American Sniper and the Power of the System
There are many viewers of "American
Sniper" who consider Chris Kyle an American hero. Some of these, who are
also Christians, even see him as an example of Christian heroism. These are
folks who collapse obedience to God into obedience to country, making one
inseparable from the other.
Chris Kyle was a much more complicated
individual than the one portrayed in the movie. Nicholas Schmidle wrote a profile on
Kyle for the New Yorker where he noted, in addition to Kyle’s work to help
veterans suffering from P.T.S.D. (which Kyle also suffered from), his
propensity for bar fights, his deep disdain for the people of Iraq whom he called
savages, and his bravado tales of killing looters in the aftermath of Katrina
and two carjackers who tried to steal his car. Also, there are passages in
Kyle’s book that reflect a passion for killing that Director Eastwood’s
reluctant soldier did not adequately capture.
While Eastwood understandably downplayed
some of the negative qualities of Kyle’s character to make the movie more
marketable, I do think, however, he accurately profiled both explicitly and
implicitly the beliefs and commitments that ordered Kyle’s life.
There is no question that Chris Kyle was
unquestioningly dutiful and unflinchingly loyal to what he was asked and
expected to do. And that, I think, is a problem that the film powerfully and
subtly portrays.
Early in the film Kyle’ father imparts
to him a very simple philosophy of life that Kyle never questions, which
becomes his guiding compass:
“There are three types of people in the
world: sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. Some people prefer to believe evil doesn’t
exist in the world . . . These are the sheep. And then you got predators. They
use violence to prey on people. They’re the wolves. Then there are those
blessed with the gift of aggression and an overpowering need to protect the
flock. They are a rare breed who live to confront the wolf. They are the
sheepdog. We’re not raising any sheep in this family. I will whip your ass if
you turn into a wolf. We protect our own. If someone tries to fight you, tries
to bully your little brother, you have my permission to finish it.”
In a post-war consultation with a
psychiatrist Kyle was asked if he had any regrets. Kyle was resolute. He
expressed no remorse at all. He said he was willing to face his Creator for
every shot he took. His only regret was that there were Americans he couldn’t save.
In a review Patton
Dodd calls attention to a Bible that Eastwood employs in the film as a kind of
visual symbol. One Sunday while his family is at church, listening to a sermon
about discovering God’s plan for one’s life, young Kyle takes a Bible from the
church pew. Next, we see a close-up of the Bible sitting on a table at the Kyle
home. This Bible reappears during Kyle’s first tour in Iraq. We see him pull
out the Bible and place it carefully inside his vest before his mission, which
he does before every mission.
In a later scene, Ryan Job (Biggles)
points out to Kyle that while he noticed Kyle always carrying a Bible, he never
actually witnessed him opening it and reading it. Kyle shrugs this off by
saying, “God, country, family, right?” implicitly implying that he already knew
what his purpose was – he didn’t need to read it. Job asks Kyle if he had ever
reflected on what the war was actually about and why they were there. At this
point Kyle shows some frustration, and then walks away.
Patton points out that the Bible (which,
no doubt, was an Eastwood invention) seems to be a symbol suggesting that
Kyle’s sense of self and his sense of the world and what was expected of him
was “an unopened, unexamined sense.” Patton observes that
while “the Kyle of the film is a figure of American bravery; he is also
a figure of how that bravery and nobility can be compromised – misguided in
motivation, uninformed in duty.”
I don’t know if Eastwood intended this
or not, but I, too, see the unopened, unread Bible as a symbol of conformity,
an emblem of an orientation toward the world, God, country, and life in general
that was never examined, questioned, or critiqued.
Kyle embodied a simple philosophy: Americans
are the good guys. Iraqis are the bad guys. His job was to kill the bad guys.
(Eastwood’s portrayal of all Iraqis as evil – children and women on suicide
missions, men on housetops with cell phones identifying troop locations, and
families hiding weapons under trapdoors in their houses – ironically, may say
something about his own unexamined prejudice.)
The social systems of family,
church/religion, and the military shaped him, and he totally bought in to what
he was taught. The system certainly hails Kyle as a hero because he did
what the system asked him to do and he did it better than anyone else.
Kyle’s blind obedience to the version of
“God, country, family” passed on to him is an example of the power of the
system to tell us who we are and shape who we become. And this is why Kyle’s
life can never be held up as an example of Christian morality or obedience.
A follower of Christ must outright
refuse to blindly obey the system.
To be a follower of Christ means
allowing and trusting the light, power, spirit, and revelation of the life and
wisdom of Jesus to expose all the prejudice, greed, falsehoods, idolatries,
injustices, and destructive "isms" (sexism, racism, nationalism,
materialism, exceptionalism, etc.) in our personal lives and in the corporate
systems (family, church, school, government, business, country, etc.) we are
part of, so that we might be led by Christ to a new place - a better place.
(This piece was originally published at Baptist News Global.)
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