# Who else isn't watching American Sniper? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 19, 2015, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252 "2015-01-19T03:48:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/141 "2015-01-23T18:42:43Z")
> [@zoid](#): > > Can someone spoiler something for me, this scene in the trailer kind of freaked me out… > > In the trailer I’ve seen he had a boy in his sights he believes has an IED of some kind and is approaching some troops and he appears to be struggling with taking the shot. > So, does he shoot the kid and was the kid carrying a weapon? Yes and [yes.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RKG-3_anti-tank_grenade) I didn’t realize RKG-3s were as big as what the kid was carrying. He did have a shooting, IIRC, where the circumstances weren’t as cut and dried. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/142 "2015-01-23T18:52:02Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Great rebuttal you’ve got there. Care to point out what movie points the article got wrong? > edited to add: “A” doesn’t know what he is talking about because “B” admits he didn’t see the movie? Really? No, two different issues. But it shows that people are bringing their own baggage to the movie. The vox comment is because you are using someone’s opinion article to state something as a fact. You are entitled to your opinion. So is that writer I’ve never heard of from a website I’ve barely heard of. It doesn’t make it fact. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/143 "2015-01-23T19:01:03Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > No, two different issues. But it shows that people are bringing their own baggage to the movie. > > The vox comment is because you are using someone’s opinion article to state something as a fact. You are entitled to your opinion. So is that writer I’ve never heard of from a website I’ve barely heard of. It doesn’t make it fact. I thought the author, using actual scenes from the movie compared to history as it actually happened, made a good case that it qualified as propaganda.It’s an opinion article with factual research behind it. Apparently this is just dismissed as another “opinion” by you, so I ask you: What _would_ qualify as evidence in your mind that this movie is propaganda? ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/144 "2015-01-23T21:22:24Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > So it’s ok to kill people as long as you don’t brag about it. Gotcha. So it’s never ok to kill anyone no matter what the circumstances. Gotcha. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Wayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4bbf92/32.png) [@Charlie\_Wayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Wayne)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/145 "2015-01-23T21:35:30Z")
Interesting news story on [abcnews.go.com](http://abcnews.go.com) from the real Seal who trained Chris Kyle. Titled “What ‘American Sniper’ Got Right and Wrong, According to SEAL Who Helped Train Chris Kyle”. This was the Seal who trained Chris Kyle - the real sniper - not Bradley Cooper the actor who played Chris Kyle in the movie. > **[What 'American Sniper' Got Right and Wrong, According to SEAL Who Helped...](https://abcnews.go.com/US/american-sniper-wrong-seal-helped-train-chris-kyle/story?id=28420783)** ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/146 "2015-01-23T22:31:59Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > None of that makes it propaganda. Isn’t that exactly what propaganda is? Biased or misleading information to make a particular political point? ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/147 "2015-01-23T23:08:16Z")
So if someone makes a movie staged during the Iraq War they must mention out of obligation that the war was illegitimate? Otherwise, it is propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/148 "2015-01-23T23:26:44Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > So if someone makes a movie staged during the Iraq War they must mention out of obligation that the war was illegitimate? > > Otherwise, it is propaganda. Not exactly. Americans discovered the war was based on lies, and “illegitimate” as you say, so what could they do? They put “support our troops” bumper stickers on their cars as a way of avoiding the subject and shutting down conversation. Forget the war, if you don’t support the troops you’re just-like-Hitler. So what’s the point of this movie? We don’t want to get all depressed about an illegitimate war, and we need to glorify something about the war to make it worth it. We need to find _something_ to make us feel good. What do we choose? A guy who thinks killing savages is fun. Anyway, here’s another article I ran across today about the movie’s accuracy,[from Slate](http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/01/23/american_sniper_fact_vs_fiction_how_accurate_is_the_chris_kyle_movie.html). ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/149 "2015-01-23T23:53:31Z")
Lot of dumb comments here, Platoon never explores the pretense of going into the Vietnam war, so I guess that’s a propaganda movie? You know, one of the most deeply anti-war movies made? Hurt Locker is certainly not propaganda and doesn’t explore the root causes of the Iraq war, either. Saying that something “must do x” or it “is propaganda” simply trite and stupidly formulaic. FWIW as someone who has seen the movie in theaters (because I see all Best Picture nominees, sometimes I want on the video release, though), it’s a poorly done film (probably 3rd or 4th time I’ve said that), but “propaganda”, I don’t see that. It isn’t glorifying the Iraq war, or George Bush. Kyle does spout off a lot about how we have to fight in Iraq or they’d be coming to America, but while that view is never club-me-over-the-head challenged, it’s kind of left to hang in a way that I think most people view it as “wow, this guy is a dolt but a true believer.” The movie is about glorifying Chris Kyle, the man, but propaganda is about advancing some political cause with a one-sided narrative about some issue of political relevance. I can’t see a movie like this as propaganda. It’d be like calling _Lincoln_ Union propaganda just because the movie doesn’t hit certain criticisms or critiques that you _could_ make. Propaganda is deliberate and intentional, not all stories that don’t analyze every narrative about something “must” be propaganda. As for people “cheering” for kills, I genuinely doubt that is widespread. Wasn’t anything like that in not only my theater but any number of theaters I’ve been in during my life when I’ve watched war movies or any other movie. I suspect it’s very much something people are possibly just making up or hugely exaggerating. Just because someone heard a redneck scream in a movie doesn’t mean you’re observing some cultural bloodlust exploding all over the United States. Anyway, a film as a work of art has to be judged irrespective of how people react to it, if people rioted in the street over _Schindler’s List_ that wouldn’t affect how I’d judge the film. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/150 "2015-01-24T00:05:50Z")
I saw Platoon about a week or so before leaving for basic training. I didn’t read any particular message in Platoon other than war is hell, and that was potentially what I was getting myself into. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/151 "2015-01-24T00:38:49Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > I saw Platoon about a week or so before leaving for basic training. I didn’t read any particular message in Platoon other than war is hell, and that was potentially what I was getting myself into. I mean the movie shows in depth the degeneration of the American military in Vietnam, rape, drug use, murder of soldiers by other soldiers. Plus the director is Oliver Stone, his feelings on the Vietnam war and the messages he’s tried to convey about it through his movies is pretty established. But the movie doesn’t denounce the Tonkin Gulf Resolution or Johnson’s decision to start the war, so by the estimation of some it’s a pro-War propaganda film. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/152 "2015-01-24T00:38:52Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > Lot of dumb comments here, Platoon never explores the pretense of going into the Vietnam war, so I guess that’s a propaganda movie? You know, one of the most deeply anti-war movies made? Hurt Locker is certainly not propaganda and doesn’t explore the root causes of the Iraq war, either. Saying that something “must do x” or it “is propaganda” simply trite and stupidly formulaic. To the former, that’s not really true–the fact that the war is unpopular, controversial and of moral dubiousness is a major theme of the film, and the way it was tearing at our protagonist (and by extension, our country) is a predominant metaphor. That alone, makes it a more honest film than something like **The Green Berets** or to a lesser degree, **We Were Soldiers**. As for the latter, propaganda weights all its artistic choices slanting in one direction. The Bigelow film doesn’t do that–there are a lot more innocent Iraqi civilians than terrorists in the film, the job of the “hero” is glamorized through his work ethic and dedication, not in the results (which are often seen as small in the face of the resistance the insurgents provide). That alone provides a context that is balanced–not demonizing the army, but also not pretending that what we were doing there was just or honorable. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/153 "2015-01-24T00:43:24Z")
> [@Martin\_Hyde](#): > > I mean the movie shows in depth the degeneration of the American military in Vietnam, rape, drug use, murder of soldiers by other soldiers. Plus the director is Oliver Stone, his feelings on the Vietnam war and the messages he’s tried to convey about it through his movies is pretty established. But the movie doesn’t denounce the Tonkin Gulf Resolution or Johnson’s decision to start the war, so by the estimation of some it’s a pro-War propaganda film. No, that’s not being asserted at all. The issue was that the film brings up 9/11 without bringing up Bush, Saddam, etc., so that invites a false conclusion to the reasons behind the war. There’s no reason at all that the film should create this connection unless it wants to assert a certain point of view about the conflict and the reason our soldiers are in harm’s way. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/154 "2015-01-24T02:13:21Z")
> [@MovieMogul](#): > > No, that’s not being asserted at all. The issue was that the film brings up 9/11 without bringing up Bush, Saddam, etc., so that invites a false conclusion to the reasons behind the war. There’s no reason at all that the film should create this connection unless it wants to assert a certain point of view about the conflict and the reason our soldiers are in harm’s way. If you want to make that connection–in my view of the movie Eastwood doesn’t make Kyle seem “right” in his linking of 9/11 to the Iraq war. Propaganda is designed to influence a populace’s position, I don’t think there is anything said or done in American Sniper that take a big position on the larger question of the Iraq war at all. I think instead people who go into it are going to come out with the same view they went into the movie with, it in no way challenges _any_ narrative as to why the war happened or whether it was justified. It’s a glory movie built around the Cult of Chris Kyle, but it’s not propaganda. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/155 "2015-01-24T03:14:39Z")
I won’t see it now. Sounds like Clint didn’t make one of the better movies about the Second Iraq War. So far, that is still Nick Broomfield’s **Battle for Haditha** (But Clint still made the best movie about the Grenada operation. Not that it was a crowded field) ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/156 "2015-01-24T05:02:02Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’ve seen the movie, I remember what was going on at the time, and [as this article points out, it is almost nothing _but_ propaganda.](http://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7859791/american-sniper-iraq) Everything I hear about it reminds me of the film they were showing in _Inglourious Basterds._ That’s not a happy comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/157 "2015-01-24T06:27:01Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > Not exactly. Americans discovered the war was based on lies, and “illegitimate” as you say, so what could they do? They put “support our troops” bumper stickers on their cars as a way of avoiding the subject and shutting down conversation. Forget the war, if you don’t support the troops you’re just-like-Hitler. So what’s the point of this movie? We don’t want to get all depressed about an illegitimate war, and we need to glorify something about the war to make it worth it. We need to find _something_ to make us feel good. What do we choose? A guy who thinks killing savages is fun. But the movie is not about the Iraq War. It’s about a guy who served in the Iraq War. You are imparting political baggage that is not important to the narrative. If Chris Kyle believed in the cause of fighting to defend his country, then an honest movie would reflect that. Just as an honest movie about Hitler would reflect his perspective that Jews were traitors and Communists were evil. It would be dishonest to impart _your_ beliefs on what is essentially a biopic. The audience can do that for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/158 "2015-01-24T14:55:42Z")
People – if you want to debate the Iraq war, please to do so in Great Debates. We’re talking about movies here. Thanks, **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/159 "2015-01-25T02:30:46Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Everything I hear about it reminds me of the film they were showing in _Inglourious Basterds._ That’s not a happy comparison. Saying exactly that is what got Michael Moore a FUC\_ YOU MICHAEL MOORE sign being held by Sarah Palin - [Sarah Palin's Got Michael Moore In The Crosshairs | Crooks and Liars](http://crooksandliars.com/2015/01/sarah-palins-got-michael-moore-crosshairs) ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2015, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252/160 "2015-01-25T03:06:57Z")
I’m actually laughing at the claim that American Sniper is “propoganda”. No shit, how many if any war movies aren’t “propoganda films”. Platoon, Coming Home, the Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan. They were all propoganda films and respectfully anyone who thinks differently is being silly. FTR, I haven’t seen the movie and have immediate plans to see it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-else-isnt-watching-american-sniper/710252.md?page=9)