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Chris Kyle: The Real American Sniper

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American Sniper, a film about America's best sniper in history, Chris Kyle, throughout the time of the Iraq war. A film about heart, pride, bravery, and war. Clint Eastwood created what some would call a “masterpiece” and “shows the raw truth about what it's like to be a real American soldier in the war”. Some others would say “a film about glorifying a psycho and murderer” and Chris Kyle was “a hate-filled killer”. People now question, why would someone create a film about a man who was looked as a killer, and yet glorified as a hero? America's propaganda, war mascot, Chris Kyle was what the world would say “the deadliest sniper in American history.” Kyle was deployed a total of four times for the Iraq war when he finished all his units …show more content…

The first Iraqis the audience sees in the film is a mother and a young boy, they are in the point of view of the sniper, and behind that sniper is Chris Kyle. Throughout this first scene, Kyle watches the mother and son, Kyle soon discovers that the woman is hiding a grenade under her burqa, she then passes it to the young boy. In this scene, you can see Kyle is having trouble dealing with the situation, but in the end he does execute them both. This is the first impression the audience has on the Iraq war and this already shows a very strong conception on the portrayal of, who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. All the emotion and intensity of this scene of him killing for the first time is very much focusing on Kyle and how he is feeling. Even the audience gets sympathy for him, throughout the film Iraqis and Muslims get looked at as a target. They are these mysterious, dangerous, killing machines with no morals nor feelings, they are inhuman. Many articles such as one from Michael Green from ‘The Conversation’ says, “It certainly doesn’t present a point of view in which Iraqis, still reeling from the trauma of decades of totalitarian oppression”. He is explaining that even though this film is obviously based on Chris Kyle and his story, you still need to understand and respect why these people are fighting back, and why they are doing what they are …show more content…

These are the people that got sucked into the void that is American Sniper. Chris Kyle got called a “hero” and “good man” and of course “world’s best sniper”, which apparently is a good thing to them. He has a self-written autobiography and now a film dedicated to his work. The biggest question is why? Why does this certain man get praised for this? The two definitions of a sniper are “A skilled military shooter detailed to spot and pick off enemy soldiers from a concealed place”, and “ One who shoots at other people from a concealed place.” Both of those sound like murder, but what the world calls it, is talent. The raw truth to it is what else can they call it, to justify what they are really doing, which is murder. Muslims and Iraqis get a lot of false representation within the film, so does Chris Kyle. Chris Kyle is looked as a family man, who is looking after his family and country, and he, does in fact, believe that he is, but he also is not the “good man” that Eastwood was portraying. The film portrays Kyle to be tormented and scarred from his work in the war. For example, Kyle's first killing was a mother and son and he is shown reacting in a very dramatic way. He looks resentful and traumatized from the experience, even articles and critics praised the film for “emotional torment of so many military men and women”. When in fact that total “traumatized” act from the

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