American Sniper has caused controversy since being released. It is a film that glorifies a marine who killed at least 160 Iraqis, so it comes with little surprise that it has provoked such a strong reaction.
If you are completely ignorant about the Iraq war, as I was before watching and then reading up on this film, then it seems like a great movie.
But, is it American propaganda? Should we suddenly start worshipping the ground our troops walk on? Should we kill every person with a Koran in their hands? Is this film inspiring a group of Muslim hating, America loving morons? Probably...
Twitter was, as it is always, the playground of moral highs. People were either tweeting "this film has humbled me, thank you to every soldier fighting for freedom" or, rather contrastingly, "this film is pure propaganda delivering racist stereotypes of Muslims".
"@NathanRyan At the end of the day it's a movie. Enjoy it or watch another one."
I assume this rare species of complete and utter moron is about as ignorant as his tweet suggests.
Correct, it is a movie, but movies are often the source of inspiration. When people watch movies they do so because they feel a connection to the star, in the case of American Sniper people either became humbled by his actions, annoyed that his actions deserved a film, or they became driven by his actions, evident in these tweets:
"@ItsReeceyYh American sniper made me appreciate soldiers 100x more and hate Muslims 10000000x more."
"@desmondharmon American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some fuckin Arabs *gun emoji x3."
With these kinds of imbeciles living in our world is it really safe to create a movie as suggestible as this one?
I don't believe that Clint Eastwood or Bradley Cooper had any intention of creating a film so full of propaganda but that is exactly what they have done.
One tweet seemed intelligent enough to understand the damage something like this can do.
"@fouseyTUBE we are being conditioned to "fear the Muslims" we are reminded "war is good" we are being taught that killing is "necessary"."
The film depicts Chris Kyle, a navy seal, as a hero, I don't for one second doubt that it takes an unimaginable amount of bravery to go to warzones and fight for your country. I also don't for one second doubt that our troops deserve recognition and appreciation.
However, if everyone on twitter decided to actually read the book the film is based around they'd realise that the film portrayed this soldier in a much kinder light than his own book does.
Going there may be something the troops have to do, it may be unavoidable whilst there to have to kill people in order to prevent your own deaths but it should never become a sport, a thrill, an excitement to be killing anyone or anything.
The film portrays this man as a tortured soul, someone who struggled with each death he dolled out but in the beginning of his book he speaks very blatantly of how he loved killing people, he claimed the only regret he has is that he only wishes he'd killed more.
This isn't to say that I believe Chris Kyle was a bad person, I think that he believed that he fought to protect his troops but I also believe that it's twisted to enjoy killing a child.
Rani Khalek, an independent journalist spoke to RTNews about her views on the recent release. "What the movie does is (portray) almost every single child or woman in the movie or every Iraqi for that matter as a terrorist who's trying to kill US soldiers.
The really creepy part of it is it almost elevates marines to this status of civilian where they're helpless and Chris Kyle's this God-like figure who has to snipe people down to save them."
She also says that the woman, men and children who take up arms against the occupier are portrayed as these "irrational, violent savages".
As I watched the film myself I never thought 'all Muslims are the same, they must all be trying to kill me' but scrolling through twitter it is evident that, that is what many people took away from the film.
The primary reason for going to war with Iraq was because Al Qaeda flew two planes into the twin towers and killed 2,996 people. Al Qaeda, one extreme terrorist group.
Imagine, just for one second, that some extreme group of Christians from America had flown planes into some huge building that housed thousands of Iraqi people over there. And to retaliate millions of Iraqis occupied America and killed millions of Americans. Sounds ridiculous right?
People believe that violence answers violence but by forming kill counts and competing for the most deaths on your name is and always will be wrong.
If people are coming out of the cinema thinking things like this:
I can't imagine how a Muslim with no connection to the war would feel after viewing it.
