Posted on 01/22/2015 5:20:24 AM PST by SJackson
Hollywood’s War Against American Sniper
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On January 22, 2015 @ 12:50 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 8 Comments
American Sniper is the movie that should not have existed. Even though the book was a bestseller, nobody in Hollywood wanted the rights.
And why would they?
The Iraq War already had an official narrative in Hollywood. It was bad and wrong. Its veterans were crippled, dysfunctional and dangerous. Before American Sniper, Warner Brothers had gone with anti-war flicks like Body of Lies and In the Valley of Elah. It had lost a fortune on Body of Lies; but losing money had never stopped Hollywood from making anti-war movies that no one wanted to watch.
Even the Hurt Locker had opened with a quote from leftist terrorist supporter Chris Hedges.
An Iraq War movie was supposed to be an anti-war movie. There was no other way to tell the story. Spielberg’s own interest in American Sniper was focused on “humanizing” the other side. When he left and Clint Eastwood, coming off a series of failed films, took the helm, it was assumed that American Sniper would briefly show up in theaters and then go off to die quietly in what was left of the DVD aisle.
And then American Sniper broke box office records that had been set by blockbusters like Avatar, Passion and Hangover Part II by refusing to demonize American soldiers or to spin conspiracy tales about the war. Instead of pandering to coastal progressives, it aimed at the patriotic heartland.
In a sentence you no longer expected to hear from a Hollywood exec, the Warner Brothers distribution chief said, “This is about patriotism and all the things people say the country is lacking these days.”
The backlash to that patriotism and the things the country is lacking these days didn’t take very long to form and it goes a lot deeper than snide tweets from Michael Moore and Seth Rogen. Academy members were reportedly passing around an article from the New Republic, whose author had not actually seen the movie, but still denounced it for not showing Chris Kyle as a bigoted murderer.
Hollywood progressives are both threatened and angered by American Sniper. And with good reason.
The most basic reason is the bottom line. Between Lone Survivor, Unbroken and American Sniper, the patriotic war movie is back. Hollywood could only keep making anti-war movies no one would watch as long as that seemed to be the only way to tackle the subject. Now there’s a clear model for making successful and respectful war movies based around the biographies and accounts of actual veterans.
Hollywood studios had been pressured by left-wing stars into wasting fortunes on failed anti-war conspiracy movies. Matt Damon had managed to get $150 million sunk into his Green Zone failed anti-war movie before stomping away from Universal in a huff. Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe had a real budget estimated at around $120 million, but had opened third after Beverly Hills Chihuahua whose titular tiny dog audiences preferred to either star and their political critiques.
But why spend over a hundred million on anti-war movies no one wants when American Sniper has already made over $120 million on a budget only half that much?
Hollywood progressives don’t look forward to having to write, direct and star in patriotic pictures and if they can’t destroy American Sniper at the box office, they can taint it enough that no major star or director will want to be associated with anything like it.
Adding to their undercurrent of anger is the way that American Sniper upstaged Selma at the box office and at the Academy Award nominations. Selma is a mediocre movie, but it was meant to be a platform for the usual conversation that progressives want to have about how terrible Americans are. Instead audiences chose to see a movie about how great Americans can be even in difficult times.
There’s nothing that threatens the left as much as that.
In a Best Picture lineup that includes the obligatory paeans to gay rights and the evils of racism, American Sniper distinctly stands out as something different. It displaces Richard Linklater’s Boyhood, the previous sure winner which had its obligatory drunken Iraq War veteran claiming that the war was fought for oil, with an authentic veteran instead of Hollywood’s twisted caricature of one.
American Sniper and Lone Survivor signal a shifting wind in which the focus of movies about the War on Terror moves from the organizational conspiracy theories that Hollywood liked to make to the personal narratives of the men who fought in them. Many of the smarter progressive reviews of American Sniper grapple with the fact that the time when they could even have their favorite argument is going away.
Progressives would like Dick Cheney to be the face of the war, but are forced to deal with a world in which Chris Kyle and Marcus Luttrell will be how America sees the conflict. The lens through which the left liked to view the war, its obsessions with WMD, Bush and the path to war, have been eclipsed by the rise of ISIS and the return of American veterans. Their worldview has become outdated and irrelevant.
It’s easier for the left to vent its anger on American Sniper than to deal with its own irrelevance. The most shocking thing about the movie is not any political statement, but its presumption in dealing with the Iraq War and the men in it as if it were WW2. It doesn’t confront the left; instead it acts as if the left isn’t there. It fails to acknowledge the entire worldview through which Hollywood dealt with the war.
The left spends most of its time living in its own bubble and is shocked when events remind it that the rest of the country does not really share its opinions and tastes. American Sniper’s success is one of those explosive wake-up calls and the left has responded to it with all the expected vicious pettiness.
A billboard for the movie was vandalized and attacks from lefty outlets like New Republic and Vox not only target the movie, but the dead man at the center of it. The smear campaign against Kyle has reached new lows, because in death he has become an even more powerful symbol of everything that the left hates.
Hollywood tried to “Vietnamize” Iraq in the popular imagination. American Sniper shows they failed.
Whether or not American Sniper wins the requisite number of Oscars, its impact on Hollywood and on ordinary Americans will not go away. The anti-war movie is in eclipse. The movies that tell the stories of the sacrifices that American veterans have made in the war against Islamic terrorists are rising.
Hollywood has a few conservatives. Eastwood is a great director.
Hollyweird keeps trying to push these anti-war movies on the public and they keep bombing.
Then a movie of a true American hero comes out. They are all against it with their liberal commie hollywierd mouths belittling our hero and it is a blockbuster success.
Every.Time.
The market always dictates what is a success no matter how much of a hissy these elite idiots pitch.
This may show up on Daniel’s blog but it is an important read for those who admire Daniel’s cultural perspective.
PING to the Knish list.
Thank you SJackson for posting.
I thought it was so stupid, that this narrative developed that it was racist to go see American Sniper instead of Selma.
The left are not like you and I. They see the world differently. They see historic events differently. They just are different.
Think of it this way, the same maggots who have declared war on Chris Kyle are the same maggots who bought the Kenyan eight years in the White Hut.
I hope this movie does well. He is a hero.
But I just don’t think I can see it.
Thank God we have lived long enough to see the return of patriotic military movies. Thank you Mr Eastwood, Rest in Peace Mr Kyle. God bless your memory.
Good. May there inner demons eat at their hearts even harder. The worst attack on them is to ignore them, because then they are left alone with their own thoughts.
Eastwood painted his masterpiece with this movie. Best war movie ever made.
Pray America is waking
Good Article!
“The left are not like you and I. They see the world differently. They see historic events differently. They just are different.”
You are correct. To them, everything is about control and power. You have complete freedom to agree with them. If you do not agree with them, they believe you are stupid. If you show that you are not stupid, then they assume you are evil, and should be destroyed.
This is primarily because they have different assumptions about reality, and to show that there assumptions about reality are wrong it to threaten their very existence.
It’s true. I once heard Rush say conservatives get mad when you lie to them. Liberals get mad when you tell them the truth. Of course, when someone believes black is white and 2+2=5 (George Orwell reference) anything goes I guess.
Thanks Clint for a REAL movie.
In the '40s, we recoiled and the HUAC "witch hunts" exposed many but not most of the Communists running almost all aspects of American moviemaking. A young actor saw some of this first hand and revolted, seizing control of the Screen Actor's Guild and actively opposing the Commmunists - Ronald Reagan.
Today, those days are vilified and the enemy agents are deemed mythical.
They weren't and aren't mythical. They're still there and they still want to warp and wreck and smear all that's really good about our America. Boycott all of the products of these anti-Americans and support all of those who still believe in us.
I was torn over whether to see it or not. I’ve decided that I will.
After being in Iraq and seeing it up close and personal I was leery about going. But after reading the reviews and seeing the previews I have decided it will be worth watching. My only reservation is taking my wife with me as when we see movies about the war she tends to watch me for my reaction more than she watches the movie.
My thing is during 27 years in the Army I have seen enough blown up Soldiers.
Maybe I’ll wait for it to come out Netflix, that way I can pause if I need to.
I retired in 2013 after 26 years in. My wife said I’ve changed since going to Iraq. I think that’s why she watches me instead of the movie.
I’ve promised to tell her “all about Iraq” before I die. Hopefully that will not be for a long time.
The Left isn't there and never has been. Service to their country is inconceivable to them unless it's in the role of corrupt politician as a means of stuffing their pockets full of money. It's good to see them hoist on their own petard.
American Sniper will not win the Oscar, Selma will get that honor and it will serve to show how utterly vacuous Hollywood really is.
It was a very good movie. Very fast moving. The war scenes were very realistic and graphic. But at other times, when Chris Kyle was between tours, at home with his wife and kids, there was a softer tone. Clint Eastwood did a great job directing this film.
There was no enthusiastic clapping or cheers when our soldiers got the bad guys, as some might expect. The audience was quiet and respectful. When the film was over, there were tears and quiet sobbing. It is a very emotionally moving movie. The audience was somber and obviously moved by the experience as they left the theater.
I can see why the liberals hates this movie. Besides breaking box office records and whipping Selma in the numbers, it is about everything the progressive left in this country hates. Our military, patriotism, family, defending America and our freedoms and liberties. It feels good to see a pro-American war movie come out of that leftist sewer of Hollywood once in a while.
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