{"id":8157,"date":"2015-01-21T08:40:22","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T16:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8157"},"modified":"2015-01-21T08:40:22","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T16:40:22","slug":"snipers-correct-and-incorrect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/snipers-correct-and-incorrect\/","title":{"rendered":"Snipers, Correct and Incorrect"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner<\/a><\/p>\n

\"downloadWere a confused Michael Moore and others faulting\u00a0American Sniper<\/em>\u00a0on the argument that Chris Kyle was a sniper per se, or that he was an American<\/em> sniper?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t remember Michael Moore or any other Hollywood grandees objecting much to the 2001 war film\u00a0Enemy at the Gates<\/em>, which was supposedly loosely based on the controversial (and perhaps less than verifiable) career of the deadly sniper Vasily Zaitsev. That movie portrayed the expert Zaitsev as a hero in trying to cut down Wehrmacht officers and soldiers on behalf of the Soviet cause. It reminded audiences not just that Zaitsev\u2019s sniping could save his fellow Russians, but that it was also a very dangerous business for the shooter: As the hunter, Zaitsev often very quickly became the hunted.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nor did Moore et al. object to the positive portrayal of the sniper Private Daniel Jackson (Barry Pepper) in\u00a0Saving Private Ryan<\/em>. Jackson, from his hidden perches, kills lots of unsuspecting Germans with his telescopic sniper rifle, saving members of hero John Miller\u2019s company\u2014until he himself is blown up by German tank fire.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Captain Phillips<\/em>\u00a0Navy SEAL snipers are portrayed as \u201cmarksmen\u201d who nonetheless stealthily blow apart Somali pirates, and thereby save Phillips\u2019s life. Hollywood and film critics were also quite enthusiastic about that<\/em> movie, apparently including the final rescue of Phillips by skilled \u201csnipers\u201d (i.e., the targeted pirates never knew that they were being targeted and never knew what hit them).<\/p>\n

What has more likely caused some controversy over\u00a0American Sniper<\/em>\u00a0is not the sniper profession per se of Chris Kyle (since snipers were not de facto deemed suspect in prior films), but three other considerations:<\/p>\n

a)\u00a0American Sniper<\/em>\u00a0often portrays the Islamist insurgents as savage, and Kyle as complex, but nevertheless both patriotic and heroic in protecting other Americans from them;<\/p>\n

b) the movie does not serve as a blanket damnation of the Iraq war, at least as is otherwise typical for the Hollywood Iraq film genre; in this regard, unlike many recent Hollywood film\u00a0titles with the proper noun\u00a0American<\/em>\u00a0in them (e.g.,\u00a0American Hustle<\/em>,\u00a0American Gangster<\/em>,\u00a0American Psycho<\/em>,\u00a0American History X<\/em>, American Beauty<\/em>,\u00a0etc.),\u00a0the film quite unusually does not dwell on American pathologies; and<\/p>\n

c) perhaps most important,\u00a0the film is very successful, and has resonated with the public at the precise time when other recent movies more welcomed by the establishment, such as\u00a0Selma<\/em>, have so far not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner Were a confused Michael Moore and others faulting\u00a0American Sniper\u00a0on the argument that Chris Kyle was a sniper per se, or that he was an American sniper? I don\u2019t remember Michael Moore or any other Hollywood grandees objecting much to the 2001 war film\u00a0Enemy at the Gates, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[844,977,145],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-27z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8179,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/moore-of-michaels-nuttery\/","url_meta":{"origin":8157,"position":0},"title":"Moore of Michael\u2019s Nuttery","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ NRO- The Corner I know that it\u2019s shooting whales in a barrel to point out Michael Moore\u2019s \u2014 once a guest in the Carter presidential box at the 2004 Democratic Convention \u2014 continued displays of ignorance. 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