Today, my heart was broken. Oh the woes of a broken heart. I'm sure we've all experienced it. And if you haven't yet, fear not, your time will come.
Or if you, like me, have been in love with Seth Rogen, the bearded beauty with the goofy laugh, since you saw Knocked Up years ago, that heartbreak came with his proclamation that the film American Sniper, a movie about the life and military service of U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle, is propaganda.
Now, let's take a step back and realize that he didn't exactly say this in the January 18th tweet he sent out that has since sparked controversy. What he said was that American Sniper reminded him of a scene in Inglorious Basterds, the 2009 Brad Pitt film about Nazi occupied France. As the Hollywood Reporter wrote, "That movie in the Tarantino film was a Nazi propaganda film called Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride) that showed a German sniper killing Allied soldiers from a clock tower."
Rogen isn't alone in the belief this Academy-Award nominated movie was a way for a murderous sniper's name to be cleared as a hero defending his country. In her article "American Sniper is Dangerous Propaganda That Sanitizes a Mass Killer & Rewrites the Iraq War" Films For Action's Rania Kalek states, that the movie portrasy a "psycho" as a hero. The article goes on to analyze passages from Kyle's book in which he defends the shots he took in his time on the front lines, even when those shots killed children and women. Is this troubling? Of course. Is it difficult to hear a man say that he is regrets not killing more "savages" who were out to harm him, his comrades, and his country's well-being? Yes...but I argue it is understandable.
Now hear me out. I am in no means defending U.S. involvement in the Middle East. If anything I'm stating quite the opposite. War is a barbaric, atrocious, monstrous, and despicable thing. It is an evil that has plagued our world since the beginning of time and will continue to do so until the day the world ends, no matter which way you believe that will happen.
What I am saying is that we should not as a country blame the soldiers that go off to fight these wars for our involvement. Yes, they are the ones killing people. But soldiers are killing people whom our power-hungry leaders tell them it is patriotic to slaughter in order to defend our freedoms.
Therefore, the passages Kalek has so boldly chosen to highlight and rip the late Kyle apart for (read them all here,), displays a devout nature that was drilled into him even further in boot camp and SEAL training. Of course he'd want to kill more people whom he has been taught are the enemy, the enemy that attacked U.S. soil on 9/11 and killed his fellow soldiers. Given the circumstance, I don't believe any courageous man or woman would do differently.
This is why, as a child of a man who served our military for over 20 years and underwent a tour in Afghanistan, it makes my blood boil that Americans are completely fine attending a propaganda film such as "The Interview" with grotesque and stereotypical depictions of another foreign country because it's all in good fun, but when it comes to "American Sniper" it's a story of a blood-thirsty killer who loves killing people with turbans. This tells me Americans are so ignorant as to believe we're being patriotic by releasing a Rogen/Franco movie that gives North Korea the middle finger, but are monsters for supporting a movie about a real man and the story of his sacrifice for his country. Some would rather call him psycho than deal with the fact that his actions were a result, NOT a cause, a war our country's leaders created.
To clarify my stance, "Amrican Sniper" is a great movie. Fantastic. Gruesome. Disturbing. Terribly sad. But I'm glad the movie didn't skip out on the aspects of war, I'm glad it showed what Kyle went through in his time overseas, even if that meant showing the killings of America's enemy, because it told his story. Kyle was not a man out for blood of women and children. He was not a natural born killer. The fact of the matter is he was a solider. A man who was conditioned and raised on the belief that to keep freedom, you had to protect it, and protecting it meant killing anyone who threatened his country. And it is not as if the movie doesn't show his human side...this statement is just obscure and misleading. Kyle, as many soldiers do, suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder upon returning from Iraq. Are critics of the movie really going to say he was a murderer who felt no remorse for the death he saw and caused when we know for a fact this isn't true? In the end, his fierce loyalty to the United States is what caused him, and all other soliders, to bring down anyone they were told was the enemy of America...and if you're gong to criticize him for that you might as well criticize every other man and woman serving in the U.S. military for participating in the protection of this land you live and are free to smoke your weed on (looking at you Seth Rogen...)
Now I realize there's already counterpoints to what I'm saying, but to prove just how much people hate and blame this SINGLE man for his involvment in Iraq this article by Margaret Kimberley tht states the world is better off now that he's dead and that his racism and delusion is the reason he basically deserved to die.
Are his thoughts and musings problematic? Yes. And I do agree. But, what I've hopefully made clear, is that he is not the one the blame should lie with. If you want to blame conflicts of war that's fine. Heck, blame our imperialist government or disturbing U.S. military practices that teach soldiers anyone threatening their leader should be killed.
But don't tarnish a dead solider's reputation because he was doing what he was told was the way to protect his family, his comrades, and his America.
As far as I'm concerned Kyle was not a psycho, he was a solider, a job not cut out for anyone like me who is anti-war. I believe war is incomprehensibly ugly. And I hate it. But as much as I hate and despise war, I will never hate and despise the soldiers fighting in it.
I will always be pro-solider.
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