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Crain posted:Not sure if you mean to be implying this but that's how I'm reading it: Chis isn't the one reading the comic in the movie, it's another SEAL. That's true, but I took it for granted that Chris was too considering all the Punisher skulls he had on everything. It's a safe assumption that he read a few. The alternative being he agreed to have the skull because his team wanted it. Also, the publishing date of the comic his buddy is reading was about '03 iirc and do actually match up with the movie. There are about 3 instances of the Punisher skull (And it is the Punisher skull) On the MG op's shield on the Hum vee, Chris's BDU and most weirdly in my opinion on his magazines. It's a small detail, but as you guys know that stuff like that is rarely and accident. Like I kinda mentioned earlier. The Punisher is pretty much Batman for soldiers (Captain America would be superman) He is totally lethal, capable and very much a special forces paragon. (In one story, Delta try and take him down and they are in awe of him saying "He has never gone off duty or had R&R in the last 30 years" The Punisher is also an ex-Marine special forces, so you can see the aspiration. After a few searches I found quite a few punisher tattoos online belonging to soldiers and unofficial unit badges etc. I once hung out with some marines and they had a punisher skull at their posting so it could just be something Eastwood found i his research and saw it as evocative and iconic. As a superhero, living in a world of simple morality where there are only sheep, wolves and the sheepdogs. Frank Castle is the ultimate soldier. He kills monsterous gangsters from drug dealers to rapists of all nationalities. He does it the way he wants to with unlimited resources and zero oversight. He never misses and kills a civvie and directly defends Americans from direct and tangible dangers. His family died at the hands of criminals and exist now only as symbols to give him angst. He fights nearly every day and can shrug off any wound with his inherent grit. He will die in battle and be remembered forever. The ultimate role model for the modern soldier. I choose to see it as how Chris saw himself Lonos Oboe fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 01:20
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Lonos Oboe posted:There are about 3 instances of the Punisher skull (And it is the Punisher skull) On the MG op's shield on the Hum vee, Chris's BDU and most weirdly in my opinion on his magazines. There is also a 1 single mention of "Punisher" as the name of the unit. In the scene right being told that Ryan "Biggles" Job died Bradly Cooper's Kyle says "Are there any other 'Punishers' around?". As far as I've been able to find that's the only time the unit is explicitly called by their Unofficial/Official nickname. quote:The ultimate role model for the modern soldier. I choose to see it as how Chris saw himself Agreed. All the language Kyle uses in his book could easily be Punisher dialogue. Or at least it could be if the writers could get away wish being so eye-rollingly over the top.
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Jan 24, 2015 01:51
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Charlz Guybon posted:ISIS has gone out of its way to make itself as hateable as possible to westerners by publicly broadcasting and boasting of many of its atrocities. It's not surprising that the average viewer is going to identify the enemy forces in this movie with that movement and thus support the American protagonist. ISIS would have never materialized if US did not invade Iraq. I laugh at all those people ignoring the flow on effects of the invasion yelling "RAH RAH, STUPID OBAMA!" or some other irrelevant statement. I haven't even been paying attention and me and many people saw it from miles away. You have PMCs getting ambushed in fallujah and hung from a bridge by insurgents and the local folks, its definitely not a MISSION ACCOMPLISHED lol, along with the other various cases of kidnapping and beheading in the early the mid 2000s. Couple that with the withdrawal and the rise of "Insurgents with night vision and silencer doing spec op style raids and execution on local iraqi army outpost and generals" you know shits gonna hit the fan lol.
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Jan 24, 2015 03:30
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Agreed that the movie was kind of flat, simplistic and dull if nice looking, I'm glad I watched it off a friend's torrent and didn't give any money. I was utterly astounded by the Oscar nominations. Politics aside it was very unexceptional, if I thought it was super effective and deviously influential through excellent writing and direction I might still hate it but understand the nominations, but it just feels to me like Hollywood feels some need to suck up to this jingoistic stuff right now. -As far as "Punisher" comics go, remember when we see the other SEAL reading the comic Kyle actually berates him, because Chris Kyle, The LEGEND, is a serious warrior and the other guy is loving around reading kiddie comic books. -Re: Mustafa, not surprised this story was spun out of a tiny sentence in the book. Major sniper characters in war movies always need to have a nemesis sniper opposite number, apparently, to keep things interesting, and of course they eventually have to snipe that person (see Saving Private Ryan and other movies with prominent sniper characters). -Among many things, the most patently absurd event in the film to me is when Kyle gets the bright idea to abandon his overwatch post to go kick down doors with the grunts because they are amateurs and he is a NAVY SEAL. Without any made up combat emergency to spur him to do so. Enlisted guy, without checking with anyone, just decides he's going to abandon his assigned duty and go down and show those jarheads how it's done, presumably superceding the authority of any NCO or officer in charge of their unit. I don't even know where to start with this. If the movie had made up some urgent reason for him to do this ("they're TRAPPED AND GETTING TORN APART DOWN THERE! I don't care what command says, I'M GOING IN") it would have at least a little plausibility to it. But it's really based on pure ego, and he's not only loving around with that unit's operation, but more importantly, abandoning the specific mission (sniping/overwatch) that he was placed there for, and trained and equipped for. Presumably the command felt having a good sniper on overwatch provides an important support to the Marine unit, and the lack of that support could impact the way they envision the mission going down. There are so many things wrong with this, I just don't know. Not to mention if anything bad happened to the Marines as a result of not having him at his post, he'd be totally boned. I don't know why this particular event stuck out so badly for me in a kind of silly movie.
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Jan 24, 2015 03:39
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Zwabu posted:
Another aspect of this from the book: Units specifically put in requests for snipers during combat. The way Kyle explains it in the book (so, maybe take some salt first) it works like a temp agency almost. The SF groups all have their specialized members up to be borrowed if you need them. So a unit doing some building clearing or erecting some base or post would call up the SEALs and specifically ask for a sniper to cover them for however long. So he's not just shirking his general duty with people he might know and can swap with, it's worse. These are units with no snipers who specifically called for one because they needed a SNIPER not just another dude to pad numbers. Now your sniper's loving around on the ground and the soonest you could get another if poo poo goes down is probably a day or so if the rest are busy, and at best a few hours if there's another free. Now that scene in the book is less knee-jerky in the sense that for a few days he noticed that the marines he was overwatching were doing pretty bad at house clearing so he decides to ask the commander to let him help out to train them. But it's still a bad idea to give up your specialized position to do training IN AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE DURING ACTIVE COMBAT!
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Jan 24, 2015 04:26
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As someone who served over there around the same time that Kyle did, I think some of you are blowing the movie out of proportion. I mean, the movie centers around a guy who won a poo poo ton of medals. What did you expect? You had to know you were going to get your daily serving of patriotism in it.
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Jan 24, 2015 04:39
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L-Boned posted:As someone who served over there around the same time that Kyle did, I think some of you are blowing the movie out of proportion. I mean, the movie centers around a guy who won a poo poo ton of medals. What did you expect? You had to know you were going to get your daily serving of patriotism in it. A perfect regdate for a perfect post.
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Jan 24, 2015 05:06
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L-Boned posted:As someone who served over there around the same time that Kyle did, I think some of you are blowing the movie out of proportion. I mean, the movie centers around a guy who won a poo poo ton of medals. What did you expect? You had to know you were going to get your daily serving of patriotism in it. You don't think there's some validity in pointing out the issues with media that is deliberately using revisionist history and emotional manipulation to promote bigotry / jingoism and shore up recruiting quotas? Does the guy having a lot of medals preclude the director from taking the film in a different direction? "Has a bunch of medals" is literally the least compelling thing about Chris Kyle. You've got a pathological liar who wrapped himself in faith and patriotism to the point that he feels no remorse for taking human life. There are a whole lot of ways you could make a movie out of that which doesn't end up with the the weight and nuance of a CoD noscope compilation. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 06:52 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 06:49
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American Sniper will continue to set records this weekend. And it's on track to be the largest grossing movie of 2014 (currently held by Mockingjay & Guardians of the Galaxy at $333m). Just a phenomenal box office run.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:12
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At least this means I'll get a bunch of Sniper and The Marksman direct to video sequels to laugh at.
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Jan 24, 2015 08:48
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The oddest thing to me about this is how hatred of ISIS is contributing to the film's popularity. All the badass cathartic violence Kyle inflicts on the non-whites was so ineffective and pointless that it lead to a much worse group emerging. ISIS is a glaring reminder that the kind of heroes fans of this film want to believe in are utterly impotent. If I was a believer in might makes right I would find it utterly depressing. On a deeper level it is interesting to note how the proud ignorance Kyle displays towards Iraqis, considering them all savages, was a widely held view at worryingly high levels of command. Few operating the counter insurgency operation understood the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims. The failure to understand the Sunni character of the insurgent groups who would go on to become ISIS was one of the main reasons coalition COIN operations were so ineffective against them. Thus the popularity of American Sniper and the hateful ignorance it celebrates strongly suggest American foreign policy is going to continue to set itself up to fail with the keen support of the populace.
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Jan 24, 2015 12:31
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ReV VAdAUL posted:Thus the popularity of American Sniper and the hateful ignorance it celebrates strongly suggest American foreign policy is going to continue to set itself up to fail with the keen support of the populace. OK, another question for the cognoscenti. How many movies are there that show psychos like Kyle as psychos, without a trace of irony or winking or presenting them as victims? Someone like Billy Bob Thornton in Fargo the series, maybe? I mean something like Nightcrawler if Lou Bloom looked like a wholesome American heartland boy, Drive if it didn't have that undertone of, after all, sanctioning the violence, The Guest if it were, in the end, completely serious? Just... a movie exactly so plain, in-your-face, straightforward and in many ways as uninteresting as this one, but for, let's say, the ideologically other side of the audience? (That's not to say that PTSD doesn't exist, and so on.)
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Jan 24, 2015 14:09
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poo poo like this makes me appreciate Black Hawk Down more in retrospect among the crop of "modern" war movies. Yeah, that movie shows American soldiers as being pretty uniformly Nice People, but at least it has the decency to hammer home how horrible combat is, how inept and/or just plain out of control the powers that be are before and during a battle, and ends with a title card explicitly saying the whole thing ended in failure and all the nice American boys you saw getting turned inside out and poo poo and dying in agony accomplished absolutely nothing. The Somali "bad guy" they capture and talk to at the beginning of the film was right all along and it isn't even a little bit subtle about it. It's not a masterpiece but it feels like one compared to this kind of poo poo. e: "I'm here to kick some rear end!"  (Falls out of helicopter, breaks back) sean10mm fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 15:09
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I just can't believe this movie is getting away with such blatant whitewashing of the Iraq war. It tries so hard to sell 9/11 as the catalyst for sending troops into Iraq; Hussein and WMDs aren't mentioned a single time. At least in his autobiography Kyle had the courtesy to lie about finding WMDs. The movie sure does take the time to namedrop Al-Qaeda, though, despite the fact that they never existed in Iraq. I mean, holy poo poo. And people are just eating it up. Yeah, it's "just a movie," but it's a movie that is going to be informing a ton of people's view of history. meristem posted:
I don't there are any movies that are a true mirror to this one. The Deer Hunter, maybe? Platoon and Apocalypse Now do, to a degree, but people still manage to ignore that angle and get all rah-rah about the combat scenes. And maybe Jacob's Ladder, even though it's not really a "war film." Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 16:46
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The movie was ok, and I think the first couple of Punisher MAXes was cool. Honestly, I didn't think the movie was a masterpiece or anything, and I would probably find Lone Survivor MUCH more patriotic than this one. I think the term "savages" is probably nicest racist term that I've heard described for these militant groups, probably because I live in Texas, and worse has probably been said. That whole part with the kid? I think getting your kids to run up to convoys with a rocket is a pretty awful thing to do, and sounds like a story to drive your views into how the invadees are willing to go so far to protect themselves (I think that was a thing that happened only once? I heard Chris Kyle used that story as an anecdote many times). Chris Kyle being the All American Gi-Joe to me maybe was weird to me, but then again I haven't read the book. Still, if he was in an active war zone, and he helped prevent numerous people from placing ambushes on the US soldiers on the ground, that's got to be good, right?
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Jan 24, 2015 16:54
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I just can't believe this movie is getting away with such blatant whitewashing of the Iraq war. It tries so hard to sell 9/11 as the catalyst for sending troops into Iraq; Hussein and WMDs aren't mentioned a single time. At least in his autobiography Kyle had the courtesy to lie about finding WMDs. wait, Kyle claimed that he himself found WMDs?
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Jan 24, 2015 17:22
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Yes, but they had faggy european writing on them, so of course it was covered up. But not covered up enough to, say, have the CIA or anyone stop him from writing about it in a goddamn book. That part of the book really comes off as a troubled guy trying to justify his actions and role in a bad war. Kyle goes into this whole illogical argument that Saddam knew they were coming into Iraq, so he must have hid them all beforehand, and therefore it doesn't matter that no evidence turned up, even though he found some. No one ever mentions this really ludicrous section because it probably discredits him as much as the "sniping black people in New Orleans" anecdote, and it also reveals that he probably had trouble accepting the war as well.
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Jan 24, 2015 17:36
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The Iraq war was justified because the iraq people sent those terrorist planes into are towers and im pretty sure they were training more terrorists too and if we didnt invade they're country they would keep sending planes or even nukes!! we had no choise
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Jan 24, 2015 17:53
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Abu Dave posted:I watched this with a friend and on the way out of the theatre I made a joke about it being about "a retard who murders innocents" and she started crying and playing the silent game and it will prob be the end of our friendship so thats why I triply hate this movie. As a friend, you should honestly ask her why she is so deeply moved by the movie. The movie is a lie, her feelings aren't. It's worth exploring and it might give good insight on why people love blantant propaganda, especially during the Internet age.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:21
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Fargin Icehole posted:The movie was ok, and I think the first couple of Punisher MAXes was cool. That part with the kid didn't happen that way. Kyle's version in his book only has the woman running at them with a grenade and there was no dude on a roof calling in poo poo either. Do yourself a favor and read the book. quote:
This is like asking if we've stopped punching our wives yet. Kyle was a virulent racist, a pathological liar, and a great example of why the military worship in the country is so damaging to our society. But yeah, he was a good shot and there are situations where he saved some people. But we shouldn't have been there in the first place. The man wasn't even trying to say "We shouldn't be here, but it's a hosed up situation and I'll just do my damnedest to protect our boys". He was practically giddy about killing Iraqis, and he said he sometimes felt that "Sometimes it seemed like God was holding them back until I got on the gun.", as if he has some divine right to kill. So yeah, he probably saved people. But that doesn't balance the scales.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:34
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I really don't understand all the hate for this movie. It wasn't a good movie, but it wasn't anything I didn't expect. Can someone explain to me how this movie is racist? Yeah he calls the people he's fighting savages, but that's about it. He doesn't seem to feel the same toward the children that are forced into the fighting, or the guy who tries to help him out with intel. He actually seemed pretty distraught over what happened to the guy and the kid because of what the "savages" did to them. He's even accepting and shares a meal with that other guy up until he finds a weapons cache in his house. Doesn't strike me as a guy whose particularly racist, just a guy whose seen a lot of poo poo and has to deal with bunch of lovely people on a regular basis. Was the movie a jerk off fest to Chris Kyle? Yeah, but it's a movie based on a book he wrote. Is it racist? I didn't think so. But if you disagree with me I'd love to see the input.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:41
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SirDrinksAlot posted:I really don't understand all the hate for this movie. Portraying a guy who jerked off to the idea of killing arabs (and black americans) as a conflicted, reluctant hero is itself profoundly racist. The comparison to Stolz der Nation is extremely apt. Imagine taking a memoir where SS trooper Kristoff Keil gleefully recounts tales of slaughtering judeo-bolshevik savages, and turning it into a story of noble, necessary sacrifice. Even if the resulting film didn't portray him as a horrible nazi, it's still taking a horrible nazi and making him into a hero. It's lionizing him and encouraging the next generation to be horrible nazis. A lot of people are now going to read that book through the lens of Chris Kyle the reluctant hero and come away with a renewed faith in Are Troops Fighting the Good Fight.
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Jan 24, 2015 18:46
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Well I haven't read but the book, but by your statement it seems like you haven't seen the movie. ETA: What? How is this movie encouraging people to become a "Nazi" any more than other war movies like We Were Soldiers or Act of Valor. Making that argument is akin to saying that video games make people kill other people. This movie isn't going to alter anyone's opinion, if they walk out of there thinking all muslims are savages I would put money on them believing that before they walked into the theater. SirDrinksAlot fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 18:48
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Getting beyond the fact that Kyle himself was a racist (using racist language and bragging about shooting looters from the top of the Astrodome, which the film wisely chose to ignore), the entire movie has a blatantly racist attitude toward everyone that isn't white. Every Iraqi is a terrorist or a terrorist sympathizer. The one character that seems alright ends up being evil all along. The only truly sympathetic Iraqi character in the entire film is the kid that gets used as emotional leverage in a torture scene to further hammer home how savage all the other brown people are. The entire movie is trying to build a bullshit narrative about a white soldier's moral superiority against the backdrop of fighting the insurgents that didn't exist until we started killing Iraqis on their own soil. The Al-Qaeda that this movie is trying to sell to viewers is flat-out fabrication used as a hand-wavey justification for the violence that the film portrays. It's an incredibly reckless portrayal of events in a country where 40% of the population still believes that Iraq had direct involvement in 9/11. The movie is racist because it presents this moral black and white view of the Iraq War were every US soldier is a tragic, noble, humanized figure while every single Iraqi is a nameless terrorist or terrorist supporter. Can you remember a single Iraqi character in this film having a name besides the bad guys? (Hint: they don't get names) quote:"If you see anyone from sixteen to sixty-five and they're male, shoot 'em. Kill every male you see." He doesn't even regard the Iraqis as human beings. And consequently, neither does this film. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:10 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 19:04
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SirDrinksAlot posted:I really don't understand all the hate for this movie. Here's my write up: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3695714&userid=118872#post440509952 Also read the damned book. The biggest complaint here is that the movie is whitewashing a horrible person.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:14
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I understand that, and I've heard a bit about Chris Kyle. But I am talking about the movie, and from what I could see I didn't see anything offensive while watching it. With that being said, you seem to have a lot of hate for the man that is Chris Kyle. I didn't know the dude, I don't know what his personal feelings were towards Iraqis were but he did save a lot of lives and he did make an effort to helping veterans. Was he a liar who tried to white wash his past actions? I have no doubt that it's true, but I don't think this makes him a terrible person. I don't think any one action makes someone a good or bad person.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:22
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SirDrinksAlot posted:Well I haven't read but the book, but by your statement it seems like you haven't seen the movie. If you portray an unashamed nazi as a noble hero fighting barbarous hordes, you're encouraging people to like and support the nazi war machine and view their enemies as barbarous hordes, and downplaying how horrible it is to be a nazi. If you portray an unashamed racist and sociopath SEAL as a noble hero fighting barbarous hordes, you're encouraging people to like and support the american war machine and view their enemies as barbarous hordes, and downplaying how horrible it is to be a murderous racist. By showing noted sociopath Chris Kyle as an all-american hero who did what's right, you're encouraging a crusader worldview where arabs are scary and evil, Iraq did 9/11, and we need to be killing them.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:26
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SirDrinksAlot posted:I understand that, and I've heard a bit about Chris Kyle. Read my post above for a look at why the movie itself is racist. You could also read the quotes from his autobiography, which lays out exactly what he thought about the Iraqi people. In fact it makes it very clear that he actually was a terrible person! hth Edit: Also, helping veterans how? You mean by lying and pocketing 98% of the proceeds of a book that he claimed would donate 100% of proceeds to veterans? Or by taking a man with diagnosed PTSD to a gun range to "get over it"? Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 19:28
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SirDrinksAlot posted:
No? I have a problem with who he was as a person, I have a problem with the direction the movie goes in, I have a problem with the whitewashing being done on Kyle by the movie which is influencing public opinion on the topic of the Iraq war and Iraqis/Muslims leading to things like this:  . I don't hate the man because I don't know the man. But I have a problem with what the movie is trying to do when it comes to rewriting who he was. What's the point of trying to shut down criticism by trying to sweep it away by just calling it hate. There's been a lot of quality discussion posted with sourced quotes from the man himself and the movie and you just jumped in and ignored all of that. Why bother coming in here and just going "Well I didn't have a problem with it, why are you all haters?". So thanks for posting nothing of value I guess.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:39
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Armani posted:As a friend, you should honestly ask her why she is so deeply moved by the movie. The movie is a lie, her feelings aren't. It's worth exploring and it might give good insight on why people love blantant propaganda, especially during the Internet age. Its because she had a boyfriend who served in Afghanistan and Americans overreact about even the gruntiest of soldiers. You can't even make fun of them without facing the cry of "you're free because of them!" And other ludicrous displays. Im free because I want to be free, not because the kid who got a tattoo of ICP at age 15 was too dumb to apply himself in school. I wish there was someone who'd really look into propaganda and why most people believe that. I mean yeah im grateful they're over there doing a job but they're no more special than the guy who empties the toilets or the girl who serves coffee. Empress Brosephine fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 19:48
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I don't think the movie can be separated from Chris Kyle the man. The movie makes him out to be a hero and role-model, therefore, all his words and all his actions are, to many people, something admirable, to be encouraged, emulated. Even if they go on to hear more about him, read his book, etc. they're still going through the filter of "Chris Kyle-Noble Hero". So eventually "kill all ragheads they are vermin" becomes the noble, heroic mindset. Of course we're already through the looking-glass on that one, for a lot of americans.
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Jan 24, 2015 19:54
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Imagine if this movie ended like how Inglorious ended; a innocent Iraqi women whose home and life has been destroyed because of american invasion decides to kill the american sniper being celebrated. I wonder what the reaction would be
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Jan 24, 2015 19:57
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This is the dullest piece of poo poo I've seen in years. It has no tone whatsoever.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:08
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vintagepurple posted:If you portray an unashamed nazi as a noble hero fighting barbarous hordes, you're encouraging people to like and support the nazi war machine and view their enemies as barbarous hordes, and downplaying how horrible it is to be a nazi. Well it seems like you're really on this Nazi thing. But that's your opinion and I respect it. Grizzled Patriarch posted:Read my post above for a look at why the movie itself is racist. Yeah I read through your post, and I still didn't see anything particularly racist about the movie that I hadn't already addressed. But I might have missed something so if you can point it out i'd be appreciative. Don't take this the wrong way, are you prior service? If so, do you remember what it was like when you first came back home? How different everything feels, how weird it feels to be in a familiar yet alien feeling place. To make matters worse you're with people that don't understand, and the people that do are thousands of miles away. To be honest I can't describe how it feels, but I can understand him taking veterans out to gun ranges can help them work through some issues. It's a great way to blow off steam and it can stimulate some conversation. I have no doubt that Chris cared about veterans and worked towards helping them because that's just something that's ingrained into them. Crain posted:No? I have a problem with who he was as a person, I have a problem with the direction the movie goes in, I have a problem with the whitewashing being done on Kyle by the movie which is influencing public opinion on the topic of the Iraq war and Iraqis/Muslims leading to things like this: Like I said, I doubt this movie turned all of those people into xenophobes. I'm not trying to shut down criticism I'm just trying to show you my perspective. I understand and respect your opinion, but I wanted to show a different side of it. Military training desensitizes you and teaches you to dehumanize the enemy because that makes you a more effective solider. When I deployed all I wanted to do was get overseas and use my training. Luckily I was never in combat and all my experience with Iraqis were positive ones. Chris Kyle on the other hand seemed to have a lot of negative experiences with Iraqis so I can understand how this conditioned him to distrust them. Does this make him evil? Hardly.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:09
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SirDrinksAlot posted:
I am not prior service, but most of my family is. My dad struggled with PTSD after Kuwait, but he somehow managed to get by without calling the people that blew up his Humvee savages and wishing that he could go back and murder a bunch of them in cold blood. Chris Kyle literally wanted to shoot people that were just walking down the street holding Korans. The reason people are telling you to look at his own book is because this movie is nothing but lies. I don't know how you can get much more damning than what he wrote about himself. And I do doubt that he cared about helping veterans (at least less than he cared about himself) because he stole 3 million dollars from them. It's not about turning people into racists. It's about whitewashing history. This movie tries to play off the Iraq war as a response to 9/11 and a fight against Al-Qaeda. The fact that they are getting away with that a scant decade after the fact is horrifying. The way the film goes out of its way to dehumanize and vilify every Iraqi character except the one they use to emotionally manipulate the audience is disgusting and racist. A lot of people aren't informed enough about the Iraq War to know that what this film is depicting is pure fantasy. I don't think anyone is going to come out of theaters magically transformed into racists, but they may very well come out as yet another person who thinks Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and that the loss of life there is now justified. You've yet to provide any sort of counter-argument aside from "He was probably an okay guy," which is demonstrably false. edit: And this is on top of the fact that the movie is just tepid and forgettable. The fact that Cooper got an Oscar nod for the incredible feat of eating some burgers and putting on a Texas accent is mindboggling. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 20:26
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Grizzled Patriarch posted:I am not prior service, but most of my family is. My dad struggled with PTSD after Kuwait, but he somehow managed to get by without calling the people that blew up his Humvee savages and wishing that he could go back and murder a bunch of them in cold blood. Chris Kyle literally wanted to shoot people that were just walking down the street holding Korans. What other counter argument do I have other than my opinions on the movie and my own personal experiences overseas? I agree with you that the movie plays it off as Iraq being responsible for 9/11. But people were believing this before the movie came along, just as people believe that Barack Obama isn't a U.S. Citizen, that global warming isn't real, and that evolution is a farce. People are idiots, and the movie is stupid for promoting that. But none of that is surprising to me, and I don't get how it's "horrifying". You know what's horrifying to me? U.S. policies on drone strikes, the militarization of police, hell I could go on about what scares the hell out of me - but people thinking 9/11 and Iraq is linked doesn't even rate - I just chalk that up to ignorance. Speaking of the book, I have been intending to read the book I just haven't really haven't had the chance yet, and you know what? My opinion may totally change after i've read it and had a little bit more insight into the kind of person he is. To be honest though this has gone way off track of my initial post, but i'm okay with keeping on this discussion as long as you guys are. ETA: quote:edit: And this is on top of the fact that the movie is just tepid and forgettable. The fact that Cooper got an Oscar nod for the incredible feat of eating some burgers and putting on a Texas accent is mind boggling. On this I agree completely.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:42
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SirDrinksAlot posted:
That defense barely covers for the fact that he saw his killing of Iraqis as a God given mission to remove evil from the world. That defense completely fails to cover the fact that: - He stole money from veterans (He said he would write the book and donate 100% of the proceeds. He only donated $52k, 1.7% based on some out of date earnings from the book). - He habitually lied about his own life. He actually managed to lose a defamation lawsuit in the USA. Do you know how goddamned hard it is to actually lose a defamation/libel suit in the US? He claimed he beat up Jesse Ventura. They had never even met outside of the courtroom. - He was horrifically racist back home as well. He claimed he set up shop on top of the Superdome in New Orleans and sniped out [black] looters who were attacking the city. He said he managed to kill 30. - He claimed he got away with vigilante justice when he killed 2 "car jackers" and called up the Pentagon who then told the cops who showed up to just let him leave. Absolutely 0 verification from anyone who isn't Kyle on that one. At best you could claim that Kyle was a victim of circumstance in Iraq, up until he comes home and confirms his character with the lies he's told since leaving the service. The movie is painting him as a noble hero to look up to who was broken by his service for his country and paid the ultimate price while humbly serving it's veterans as a civilian. And as another person said here, all that does is indirectly legitimize the terrible things he said and did. SirDrinksAlot posted:
We're talking about the movie, book, and the person Chris Kyle was here. If you want to talk about the current Middle East situation go to D&D. Also people are actually capable of being concerned about multiple things at any given time. We're not pushing "the economy is bad" and "Drone Strikes are bad" out of our minds just because we're talking about this movie right now. Also "people thinking 9/11 and Iraq is linked " is a pretty big deal because that was the original lie that forced us into the Iraq war and now there is a major motion picture that is informing people's opinions about the Iraq war which is saying it wasn't a lie. It's revisionist history. That's a problem. Crain fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 20:50
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It's not surprising that people are already hideous racists, but it's horrible and disgusting that we have a gigantic multi-million dollar film made that supports them.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:51
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SirDrinksAlot posted:What other counter argument do I have other than my opinions on the movie and my own personal experiences overseas? I guess I'm kind of confused as to your argument. That the movie isn't all that bad? I don't see how it's possible to claim that the depiction of Iraqi characters in this film isn't problematic. Like I said, can you think of a single Iraqi character that had a name, aside from the evil caricatures? They don't get names because they aren't people. The film treats them like props. Not a single one of them gets the same level of depth as secondary and sometimes even tertiary white characters. Whether Chris Kyle and combat forces as a whole are trained to dehumanize the enemy is one thing, but that doesn't justify the film doing it. It's also troubling that the dehumanization extends to women and children, even outside of the opening scene. And while I agree with you i/r/t drone strikes, etc., atrocities aren't mutually exclusive. Trying to justify war with Iraq through tenuous links with 9/11 isn't "ignorant" unless you think every single person involved in the making of this film somehow didn't know any better. What this film is doing is very much a deliberate, willful act of historical revisionism, and that is very dangerous. Trying to sugarcoat an unjustified war is socially and morally irresponsible, especially when most of the audience were probably children during the events of this film and couldn't have possibly formed an educated opinion on it at the time. Why do you think so many people think Iraq was involved in 9/11? A large part of it comes from the media (including news outlets) selling that narrative, or at least tacitly allowing others to. Just because some people will think what they want to think and gleefully take all of their opinions from talking heads without a moment of reflection doesn't mean it's ethical to push potentially harmful lies on them as the truth. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Jan 24, 2015 |
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Jan 24, 2015 20:58
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| # ? Apr 26, 2024 01:39 |
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The only iraqis present in this film, that aren't evil enemy combatants, are being used by the film to demonstrate how evil the enemy combatants are. That's explicitly racist, it's practically a racist trope: they're so evil that they don't have sympathy for their children and families. They'll sacrifice them to kill us! They're inhumanly evil! You come away thinking that it's a mistake to trust the scheming arab, they'll all turn on you. It's the same thing that's used to smear palestinians in Israel, the japanese in WW2, the soviets during the Cold War, black americans today, in some circles- they'll sacrifice their families to attack us. They don't love their children. Call it an exaggeration but it is largely the same way nazi propaganda and nazi accounts portrayed the soviet citizenry. My grandfather and his brother fought for the germans before immigrating, my dad fought in Vietnam, and I narrowly escaped enlistment-a week before my shipdate a very close friend who'd been deployed, come back an alcoholic, and then sort of disappeared for a while got in touch, and told me some awful stuff. Practically begged me not to go. Having grown up with several generations of PTSD this sort of crap really gets to me and yeah, it's hella racist, it's disgusting, and it's the same worldview shared by jackbooted fascists. I think it's really gross and sad that this film chooses to portray Chris Kyle in the light that it does, and likewise the iraqis.
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Jan 24, 2015 20:59
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