Sniping into America's Hearts and Minds

Chris Kyle played by Bradley Cooper in The American Sniper

American Sniper is an all-American red, white, and blue tale of a brave hero, Chris Kyle, who leaves his home, and family to join the United States military as a Navy SEAL, then travels overseas to fight the good fight to help defeat the evil Middle East, and defend our freedom and liberty. This movie received various acclaims and nominations, while capturing and uplifting the great American spirit that so many love to see and hear about.This film, directed by Clint Eastwood, depicts and brings light to the harsh reality most veterans face in war and at home, audiences have taken the film as propaganda as a way to further American based ideologies and hegemony. Eastwood in an interview with Loyola Marymount University School of Film & TV in Los Angeles, stated that because he directs the film in a way that illustrates the drama and stresses of what war is like for military personnel and their families, he believes his film, if it has a message, to have an anti-war message. His interpretation was not a black and white painting of good-versus-evil, but he depicted a very real story of a veteran who, named a hero, had his struggles. An "anti-hero" if you will.  For me, his depiction of war helped bring awareness to the stressors such as, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and the extreme anxieties that follow and plague military veterans who have come back from war, which I believe was Eastwood's one intention of the film. But many pro-war and pro-gun right-wing advocates have deemed the film and Chris Kyle as a "National Treasure". (No joke, there is a corn maze in the shape of his face in Loganville, Georgia) So instead of using the film to bring awareness to the harsh reality of war, it was used as an avenue or "hypodermic needle" to inject American exceptional-ism back into the minds of the audience. To remind viewers who the real "good guys" always are in war, the United States of America. (I don't know about you, but I am imagining a Captain America-like character holding and aiming a sniper rifle wearing red-white-and-blue with a American flag cape) Viewers clung to this message so tightly that when critics began to post quotes from Chis Kyle's memoir book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History, that bring Chris Kyle's morality under question, they were demonized and called anti-American and were even sent death threats and wishes. The hypodermic model of media effects, although it has been proven not applicable, still effects audiences on some ways due to the fact that people with agendas will always find a way to use different types of media to further that agenda. But now with social media and full access to the internet we can now search and get the full truth and reality of different situations, even if they are "based on a true story".