Scene Analysis American Sniper

The scene then shifts to the husband going to knock on the enemy base’s door followed by him being vetted before entering. There is a quick cut to an American sniper who says “lights out Muj” and shoots the the man who opened the door. Once again, a western character categorizes a whole region into one category, “Muj”. The husband then picks up the rifle dropped by the man who opened the door and is instantly shot by American soldiers. The husband’s decision to pick up the gun illustrates the Orient as being stupid because it was clear that he would be shot by the dozen American soldiers watching him if attempted to deceive them. As the American soldiers infiltrate the enemy base, the camera tracks their path and zooms in on the mutilated bodies that they see in the base. The emphasis on the mutilated bodies is to enforce the stereotype that the Orient is savage. A recurring character throughout the film is the enemy sniper, Mustafa. When Mustafa is first brought up by Chris’ support marine at the beginning of the film, he is told that Mustafa was in the Olympics for sniping. Chris …show more content…
To the general audiences, American Sniper’s purpose was to teach audiences about the internal struggles of a war veteran and to inspire audiences to support the United States war effort. In order to create this inspirational and educational story, many Iraqi lives had to be ended by Chris Kyle. The audience is so enthralled by the narrative of a sniper struggling upon returning home that it does not recognize how the Iraqi people are portrayed. The portrayal of these character harken back to archaic Orientalist stereotypes created in order to impede the eastern world and facilitate the western world’s rise to power. In today’s progressive society these sorts of portrayals have no place and the only way that they can be stopped is by exposing films that utilize these stereotypes in order to make