The film American Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, has been criticized by ex-soldiers, film directors, actors and critics, academics, investigative journalists, authors and other scholars, media figures, political figures, and watchdog groups.

The controversies involve political, social, cultural, philosophical, moral, religious and other aspects of society.

Criticism of the film

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination committee said that the release of the movie coincided with increased threats against Arabs and Muslims.^[1] It has also accused Eastwood of dishonestly linking the September 11 attacks with Iraq.^[2]

Michael Moore tweeted, in response to American Sniper, "My uncle [was] killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot you in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders are worse." [sic]^[3]

Noam Chomsky criticized "what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people."^[4]

Lindy West, of The Guardian, writes: "In his memoir, Kyle reportedly described killing as “fun”, something he “loved”; he was unwavering in his belief that everyone he shot was a “bad guy”. “I hate the damn savages,” he wrote. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis.”" and: "If he (Eastwood), intentionally or not, makes a hero out of Kyle – who, bare minimum, was a racist who took pleasure in dehumanising and killing brown people – is he responsible for validating racism, murder, and dehumanisation? Is he a propagandist if people use his work as propaganda?"^[5]

Zack Beauchamp, of Vox, wrote that the film's greatest sin was condescending "to Americans and American troops by acting as if we could not possibly handle moral ambiguity about America's mission in Iraq. But it did, and that is a disservice not just to film's viewers, but to the millions of Americans who were affected by the war and deserve to have that story told honestly."^[6]

John Wight, writing for Russia Today, strongly criticized the film and its reception to date. He said, "The moral depravity into which the US is sinking is shown by American Sniper glorifying the exploits of a racist killer receiving six Oscar nominations, whereas 'Selma' depicting Martin Luther King's struggle against racism has been largely ignored."^[7]

Matt Taibbi wrote that "Sniper is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism" and that "Eastwood plays for cheap applause and goes super-dumb even by Hollywood standards."^[8]

Chris Hedges, in an article titled "Killing Ragheads for Jesus," wrote that "“American Sniper” lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hypermasculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans trapped in a stagnant economy and a dysfunctional political system, yearn for the supposed moral renewal and rigid, militarized control the movie venerates."^[9]

Zaid Jilani in Salon attacked American Sniper's inaccuracies, arguing both the film and Kyle's reputation "are all built on a set of half-truths, myths and outright lies."^[10]

Max Blumenthal said the film American Sniper is "filled with lies and distortion from start to finish," makes a hero out of "a pathological liar and a mass killer" and promotes falsehoods about Navy SEAL Chris Kyle along with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Blumenthal said the film is a "bogus whitewash of the atrocities committed by American troops in Iraq."^[11]

Seth Rogen was accused of critizing the film when he tweeted that the film reminded him of the Nazi sniper propaganda film showing in the third act of Inglourious Basterds. He later stated that he wssn't critizing the film, he was just making a comparison. "^[12][13]

Sophia A. McClennen, a Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University, said there are "insanities and fantasies at the heart of" American Sniper and that "despite the fact that the film depicts Kyle as a hero and a martyr, the real American sniper was heartless and cruel. Rather than struggle with moral dilemmas as we see in the film, the actual man had no such hesitation and no such conscience. But to focus on “American Sniper’s” depiction of Kyle is to miss the larger problems of the film. In addition to sugarcoating Kyle, the film suffers from major myopia — from a complete inability to see the larger picture. And that is why criticism of the film has to look at its director, Clint Eastwood, and the troubling ways he represents a dark, disturbing feature of the GOP mind-set."^[14]

Ross Caputi, a former marine who participated in the US’s second siege of Fallujah, criticized American Sniper, writing that "What American Sniper offers us — more than a heart-wrenching tale about Chris Kyle’s struggle to be a soldier, a husband, and a father; more than an action packed story about America’s most lethal sniper — is an exposure of the often hidden side of American war culture. The criminality that has characterized American military engagements since the American Indian Wars, and most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, is hardly noticeable in this film."^[15]

Comedian Bill Maher stated "He's a psychopath patriot, and we love him," and "'I hate the damn savages' doesn’t seem like a very Christian thing to say,” and compared Kyle disfavourably to anti-war general Dwight D. Eisenhower.^[16]

Journalist Eamon Murphy wrote in Mondoweiss that "it’s hard to know, when watching Eastwood’s Iraq War, where doltish film conventions end and rotten politics begins. (Bushism was an awful lot like an idiotic blockbuster in the first place.) The bits of military exposition are outrageously at odds with the facts, but they also sound so hokey it seems almost stupid to object by citing reality."^[17]

Criticism of media coverage of the film

Noam Chomsky criticized American Sniper and the media that glorified it. He drew a parallel between Sniper and the US "global assassination campaign, the drone campaign, which officially is aimed at murdering people who are suspected of maybe someday planning to harm us."^[18]

Controversies regarding other aspects related to the film

Eastwood's response

Responding to critics that called the film Pro-War on Terror, Pro-Republican and jingoistic, Eastwood said that it is a "stupid analysis" and that the film has nothing to do with political parties. He stated: "I was a child growing up during World War II. That was supposed to be the one to end all wars. And four years later, I was standing at the draft board being drafted during the Korean conflict, and then after that there was Vietnam, and it goes on and on forever ... I just wonder ... does this ever stop? And no, it doesn’t. So each time we get in these conflicts, it deserves a lot of thought before we go wading in or wading out. Going in or coming out. It needs a better thought process, I think."^[19] Eastwood called American Sniper "the biggest anti-war statement any film can make," and said that "the fact of what [war] does to the family and the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did" and “what it (war) does to the people left behind.” Eastwood further stated: "One of my favorite war movies that I’ve been involved with is Letters from Iwo Jima and that was about family, about being taken away from life, being sent someplace. In World War II, everybody just sort of went home and got over it. Now there is some effort to help people through it."^[20]

References