American Sniping

Scott Hardie | January 21, 2015
Can we as a nation please get over the idea that saying anything critical of something tangentially related to an armed serviceman constitutes an unacceptable attack on the military?

Seth Rogen criticized the film American Sniper for being similar to the satirical Nazi sniper film embedded within Inglourious Basterds. It's a fairly easy assumption to make that Rogen was put off by American Sniper's lack of ambiguity and plausibility, not that he was somehow trying to trash Chris Kyle. But leave it to some people to get pissed off anyway, fueled by the usual culture-war pot-stirrers.

Is one not allowed to think that American Sniper is a bad movie without being ungrateful of the dangerous work done by actual American snipers? Just in the last few years, war movies Red Dawn, Love and Honor, and Red Tails have all been considered pretty lousy -- does everyone who disliked those also hate the troops, or just people who are employed in Hollywood?

This irrational false dichotomy, in which everyone must be either pro-troops or anti-troops, is so ridiculous and so tiring. Just a few weeks ago, Seth Rogen was praised as a hero for making The Interview, when the act of seeing it in theaters became a celebrated patriotic statement of national pride. Now he's being derided as a monster for having a negative assessment of a different movie? He wasn't a hero then and he isn't a villain now. People need to chill the hell out and stop taking everything to binary extremes.

Two parting thoughts:

- Besides their genocide and their attempt at global domination, isn't the other major thing that's disliked about the Nazis their fascism, their culturally enforced celebration of national military honor? Isn't it also fascistic of us to demand that every American be uniformly and absolutely pro-troop? Boycotts of Rogen's films are being organized to punish him for his opinion. I'm sure that calls to deport him to his home country, like those facing Piers Morgan, are the next step. Does no one realize how hypocritical this is?

- When ultra-conversative gun enthusiasts use open-carry laws or otherwise celebrate buying or owning a firearm, they are often praised for "exercising their Second Amendment rights," out of fear of those rights being infringed upon, as if the very act of "exercising" one's rights is both American and noble in and of itself. How come the First Amendment does not enjoy the same patriotic celebration? How come no one pats Seth Rogen on the back and calls him a true American for saying something unpopular to "exercise his First Amendment rights" lest the government take them away?

Samir Mehta | January 21, 2015
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Scott Hardie | January 24, 2015
Why does that isolation lead to worship when it comes to troops? We hold the clergy in less regard now than we used to when we attended church at higher rates. Americans who have drifted away from church are not prone to saying "bless the clergy" or taking up collections for clergy who cannot support themselves or blasting celebrities who say something negative about clergy, but Americans who feel no connection to the military still do those things for soldiers. There have been scandals that have made Americans lose some respect for clergy, such as the Catholic child sexual abuse cover-up, but there have been even more scandals involving the military, such as Abu Ghraib and Robert Bales.

Samir Mehta | January 24, 2015
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Erik Bates | January 25, 2015
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Scott Hardie | February 6, 2015
I'm having trouble finding it now (this alludes to it), but I've read about a study that said that conservatives have a brain center for respecting authority that liberals do not, among many other differences in their brains. As hesitant as I am to assume that brain scans prove anything, I do keep seeing hints of it in the public square, and this kerfuffle over American Sniper is just another example.

Someone wrote recently that because America was founded by volunteers in rejection of national religion, we have placed civil service at the center of our society where worship would be for other nations. People who devote themselves to make our society better are venerated on ascending pedestals based on how dangerous their work is: Teachers get some respect, cops get more, firefighters get lots, and soldiers get the most. Our soldiers ARE our clergy in that sense, and it helps to explain why we tolerate no blasphemy against them.

Scott Hardie | February 6, 2015
Getting cynical: Now that troop worship has led to huge turnout for American Sniper, will Hollywood make more super-serious, super-respectful soldier biopics in the same vein, the way that numerous Christian epics have been made in the wake of The Passion of the Christ's runaway success?

Scott Hardie | May 17, 2015
Now you don't even have to say something remotely negative about the military to launch a shitstorm. You just have to reference a famous military image. Under Armour has made a shirt based on the Iwo Jima flag-raising and boy is the Internet pissed about it. Never mind that the company donates a significant amount to the Wounded Warrior Project and other veteran causes: People are burning their UA gear and loudly proclaiming their outrage.

How many of these protestors think Muslims are wrong to get bent out of shape when Muhammad is drawn in a cartoon, or when someone burns or flushes a Quran?

How many of these protestors are proud that we defeated fascism in WWII, because fascism requires deference to the state and its military above all other concerns like freedom of expression?

I'm not even going to get into the racist undertones in some people's reactions to the "baller" image, because that's a whole other batch of crazy.

Samir Mehta | May 18, 2015
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Scott Hardie | May 26, 2015
It continues.

"...such a blatant disregard for military veterans and active service members."

It's an upside-down flag on a t-shirt. That's all. If that simple thing qualifies as blatant disregard for veterans, what would constitute a lesser slight? Does outrage always have to cranked up to an 11 now?