Ever since the film American Sniper managed to rack in ninety million dollars over Martin Luther King weekend, I’ve been wondering if Walter White had it all wrong; the Clint Eastwood blockbuster made more money over 72 hours than an international drug empire made in an entire year — and it also had a higher body count, which is an impressive feat when you’re in the wake of an AMC show. But as someone who suffered through all three hours of American Snipers, let me start by saying that even from a non-political view, it’s a crappy movie. I tend to dislike war films (I’m as liberal as they come) but I’ve always respected Eastwood’s artistic styles, and so I went into American Sniper with a cautious optimism — only to be disappointed by its
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Sure, “it’s just a movie!” It’s just a movie, which is just a form of media that is consumed by the public and shaped by interpretation and then rooted into the belief system of society. Enthusiasts of American Sniper will adamantly reject the idea that the film has any underlying political message, and implying that it’s anything similar to a propaganda is probably the quickest way to get yourself jumped by rednecks. Clint Eastwood himself asserted that his work “certainly has nothing to do with any [political] parties or anything” (Lussier). But for a movie that’s not about politics, it sure does have a lot of politics in it; when I asked viewers of American Sniper to rank how strong of a political message they thought it contained on a scale of 0-10, the average score was 7.14, and there was no significant difference in the results between respondents who identified as conservative and respondents who identified as liberal. I also asked participants to rank how justified they believed the U.S. government was in invading Iraq, and, interestingly enough, respondents who answered that they had watched American Sniper gave an average rating 2.5 points higher than respondents who answered they hadn’t watched the film. Those who watched it also gave a rating 2.3 points higher when asked to rate how successful they believed the U.S. to be in accomplishing its goal of “containing terrorism” during the Iraq conflict (Riedlinger). Whether or not Clint Eastwood intended to create a propaganda-esque film, American Sniper has been not only been interpreted by the general public as having a strong political message, but has also succeeded in raising support for what was largely an unpopular war at the time of its occurrence. Rather than using the story of Chris Kyle as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the toll of war and violence, Americans
Sure, “it’s just a movie!” It’s just a movie, which is just a form of media that is consumed by the public and shaped by interpretation and then rooted into the belief system of society. Enthusiasts of American Sniper will adamantly reject the idea that the film has any underlying political message, and implying that it’s anything similar to a propaganda is probably the quickest way to get yourself jumped by rednecks. Clint Eastwood himself asserted that his work “certainly has nothing to do with any [political] parties or anything” (Lussier). But for a movie that’s not about politics, it sure does have a lot of politics in it; when I asked viewers of American Sniper to rank how strong of a political message they thought it contained on a scale of 0-10, the average score was 7.14, and there was no significant difference in the results between respondents who identified as conservative and respondents who identified as liberal. I also asked participants to rank how justified they believed the U.S. government was in invading Iraq, and, interestingly enough, respondents who answered that they had watched American Sniper gave an average rating 2.5 points higher than respondents who answered they hadn’t watched the film. Those who watched it also gave a rating 2.3 points higher when asked to rate how successful they believed the U.S. to be in accomplishing its goal of “containing terrorism” during the Iraq conflict (Riedlinger). Whether or not Clint Eastwood intended to create a propaganda-esque film, American Sniper has been not only been interpreted by the general public as having a strong political message, but has also succeeded in raising support for what was largely an unpopular war at the time of its occurrence. Rather than using the story of Chris Kyle as a way to gain a deeper understanding of the toll of war and violence, Americans