“My first impulse is to call you a dumb Obama ass-licking c**t”: “American Sniper” fans tell me off I dared criticize "American Sniper." You'd be horrified by the response from aggressive, deluded "patriots"

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/20/my_first_impulse_is_to_call_you_a_dumb_obama_ass_licking_ct_american_sniper_fans_tell_me_off/



FRIDAY, FEB 20, 2015 05:30 AM CST

Sophia A McClennen

"The fans defending “American Sniper” reveal more about our nation’s problems than the movie itself.

“American Sniper” opened to almost immediate controversy as critics suggested that the film’s sniper was overly romanticized as a hero, that it lacked needed political context, and that it offered reductive views of both the conflict and the veteran experience. But the idea that there would be criticism of this film is not really news. The film was about a sniper from the Iraq War, and it was to be expected that the U.S. public would have a range of responses to it.

The real news, instead, is the forceful way that some supporters of the film rose to its defense. If you were worried that the film offered a depressingly simplified version of the Iraq War, and if you were concerned that it rewarded aggression over reason, then the extremist fan response to the film should worry you more.

We knew early on that critiquing the film was risky business since it would be followed with immediate and intense attacks. This was evident when Seth Rogen and Michael Moore experienced severe public backlash in response to less-than-favorable tweets about the movie. In a return of the “with us or against us” logic that framed the Bush administration’s response to 9/11, the film suddenly stood in for patriotism in general. If you critiqued the film, you hated the country, the military and your own freedom. And those that you had offended were going to make you pay for it.

It was just this sort of narrow thinking that I had in mind when I wrote a piece critical of the film for Salon. I suggested that the film suffered from two key flaws—delusion and aggression—and that both of those flaws had been present in public appearances by “American Sniper” director Clint Eastwood. Most important, I connected them to a hostile tendency common to a highly vocal sector of the GOP...

[...]


...There were two things about my piece that really seemed to piss people off. First, that I was a professor, and second, that I had said anything critical about Chris Kyle....

There are many levels of analysis of the movie. I find her review to be a pedestrian attempt. I find the responses to be pedestrian. Of course, the whole intent was to pull the trigger to get the pedestrian response. No mystery here.

I haven't seen the movie, so I can't really comment yet. I posted this because of the backlash she received. It's disgusting.

Just leftist reflexion eh comrade? Suspend any objective or rational thght... and when told to jump... ask how high.

PkrBum wrote:Just leftist reflexion eh comrade? Suspend any objective or rational thght... and when told to jump... ask how high.

And you're still an idiot.

Lets sing a Christmas Carol.

no stress wrote:Lets sing a Christmas Carol.

It occurs to me that it won't be very long until the only people who will remember or give a damn about Kris Kyle's bloody existence, will be the hundreds of relatives of the Iraqis he terminated. Think about it, what did Kyle or any of the American crusader-victims who went to Iraq to create a functioning secular democracy, actually accomplish for America?

Fuck war. Fuck snipers. Fuck Clint Eastwood.