The Debate About The Debate:

The movie American Sniper opened in wide release this weekend, and sparked massive debate across the culture. Even though the movie set box office records for a January release, I'm fairly confident that many, if not most of the people lobbing rhetorical bombs at each other hadn't seen the movie. Let me start off by saying that I haven’t seen American Sniper, yet, either. I actually plan to; unfortunately, I’ll probably have to wait a week or two until I’m able to catch up on a few things, but Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated film isn’t really the topic of this post. What I’m actually more interested in at the moment is the discussion (if it’s possible to call yelling, threats, snide remarks, and admonishments a discussion) that it has triggered.

The film based on the U.S. Navy Seal Chris Kyle’s bestselling book with the same title has been championed by conservatives as tribute to our nation’s veterans, and derided by liberals as an outright piece of propaganda, with some in the middle left disgusted at yet another example of the seemingly endless culture war, and wondering why everything in this country eventually becomes a political issue on which one must take sides. In what is becoming a habit for me, I’m left coming to the conclusion that everyone (at least the loudest opinions) is wrong. I realize that staking out such ground can leave one vulnerable and eventually without many allies, but hey, that wouldn’t be anything new to me, so here is my two cents on the debate about the debate.

It should go without saying that I find much of the spittle-flecked rage emanating from the right to be unacceptable. Author Lindy West detailed a few cases in her article in The Guardian, and I’ve seen a few examples stream through my own Twitter feed. The “America—love it or leave it” attitude isn’t anything new, but I will admit to being horrified at some of the bile being tossed at critics of the movie. Do these people really think that film critics should be raped and beheaded for offering their take on a movie? If so, considering the rhetoric employed to justify our ongoing military involvement in the Middle East, the accusations—including from Kyle himself—that our enemies are “savages,” then irony is truly dead, forever.

I have to take issue with the critiques from the left as well. Do they think that anyone but the already converted has the slightest bit of interest in having a decorated war hero labeled as a racist sociopathic serial killer? If politics is the art of persuasion, these folks didn’t simply miss the first day of class, they slept through entire semesters. While the image of Vietnam veterans being spat upon by war protestors as they returned home has been exposed as largely, if not entirely, an urban legend, commentary such as what has been directed at Kyle is likely part of the reason that such myths are so enduring. I’m not saying that service absolves a person from criticism for life, but I have no idea what is to be gained from attacking a serviceman’s record in the way that I have seen some commentators go after Kyle. I realize that Kyle’s public statements, in the form of his book, and elsewhere, are troubling to many, but as critics of our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan should surely know, there are some fights that you simply cannot win. Critiques of the war, the reasoning behind it, and even the plan developed in the Department of Defense (or in the Vice-President’s Office, for that matter) are fair game, but beyond that you’re really not helping matters.

Then there is the vast middle. The folks that are dismayed that yet another topic has been turned into a left/right issue. They say that the film isn’t political. It’s a sentiment echoed by the film’s director and star. If they mean that the film isn’t political in the partisan sense, I’m willing to take them at their word for the moment (like I said, I haven’t seen it yet), but the argument that it isn’t political at all doesn’t seem to hold water for me. Art is inherently political, and a film that is nominated for multiple Academy Awards would certainly qualify as an effort aspiring to art. If a film about a real man, deeply involved in a recent/ongoing conflict, isn’t political, then I don’t know what is. So where does that leave us? Sadly, I think the answer is—one step farther down the road to the eventual realization that this isn’t one country, or even two, but several, which are now actively attempting to tear themselves apart. The ultimate consequences of that struggle are something I shudder to even ponder.