senate from Virginia.
We don’t have any now, but for many years we had two Medal of Honor winners serving in the Senate.
I wonder how many of us could name them?
Suzanne McFly February 9th, 2015 at 11:10 am
I agree, the fact they aren’t on front pages across America shows how we seem to not give credit where credit is due.
burqa February 9th, 2015 at 11:12 pm
Most have heard of Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone. I think we should know who Louis Cukela, Ray Davis, John Basilone and many others were, in the same way.
Every time I visit Quantico National Cemetery, one of the graves I always got to and pay my respects is that of William Lee.
He got of a beautifully classic line once about his decorations.
This was in the 30s, I guess, after he’d been fighting in Nicaragua with another legend, Chesty Puller, and had been sent to China.
Lee checked in with the duty officer, some young snot-nosed lieutenant, I gather. Lee had on his Class A’s and the lieutenant looked at him and asked, disbelievingly, “Lee, is that a Navy Cross I see you wearing?”
Lee responded, “No sir. That’s three of-em.”
Suzanne McFly February 10th, 2015 at 8:51 am
Beautiful story, I would of loved to seen that lieutenants face.
burqa February 11th, 2015 at 12:02 am
I’ve forgotten where I came across that one. Lee was a mustang – a man who began as an enlisted man who ose to the officer ranks to the rank of full colonel. He was also tougher than woodpecker lips and a legend among Old Breed Marines.
He was in Shanghai at our entry into the war and when a far larger Japanese force approached he was organizing his men to fight to the death when ordered to surrender. He survived 4 brutal years in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. The whole time he managed to keep possession of some 8 mm film and some photographic negatives of he and his friends lounging about, going on tiger hunts and such.
He lived on a farm in Spotsylvania County and in the early 1980s went to a photo shop to get them copied and to frame his Navy Cross citations. A friend of mine at the time did the work and I’ve always regretted not getting a chance to meet William Lee.
He is the only Marine I’ve heard of to earn 3 Navy Crosses. Chesty Puller (who I knew pretty well) had 5, but other than them, I’ve only read of a handful who had two, one of whom was like a second father to me and is buried there – Silent Lew Walt.
Lee served our nation with honor and great distinction and I feel an obligation to tell his story. He was far from perfect, but no one will hear of his flaws from me. We should not only remember people like him, but should honor them. This I do a few times a year when I visit Quantico National Cemetery and visit his and a few other graves every time. I’ve taken a few younger people there and told them stories about those buried there I know of.
ExPFCWintergreen February 5th, 2015 at 4:21 pm
The “real problem” with the film “review” at the link is Lang’s (and Inkoo Kang’s, his primary source of citations) cherry-picking of Arab portrayals in movies. The “Reel Bad Arabs” / Orientalism problem has been around a long time — after all, Jack Shaheen wrote the first systematic piece on how Arabs are portrayed in popular culture in 1984, and Edward Said’s “Orientalism” (which took a much broader view of culture) dates to 1978. So it’s not as if Lang is telling us something we don’t know when he asserts that “Hollywood has a Muslim problem.” More to the point, he ignores all motion pictures — admittedly a minority of them — that have positive portrays of Arab and Muslim characters, naming only “Lawrence of Arabia” (now 50+ years old) and a couple television documentaries. But Shaheen himself — and other Muslim scholars — is far more generous. There’s “Trout Fishing in the Yemen.” The Shi’a in “Three Kings.” Salahuddin and his fighters in “Kingdom of Heaven.” There’s “Syriana,” “American East,” “Mooz-Lum,” and others — all of post-9/11 vintage. So if the limited vision of Eastwood’s picture is legitimately a target for criticism, so too is the limited vision of many of those who critique it, who are taking a motion picture and trying to make of it a place-holder for Islamophobia simply because it’s commercially popular and its title attracts attention.
Mike February 7th, 2015 at 11:14 am
You seem to have made my point for me in another of your posts that I have copied here. Do you remember telling this to Todd…????
golfnutz1935 Todd Warmbrodt 9 months ago
You, Todd, are an incurable, intolerant, ignorant bigot, and not the Christian you think you are. You have no true knowledge nor understanding of what causes homosexuality at all, and this is the unfortunate root of your ignorance, but your hateful attitude comes from within, so I would suggest that you remember that the Bible admonishes you that with whatever judgment you use for others, this will be the same used for you.
The King of Jordan (just one example) claims terrorists are no more Islamic than water is wine. You might struggle with the definitions using linguistic legerdemain but most of us know a spade when we see it.
golfnutz1935 February 8th, 2015 at 10:04 pm
Sorry, but i have no idea what you are referring to…at least not how it connects with some point of yours which you say I
supported in a post to Todd back 9 months ago. You’ve totally lost me in this post. I occasionally post on various sites, but have way too much more productive things to do than keep track of old posts. I don’t totally support any particular viewpoint, knowing that there is always “more to the story,” but do express present opinions from time to time. However, through discourse with others, as well as my own research, that opinion can change with further knowledge gained, and often does.
Mike February 9th, 2015 at 3:39 pm
Go back and read your original post to me and pay special attention to the line “Who decides where that line is? ”
You and I do, because we are free to have an opinion. If we try to force that opinion on others, it is called tyranny.
You chastise Todd telling him “You, Todd, are an incurable, intolerant, ignorant bigot, and not the Christian you think you are.” Which is your right. But you deny the president’s right to have an opinion as to others being Islamic or not…What’s different…??? Why are you allowed to feel Todd is not a Christian but Obama is not allowed to feel terrorists are not Islamic, but merely usurpers of the faith.???
Those are your words, not mine, that are being used against you.
burqa February 8th, 2015 at 12:07 am
My turn.
I haven’t seen the movie and am not fully versed on Kyle’s supposed shortcomings. I know I have plenty myself.
I also had a somewhat unique upbringing. From the time I was a toddler well into my thirties I was acquainted with many and close to a number of Marines whose phenomenal deeds on the battlefield are found in history books. Some were Medal of Honor winners. Most were in a class known as “Old Breed” Marines – they were in uniform when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
They fought on the beaches and in the jungles of the Pacific islands in fighting that was extremely savage. One pulled both his shoulders out of the sockets pulling a 37 mm cannon up a hill to save the day, refused evacuation and commanded his troops during 5 banzai attacks where the killing was done with a bayonet. He had to call in artillery right on their position. I could tell 50 stories like this in great detail of things they did.
I have known snipers and shot on the ranges with them at Quantico.
There is nothing immoral about a sniper. They are shooting an enemy at greater range, but less than that of artillery or bombing or missile strikes. As I think Sherman once said, “war means fight, fight means kill.”
You kill the enemy any way and anywhere you can. You kill him by ripping out his guts with a bayonet till they fall on your boots. You shoot him when he’s looking the other way. You blow him up when he’s in his bunk asleep. You sink his ship and let-em all drown. You blow his head off when he’s taking a dump.
That’s war, and why we need to be circumspect about sending them off to do these things and to be killed themselves in dungpits like Syria.
One Marine I knew well was David Shoup. He earned the Medal of Honor on Tarawa. Read about it sometime. The man could fight but when asked circa 1962 about Vietnam he said, “We don’t need to be wasting our resources in that piss-pot.”
Like you and me, all of these heroes had character flaws, some pretty bad. That’s human nature. We are complex creatures. The same people are capable of wonderful and awful things. Like you and me, we can simultaneously be praised for the good and damned for the bad. Somewhere along the line on the internet the notion took hold that if we support one thing someone does or say, it means we support everything they did.
That’s just unrealistically simplistic.
Kyle was a superb sniper. I have no further opinion on him and I’m sure as hell not going to have the herd or pundits form my opinion for me. I’m taking my time about it.
I’m doing so with some pretty gruesome scars I’ve seen as well as other things I’ve observed happened to men in war. My own father is the nicest guy you’ll ever meet. In the Korean war his B-29 crashed. The fuselage broke in 2 or 3 pieces, the wings broke off and 3 men died. My father was trapped in the wreckage and it was hours before they got him out. Meanwhile, his buddy, positioned over him in the wreckage, bled to death on my dad. He has nightmares to this day. I’ve know others who were similarly tormented. One Marine I know and love as a brother performed with amazing heroism in Vietnam that you could google up and be amazed too. The man was an alcoholic for years and got into quite a bit of trouble for it and could be quite unkind but I love him anyway.
Kyle had nothing to do with the lies that got us into Iraq. He served our country by protecting our fellow Americans the enemy was trying to kill, and was killing.
In my opinion, even if one of these heroes has serious shortcomings, we should not honor them less for what they did. Flaws are a whole ‘nother issue and it is ridiculous to expect them to be as perfect as humans off the battlefield as they are on it. We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that our heroes are, or have to reach a false level of perfection. I don’t know, maybe if the threat was more imminent, like right outside their door, some of the critics of Kyle might be less critical and more appreciative of what they do. Because even though it’s not Michael Moore being protected behind that door by a man like Kyle, it was people like Moore’s father or next-door neighbor or maybe one of our brothers or sisters. And if they’re in Iraq and Kyle is shooting the enemy who has your father in his sights and is about to pull the trigger, then Kyle is defending Americans and serving our country honorably.
burqa February 8th, 2015 at 10:15 pm
What “dictates” are you talking about in the Christian doctrine?
Chapter and verse, please…