‘American Sniper’ Complaints Grow in Hollywood: Should Clint Eastwood Be Celebrating a ‘Killer’? (Exclusive)On the other hand, the complaints are flying that LBJ wasn't portrayed in a more favorable light in "Selma". If the Left is not predictable, then they are nothing at all.
Over the weekend, multiple Academy members told TheWrap that they had been passing around a recent article by Dennis Jett in The New Republic that attacks the film for making a hero out of Kyle, who said: “The enemy are savages and despicably evil,” and his “only regret is that I didn’t kill more.” Kyle made the statements in his best-selling book, “American Sniper,” on which the film is based.
The film’s straightforward treatment of Kyle, who was killed in February 2013 by a veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, is one of the reasons it has been celebrated by the military and embraced by audiences that have made it by far the top-grossing Best Picture nominee. The film had a massive opening when it went wide at the box office this weekend and is poised to break an historic $100 million this holiday weekend.
But Academy members seem to be paying attention to the criticism that Eastwood and star/producer Bradley Cooper shouldn’t be celebrating a man who wrote that killing hundreds of Iraqis was “fun.”
“He seems like he may be a sociopath,” one Academy member told TheWrap, adding he had not yet seen the film but had read the article, which is being passed around.
And Michael Moore, an Oscar voter and former Academy governor from the Documentary Branch, tweeted on Sunday, “My uncle killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren’t heroes. And invaders r worse.”
Neither distributor Warner Bros. nor the filmmakers have responded to TheWrap’s request for comment, though the studio said they intended to make someone available.
A piece in The Guardian by author Lindy West criticized Kyle this way: “The real American Sniper was a hate-filled killer. Why are simplistic patriots treating him as a hero?” he wrote.
Jett quoted West in his piece in the New Republic, and added: “One answer to that question: Because many Americans are unable to accept that nothing was won in Iraq, and that the sacrifices Kyle and others made were not worth it.”
We saw American Sniper this week, and it is a very powerful film. And the drama continues with the assault on Kyle's widow by Jesse Ventura, over a disputed incident in Kyle's book. Ventura's self-righteousness might or might not be justified - there are Seal witnesses on both sides. But a bigger man would have dropped the lawsuit against Kyle's widow. Even though Kyle's widow will likely be flush after the dust settles, it seems sleazy to attack her estate. And sleaze seems to go against Ventura, in that sense.
Regardless, the Iraq war was justified initially to the degree that many Leftists approved it as well as did normal people. What was lost in Iraq was lost, not by the war, but by Obama, and him alone. So what Kyle did as a protector of the approved actions of the troops on the ground was and is, in fact, legitimate, even by Leftist standards.
What is happening now is the standard Leftist redefinition of what is legitimate, both in the war and the actions of those who waged it. It is merely the standard smear in order to protect Leftist dogma, and the same is going on with Selma (which I have not seen).
LBJ was not a moral icon, and he didn't deserve the presidency; he was an accidental president the same as Gerald Ford. The way LBJ handled and lost the Viet Nam War relates directly to the way Obama lost Iraq: they both directed everything war related themselves, personally, out of their own sense of personal superiority to their generals who were their lessers. LBJ and the FBI spied on MLK, and LBJ was not the moral god Leftists wish him to be. I don't know if the movie made clear that the oppressors of the blacks in the south were Democrats. That should never be forgotten. Bull Connor was a delegate to the Democrat convention, for example. Now that the south is not Democrat, blacks are reportedly migrating Southward again in order to find respect outside the ghettos and to engage the now roaring economy in southern states.
So now the amoral Hollywood Left makes a moral case once again. If anyone deserves condemnation as mentally disordered, it is the Hollywood narcissist Left, as a class. If there is any culture which does not deserve a moral say, Hollywood is that culture.
UPDATE:
Go here for the widow's response to the huge audience that American Sniper drew.
2 comments:
Michael Moore is a dunce. To paraphrase Patton, he doesn't know anything more about war than he does fornicating. Sharpshooter support is an integral part warfare. Is any less "cowardly" to drop artillery, or mortar rounds, or use air support, or naval bombardments, or drones, or tomahawks. Maybe we should just challenge all the insurgents to meet us in a football stadium and we'll have rumble.
I'll ask rhetorically, does Michael Moore understand that America used "snipers" in WWII (the only acceptable war to the left) as well. I guess they were cowards too, eh Mike? My wife and I were talking about the trailer. I haven't been able to see the film yet. She asked "do you think he shot the kid." I said, "I think he probably did." Then I asked (we have a 16 year old son who wants to be a Marine) "If Noah was in the convoy that kid was about to attack, wouldn't you want that guy to drop him before he blew himself up and dismembered a couple Marines?" She suddenly understood.
Too bad Mike doesn't, but then again he probably has the Al Qaeda flag tattooed on his enormous ass. He seems unhappy unless insurgents are sending our troops home in body bags so he can point and laugh and equivocate our troops with the British in the Revolutionary war. Chris Kyle represents a piece of the puzzle that prevents mass carnage being dispensed against our troops, and for that, he must be demonized.
It has been interesting to observe the attendees of American Sniper at the Mall where I work as a security officer. In the main, it has been mostly older white people who are flocking to see the movie. I have been surprised at the number of attendees. I live in a small, mostly rural area, with only one significant town of approximately 25,000 residents. There is and has always been a majority of the citizens who have served in the military, or have had family in the military. I served in the USAF for 8 years. All three of my sons have served. The oldest was in the US Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. The youngest served in the US Marine Corp (pronounced "core," Mr. President, not "corpse") in Operation Enduring Freedom. My middle son is currently serving as a medic in the US Army, and has not (yet) been deployed overseas.
I have not seen the movie, so will make no comment on or about it, other than this: I saw some people I knew immediately after they watched it. They were very moved. Apparently the audience has not left with the usual "gung ho" feeling that one expects from a war movie. I saw sadness over Chris Kyle's fate, dying at the hands of another veteran at a shooting range while trying to help that veteran deal with PTSD.
For those who cannot comprehend how someone can do what Chris Kyle did, I strongly suggest reading the following essay by Bill Whittle, which was reproduced (with spelling corrections) by John C. Wright:
Sanctuary by Bill Whittle
You'll have to scroll down to the article. It is long, but it is well worth reading it. You may not agree with Mr. Whittle, but you will surely have some things to think about. In particular, this thought struck me forcefully because of the experience of my sons:
"War is hell, and soldiers have to live there. It is an unbearable burden; unbearable in the sense that not a single man and woman who has been fully exposed to war has ever come back home. Someone else comes back home. Sometimes, it is a better person. Sometimes a worse one. But they are different, all changed in the horror and crucible of war."
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