I remember quite clearly when American Sniper came out and scrolling through Twitter seeing all the backlashed it faced. I had never bothered to watch the movie, but from the tweets and articles that articulated everything that was wrong with the movie, I also agreed and thought of the movie with disgust. I had never even seen the movie, or really understood exactly why I was disgusted and angry with it. Should some tweets I saw be able to form my opinions on a topic I was hardly educated on? At 14, I did not know much on the Iraq war and the details behind it; but something about this movie struck a chord within me.

Finally I had a valid reason to watch it because of ASTU–and while watching it I was disgusted all over again. Majority of the time I felt like I was watching a movie making fun of American’s and their intense patriotism; however, I remembered our discussion in class about how many American’s loved the movie, and Joe Biden even had tears after watching it, quickly bringing me back to reality–this was not a mockery or satire on American war culture and the War on Terror, but a biographical drama. However, I was finally able to justify my feelings, and substantiate my opinions (in comparison to my 14 year-old-self) as the many texts and concepts learned in ASTU and my other courses helped me to unpack American Sniper more thoroughly. There are many concepts in ASTU that I learned this year that helped me such as master narratives, the representation of Iraqi’s as ‘the other’, and especially Butler’s theories of vulnerability and grievability. Judith Butler discusses the idea of the precariousness and precarity of lives: this idea that because bodies exist in societies, they are therefore vulnerable to others around them. She explains how this is controlled by an “interpretative framework” or “frames of recognizability”. It is in these interpretations that humans view certain lives as grievable, the ones that our lives depends on and the ones that are recognizable to us. While others are ungrievable, the ones that pose a threat to our lives and therefore “they do not appear as ‘lives’” (Butler, 42), those who’s deaths we respond to with coldness. In American Sniper for example, we see many instances of this in the representations of Iraqi lives killed compared to American lives. What caught my attention was the portrayal of the grievability and precarity of the childrens’ lives. I found that the movie even dehumanized the Iraqi kids, and at times showed them to be violent and involved in the war picking up weapons and being part of plans, even being targets by the American military. In comparison, the Chris Kyle’s kids were shown in a much more positive light, there was even a scene in which his son is holding a gun while hunting — why is this ok, but if an Iraqi kid were to do the same they would likely be seen as a terrorist? Kids are kids everywhere, and it is interesting to apply a theoretical framework like Butler’s to understand this idea.

The concept of narratives and master-narratives that we explored this year also helped me in further analyzing the movie. In ASTU we explored this idea by using Sarah Polley’s film, “Stories We Tell”, in which the concept of multiple narratives is discussed. In the film, Polley documents her journey to find out who her biological father is through a construction of interviews with her friends and family. From these interviews we see how each individual has a different story than the rest, leaving us to question what the ‘real’ truth is and how this can be achieved through multiple narratives. It was interesting paying attention to the master-narrative portrayed in the movie which allowed me to think critically about what I was seeing and what was not being shown. For example, in the justification of the war and killing of Iraqis, the Americans were always saying it was to protect–whether it be their fellow troops, Iraqi civilians or Americans back home, they were making sure to let the audience know the justifications for the war and deaths of Iraqis. It was almost if they were conveying the message that this war had to be done, a narrative many Americans take. Further in the way we see Kyle experience the war himself, his struggles with adjusting after returning home and the impacts the war had on him and other veterans–but where were the representations of how the war affected Iraqi’s? Although this was not what the movie was trying to portray, I am now equipped with the tools and theories that allow me to question and critique movies like this with substance rather than opinions based on feelings.

Being able to do this, and thinking back to when I did not know about these concepts and theories, allows me to see how important it is to learn these things. Additionally, how important it is to read challenging texts to allow me to be able to think critically: not only on the texts and concepts presented to me in my classes, but being able to critically think about everything around me, especially those in popular media and culture.