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OPINION

When it comes to American Sniper, fans and critics are misguided

By Steve Beynon, For The Miami Student

American Sniper came out over a month ago and continues to spawn relevant criticisms, diatribes and squabbles from the flag waving - chest thumping Righties, and the skeptical Lefties. I can't remember any other piece of entertainment that criticisms were so divided with party lines.

While Twitter wars were breaking out from critics like Michael Moore calling snipers "cowards" and Seth Rogen likening Clint Eastwood's latest to Nazi propaganda, no one can deny that the film depicting the life of Chris Kyle is a success. The film's performance at the box office is topping over $250 million worldwide and picked up six Oscar nominations, including best picture.

The film sparked a very partisan debate. You got MSNBC's Ed Shultz saying the movie "normalizes Islamophobia" and Sarah Palin commenting, "Hollywood leftists: while caressing shiny plastic trophies you exchange among one another while spitting on the graves of freedom fighters."

So who's correct here? Well, nobody. I'm a proud liberal and a proud veteran and I'm embarrassed by most high profile responses to the film. It isn't fair for a Navy SEAL like Kyle to be put into a warzone, tasked with killing enemies threatening troops and to come back home only to find people calling him a psychopath. His job is to kill the bad guys, but when language like "freedom fighters" is used, it creates a culture of troops being infallible.

In today's America, it's almost blasphemy to bring up the defense budget or criticizing military action. As a response to the horrible post-war treatment of Vietnam Veterans, America has overcompensated. Since 9/11, troops have become our precious little angels and suggestions about deflating the defense budget are often confused with putting the troops and American people in danger. This is despite evidence suggesting we would be safer with a smaller defense budget.

The blind patriotism on the Right bothers me and their overcompensation of respecting the troops has an opposite effect on me. I appreciate people thanking me for my service in Afghanistan, but don't act like if I wasn't there Taliban tanks would be driving through Washington.

I am thanked a lot for "defending freedom." I believe we do a lot of good projects that protect the Afghan people's freedom. But your individual freedom was never in jeopardy. The attacks of 9/11 were hatched out of Germany and executed by a dozen men. The strength of the Taliban's guerrilla army or the Islamic State doesn't make or break any attacks on the U.S. or Paris by individuals.

Unfortunately, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are often combined and not seen as individual wars as they should be. Seven months after the United States invaded Iraq, The Washington Post found 70 percent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was linked to 9/11. American Sniper even makes this same mistake. One scene has Kyle and his wife watching the 9/11 attacks being carried out over the news and the next scene Kyle is in Iraq. Imagine if I made a war movie and it showed a man angry about the Pearl Harbor attacks and then he found himself fighting in Korea.

In the movie, Kyle's wife expresses she is tired of him going to war and he says he is protecting her. Kyle is convinced he is protecting his family, holding onto the George Bush foreign policy rhetoric of, "We gotta fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here."

There are also a few minor characters that express frustration with the war and question its purpose. Kyle is always confused of their doubt, even going so far to blame a SEAL's death on his deflated belief in the war effort.

I applaud Clint Eastwood's guts for having the film open with a child being killed - a vivid on-screen depiction of a young child being shot by Chris Kyle. It's easy to look at American Sniper from a distance, see a war hero with an American flag waving in front of him on the film's poster and think this will be a narrative packed with jingoism. I'm fully on-board with going to see a war movie and rooting for your team. Black Hawk Down is an oversimplified depiction of the conflict in Somalia, but it serves the purpose of popcorn entertainment. American Sniper does tread on popcorn entertainment, but wants your commitment early on. The audience is in for a ride, but they have to accept a taste of reality first.

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Kyle's critics often point to him identifying the enemy as "savages." Here's a quote from his book, "I hate the damn savages. I love killing bad guys - maybe war isn't fun but i certainly enjoyed it." It's ignorant to be unaware that soldiers in all wars had derogatory and often racist terms for the people they fought, there are plenty WWII veterans that are racist against the Japanese.

It's a mystery as to why veterans sometimes miss war or even enjoyed it. I wrote about this in a past editorial, but part of the emotion comes from endorphins and a feeling of belonging. Regardless, there's more nuance in Kyle's statements than some critics give credit for. The worst thing to happen in the Iraq War certainly wasn't one SEAL thinking some of the people were savages.

American Sniper isn't a good film, but not for the reasons some critics cite. The movie is surprisingly anti-war by highlighting PTSD, the struggles of the wives left behind, the blind patriotism some veterans fall into and the risks Iraqis went through to aid American soldiers. The film fails by casually passing by all these themes but not exploring any of them. By flirting with some serious and complicated themes, it's no surprise people on both sides of the political aisle can get polar opposite experiences.

In the film's opening scene of Kyle shooting the child, a Marine next to him laughs and congratulates Kyle on his shot. It's obvious Kyle is bothered by what he was forced to do, but he doesn't have time to explore these feelings. Those are the two kind of experiences someone can have while seeing this movie. It's easy to be the Marine and enjoy seeing an American hero gun down bad guys, or be like Kyle and see a dark story that depicts the casualties of war beyond the body count.

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