Posted on 01/26/2015 5:07:08 PM PST by Drew68
I was looking forward to seeing American Sniper. I took my brown Native high school-aged son to see it. I’m a fan of Clint Eastwood’s acting and directing, and his Sniper is a beautifully shot and directed action packed flick. But after his film, I spent the hour’s drive home explaining to my son why I thought the movie was dangerous and corrosive to the American people.
This is a tense war movie that looks great. But just underneath the film’s sexy veneer is a shockingly racist ideology of hate and death that is advanced by the white male sniper Chris Kyle.
Kyle is the ideological descendant of Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. He belongs to an elite white male cadre of swinging dick meat eaters who will solve the problems of invaded brown people with a bullet. Iraqi and Syrian combatants are called “fuckin’ savages.” Direct statements of racism and death may or may not reflect the realities of the modern U.S. military. But they do give rise to false dichotomies that dehumanize the enemy and make it kinda fun, cool and necessary to kill them.
For the moment, Sniper is the fave mascot of the reactionary right wing of white America. Its visual beauty softens the harsh fact that the movie glorifies death, racism, hatred, religious prejudice, sexism, colonialism and moral corrosion. It presents some great ideas about caring for and protecting the people of your tribe. If you’re a white Christian American, that is. Women, minorities, kids, Muslims need not apply. They’re part of the bullet-to-the-head fix.
Why is this film so important in its depiction of outdated and corrosive white conservative male values? Because it is a time of great change and social movement in the world. The time of white American male rule and hegemony is coming to an end. And American wingnuts don’t like it one bit.
A classic function of horror and sci-fi movies is to code racially and socially taboo stories in the guise of fantasy. Sniper follows this formula. It’s a snapshot into the psyche of a retrograde white conservative male patriarchy. It lets us glimpse its fears and desires (loss of power and male potency) as well as its hopes and desires (white men will kill their way back to the top).
Americans as a whole are too ignorant of the country’s past colonial violence against Native and African Americans and current world affairs to really question uncomplicated black, brown and white narratives of war. The audience largely clapped at the end of the movie.
This is potentially a time for great social change and growth in America and the world. Dated stories of white male privilege and uber violence are divisive and corrosive to this positive change.
It’s up to us as Indigenous Peoples and as Americans to question simplified stories glorifying violence and racism and sexism. It’s time to educate ourselves about the violence of this country’s past, and to come together as a people to build a stronger, inclusive and more unified America.
Mateo Romero is an enrolled tribal member at Cochiti Pueblo. Born in the Bay Area, he completed his BA at Dartmouth College and his MFA in painting at UNM. He is an award -winning artist who has exhibited both nationally and internationally. A former SAR Dubin Fellow, Romero lives in Pojoaque Pueblo with his potter wife Melissa Talachy, and their sons Rain and River. He shows his paintings at Blue Rain Gallery in Santa Fe.
Anyone who thinks White Men are going to go quietly is stupid.
Stupid.
Remember, It's White Men that perfected killing on an industrial scale and there is not a force on earth that could stop them if they decided to do it again.
LOL! The kid is brown probably because he's dirty.
Well, chief running buns, so is the gay agenda.
Ummm, yea .... gotta get them "White Man" dollars!
That is, he is CLUE-less.
"Ceterum censeo 0bama esse delendam."
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Poor kid, but there is hope for him. Military service is highly regarded in the Native community.
I had the notable pleasure of being on a ND Indian Reservation last Veteran's Day and attended a large service put on by Native Veterans for other Veterans. Between the rifle salutes and the drumming, there isn't a service more respectful.
Obscure Avatar reference?
Maybe it should have been done in Navajo Code Talk to be more forgiving to the "White Man"
Geeze what a bunch of 
Hey if the shoe fits, put it on...or are you hacked off about certain unique American historical facts?
In the film, they are portrayed quite accurately as savages. Killing a young boy with a drill...
If you're gonna do that to your kids, at least change your own name to "Douche."
Keeps the whole water theme going too.
the guy is an idiot who wouldn’t recognize a history book if it hit him in the chin.
The negative history of the Pueblo involves hispanics, who responded mercilessly as conquerers to the aggression (”lack of inclusiveness”) of the Pueblo, and other ‘native’ tribes. There’s little negative history with the American ‘white men’ who gave them first, safety of forts (to hide from the Apache - who had been chased from their lands in turn by the Commanche - and from the Navajo, immortal and persistent enemies of the Pueblo). We then gave them 217 sq miles of land on which about 500 people live, including, “880 acres for agricultural; 4,443 acres of lake areas and wild river Bosque/wetlands; 7,042 acres dedicated to economic development consisting of residential and commercial lease properties and a golf course; and 41,424 acres of rangeland, pinion/juniper woodlands and Pueblo and residential use lands.”
Had it not been for ‘white men’ it’s a valid question as to whether the Pueblos would have even survived into this century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochiti,_New_Mexico
http://www.pueblodecochiti.org/
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10720a.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Revolt
Guess it didn’t dawn on him were in era of Cowboys and Muslims.
Guess it didn’t dawn on him were in era of Cowboys and Muslims.
Yeah, right.
He was looking forward to seeing the movie, was shocked at what he saw and had to spend an hour explaining its dangers to his kid.
I’m absolutely certain that this lying racist had this screed entirely planned out and mostly written before he even got to the theater.
He looks like he’s from the SockCucker tribe.
The question is, does he now start buying his son sundresses or does the son stop looking up to him as a father figure....
Is there a sports franchise called the “Brownskins”?
Nope, just a little snark.
I’m getting more than a bit tired of these leftists. Since one could generally presume that his son’s not an albino, I don’t see any need to insert the word “brown”, other than to appeal to some readers’ sense of “white guilt”.
What’s so bad about dead brown people?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.