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2015-01-27 -Short Attention Span Theater-
Caution! 'American Sniper' Is a Dangerous Movie
An artiste bemoans a war movie
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.
Meanwhile, his "brown" son decides to look up the nearest US Navy recruiter.
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.
Whereas a non-white female sniper would have been just fine, right?
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.
Kyle is Navy. I am no expert on the exploits of General George Custer, but I suspect General Custer had no sailors with him. Snipers, possibly, but no sailors. I fail to see how the appellation "fucking savages" is racist, especially if his targets are fuckin savages.
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Why is this film so important in its depiction of outdated and corrosive white conservative male values?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.
Outdated. That's what liberals call conservative values. Values which protect a civil society from itself, which protects folks such as this artist. Protections which would disappear were they taken away by the fuckin savages.
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).
And here I thought American Sniper was a biopic of US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle. Goofy me.
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.
I heard it differently. I heard that folks who saw the movie left the theater in silence.
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.
As much money as this film had made, I suspect Hollywood has found a way out of the doldrums by depicting "stories of white male privilege".
It’s up to us as Indigenous Peoples
Wait -- I thought it's his son that is a "brown Native". He said nothing to indicate that he, too, belongs to that very oddly named class. Where, oh where are the competent editors of yesteryear?
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.
And American Sniper is just the film to "educate" people about those "simplified stories".
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.
One most sincerely hopes Mr. Romero paints and pots better than he writes.
Posted by badanov 2015-01-27 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11134 views ]  Top

#1 Painting and Potting in Santa Fe.
I bet the privileged white males of past wars are the ones that pay his bills.
Posted by Skidmark 2015-01-27 00:24||   2015-01-27 00:24|| Front Page Top

#2 My wife is 'brown native'. Except she proudly uses the name Cherokee. Her father served a career in the Navy. Apparently the Cochiti Pueblo are not a warrior tribe.
Posted by BrerRabbit 2015-01-27 00:51||   2015-01-27 00:51|| Front Page Top

#3 Weh weh weh

Another one of the critical theory based articles written by some self important snot with a degree in ethnic studies.

I almost puked reading this piece of crap.
Posted by Mystic 2015-01-27 00:57||   2015-01-27 00:57|| Front Page Top

#4 He named his sons "Rain" and "River"?

Really?

I bet his sons really appreciate that.
Posted by CrazyFool 2015-01-27 01:09||   2015-01-27 01:09|| Front Page Top

#5 Dartmouth

"Old legends of tribe, me recitum!
Blood brother Chief Bell, well, he writum!
All red man like brother;
All vote Great Red Mother --
Whole Ivy League Nation unitum!"
Posted by Zenobia Floger6220 2015-01-27 02:25||   2015-01-27 02:25|| Front Page Top

#6 *happy sigh*
Posted by trailing wife 2015-01-27 04:32||   2015-01-27 04:32|| Front Page Top

#7 Who were the Comanches, Alex?
Posted by no mo uro 2015-01-27 04:37||   2015-01-27 04:37|| Front Page Top

#8 This non-sense about Cochiti reminds me about that _tue_ story around New Zealand. There was an island in the Pacific whre after a civil war its natives decide to no longer use arms. No problem. It was an island.

Then came Christain missionaries. No problema again. It was just missionaries.

But some of the missionaries were trnasferred to what we today neme New-Zealand but at that time was Maori territory. But some missionary in a sermon set that pacifist tribe as an example for the bellicose Maories. The Maories were very interested so they asked where was that island and... wiped out that pacifist tribe. Pacifism is nice when bad guys don't know about you otheriwe it is a recipe fpor extermination.

Now how long a pacifist Cochiti nation surrounded by Cheyennes, Apaches, Sioux (in the decades before Little Big Hornj these had wiped out or displaced several other tribes) would have survived? Or did the Cochiti relyy on the protection of gthe US Army?
Posted by JFM 2015-01-27 04:49||   2015-01-27 04:49|| Front Page Top

#9 I don't recall any Hollywood uproar over this one.
Posted by Besoeker 2015-01-27 05:13||   2015-01-27 05:13|| Front Page Top

#10 I love how he forgot all the murder, rapes, and kidnappings his ancestors committed.
Posted by Rob Crawford 2015-01-27 06:33||   2015-01-27 06:33|| Front Page Top

#11 Wonder why the Crow were scouts for the US Army?
Something about the Sioux kicking them out of their ancestral hunting grounds. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

The Native American aboriginals were just as territorial and hierarchical as any other human group. The difference between them and the Euros was better technology (to include the iron age) and social organization. Just ask the Euros who came in contact with the Huns or Mongols about better organization and technology.
Posted by Procopius2k 2015-01-27 08:35||   2015-01-27 08:35|| Front Page Top

#12 Jeebus, this guy [Romero] is an unhinged leftard wingnut. How about a thank you to guys like Chris Kyle?
Posted by JohnQC 2015-01-27 10:14||   2015-01-27 10:14|| Front Page Top

#13 written by some self important snot with a degree in ethnic studies.

They grant you degrees for mathless crap like this?
Posted by JFM 2015-01-27 11:25||   2015-01-27 11:25|| Front Page Top

#14 Shouldn't have brought bows and arrows on grass feed horses to a gun fight with the pale faced, long knives people who rode grain fed horses. Outnumbered by the thousands Custer and his dismounts stood their ground to the end, while your people packed up and ran as soon as the fight was over.

In war at times Hope is more important than winning every battle. If a nation has hope and resolve and yet loose battles, eventually a nation will prevail if they show resolve. Savages and Barbarians can't destroy Hope.
Posted by Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-01-27 13:37||   2015-01-27 13:37|| Front Page Top

#15 Now how long a pacifist aboriginal nation surrounded by warlike aborigines would have survived?
Dead tribes tell us no tales, other than the potsherds, arrowheads and bone fragments containing their DNA left for the anthropologists to analyze.
Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418  2015-01-27 14:37||   2015-01-27 14:37|| Front Page Top

#16 JFM, yes, they do. There are lots of XYZ "Studies" departments at universities here in the States. Graduates of these programs generally look down on troglodytes like me who got a STEM degree.
Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2015-01-27 14:51||   2015-01-27 14:51|| Front Page Top

#17 "swinging dick meat eaters" could be misunderstood, too.
Posted by Grunter 2015-01-27 15:33||   2015-01-27 15:33|| Front Page Top

#18 I don't know. We had the same stories around "300" and I've hated it.
Posted by g(r)omgoru 2015-01-27 15:34||   2015-01-27 15:34|| Front Page Top

#19 Sorry, Mateo. But those fuckin' savages flew hijacked passenger airliners into the World Trade Center in New York and when Chris Kyle saw it on TV he kinda went off, you know?

Now, some of you Rantburgers may correct me but I believe the US military is probably the most racially diverse organization in the world. Just because it's not healthy to mess with them doesn't mean they're racist.
Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2015-01-27 17:12||   2015-01-27 17:12|| Front Page Top

#20 Heh, sounds like sonny boy was whooping up the awesomeness of the movie and daddy pants had to re-explain why he was taken to the movie.
Posted by swksvolFF 2015-01-27 18:02||   2015-01-27 18:02|| Front Page Top

#21 One most sincerely hopes Mr. Romero paints and pots better than he writes.

Judge.
Posted by Angie Schultz 2015-01-27 18:54||   2015-01-27 18:54|| Front Page Top

#22 Judge.

"Somewhat interesting," says Mr. Wife, who studied art as well as chemistry when he was a pre-med student. By the time I met him he'd moved to engineering, which combined the best of both. ;-)
Posted by trailing wife 2015-01-27 19:32||   2015-01-27 19:32|| Front Page Top

#23 I like the composition, would be interesting to see the texture.

So I'd say he paints better than he writes.

Not tough when he points is finger at condencending judgemental language 'used to dehumanize', then goes on to do it himself a half dozen+ times.

Wiki: Born in Berkeley, 'European American' mother, I think he has identity issues coupled with mommy issues; I hope it takes it out on his canvas and not his family, though brow beating his son about the movie he just took him to...
Posted by swksvolFF 2015-01-27 20:45||   2015-01-27 20:45|| Front Page Top

#24 Mom was Euro-American. I can sense the Obama-style self-hate. Youtube of "Half-Breed" by Cher is available, but I can't bring myself to listening to her screech
Posted by Frank G 2015-01-27 21:07||   2015-01-27 21:07|| Front Page Top

#25 Lefty bullshit from the first line.
Posted by tu3031 2015-01-27 21:48||   2015-01-27 21:48|| Front Page Top

07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
07:10 NN2N1
07:09 Besoeker
07:03 NN2N1
06:58 NN2N1
06:58 Besoeker
05:28 Whiskey Mike
05:23 Whiskey Mike
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05:18 Whiskey Mike
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