Talk:American Sniper/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Archive 6

Criticism section dispute

Two SPA IPs appear to be removing sourced content, including comments by Zaid Jilani, Michael Moore and Matt Taibbi, under the incorrect edit summary the material is 'overwrought' and 'undercited'. It appears the IPs are removing the content because they do not like it.

And by the way it is interesting that the IPs claim they aim to "shorten" the criticism section while in fact the 'reception' section is extremely long and needs shortening - not the criticism section.

Moreover, the IPs claim they aim to shorten the 'criticism' section while insisting on re-adding the redundant fact Zaid Jilani is Pakistani-American, which is obvious from his Wikipedia page. I've removed the phrase 'Pakistani-American' but they keep returning it to the article.

And what is the reason for the removal of the following? "Matt Taibbi wrote that "American Sniper is almost too dumb to criticize." "

Please stop edit warring and instead discuss your reasoning (if any) for the removal of sourced content. IjonTichy (talk) 22:49, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Salon and Rolling Stone are WP:RSs. Jilani's points have been made repeatedly by many WP:RSs, which give them WP:WEIGHT. They should be included, under WP:NPOV. If nobody defends the deletions in Talk, then any of us should feel free to revert the deletions. --Nbauman (talk) 23:42, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I haven't been involved in this other than my comment in the Critical response section above. A discussion cannot be ignored because editors don't repeat themselves when the subject is brought up again. The point of WP:UNDUE is to not give more attention to minority viewpoints. - Gothicfilm (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The sources expressing criticism of the film may be in the minority, but they are a significant minority. Many scholars, academics, columnists, journalists (not only film critics) and other commentators criticized various aspects of the film. IjonTichy (talk) 01:45, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Zaid Jilani is but one of many "writers" that misrepresent the story of Kyle claiming HE shot people from the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. Kyle did fabricate the story of snipers shooting persons from atop he Superdome but he never once stated that he did so himself. The orginal story is from an op-ed written by another navy seal and is here at this link. The news media has bamboozled people into the lie that Kyle claimed he was there...he never made that claim. Jilani apparently is too slovenly to do his own research before writing a "news" piece. Since Salon pieces like this are so shoddy from a reporting standpoint no reason to not follow undue weight and eliminate such nonsense.--MONGO 04:55, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

That's what Kyle told Brandon Webb. The writer of the New Yorker piece about Kyle (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/03/in-the-crosshairs) says Kyle told to other people that it was him who shot looters.

Also note that people like Michael Moore are backpedaling on their claims that it is about Kyle (and even less so the movie). All criticism should be about the movies and not what some random person off the street thought about what was omitted. --DHeyward (talk) 07:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

This has not been the case with criticism inserted about any other movies that I have seen. Valid criticism is valid criticism. You have no right to remove virtually all references to journalistic articles that have a problem with the movie simply because you disagree with them. If you wish to compress the references to turn more eloquent, that is another matter entirely. David A (talk) 07:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

More to the point, why did you attempt to remove the references to these two articles in their entirety? I thought that they made several good points. David A (talk) 08:08, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

@DHeyward: We don't make editorial decisions based on users' personal opinions: you'll need to cite reliable sources that say that Michael Moore has issued a full, un-ambiguous, official retraction of his comments on the cowardice of snipers. IjonTichy (talk) 17:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, you will need a "full, un-ambiguous, official" notice that he is discussing the movie and not just a general anti-Iraq or anti-sniper comment. If they aren't discussing the movie, it doesn't belong here. If they are just making vague references to the war, it doesn't belong here. --DHeyward (talk) 19:44, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Read bottom line of this article [1]. Moore disavows that he is discussing the film. He actually gives the film positive reviews. --DHeyward (talk) 20:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

List of sources criticizing the political, historical and social aspects of the film

• The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said that the release of the movie coincided with increased threats against Arabs and Muslims. It has also accused Eastwood of dishonestly linking the September 11 attacks with Iraq.

• Michael Moore tweeted, in response to American Sniper, "My uncle [was] killed by sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot you in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders are worse." [sic]

• Noam Chomsky criticized "what the worship of a movie about a cold-blooded killer says about the American people."

• Lindy West of The Guardian wrote: "In his memoir, Kyle reportedly described killing as “fun”, something he “loved”; he was unwavering in his belief that everyone he shot was a “bad guy”. “I hate the damn savages,” he wrote. “I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Iraqis.”" and: "If he (Eastwood), intentionally or not, makes a hero out of Kyle – who, bare minimum, was a racist who took pleasure in dehumanising and killing brown people – is he responsible for validating racism, murder, and dehumanisation? Is he a propagandist if people use his work as propaganda?"

• Zack Beauchamp of Vox felt that the film's greatest sin was condescending "to Americans and American troops by acting as if we could not possibly handle moral ambiguity about America's mission in Iraq. But it did, and that is a disservice not just to film's viewers, but to the millions of Americans who were affected by the war and deserve to have that story told honestly."

• John Wight, writing for Russia Today and CounterPunch, strongly criticized the film and its reception. He said, "The moral depravity into which the US is sinking is shown by American Sniper glorifying the exploits of a racist killer receiving six Oscar nominations, whereas Selma depicting Martin Luther King's struggle against racism has been largely ignored." He also wrote: "American Sniper and Selma each offer a different perspective of America and US society. The former depicts the war in Iraq via the prism of US exceptionalism, a ‘window’ inviting its audience to participate or collude in a revisionist history in which the Iraqis are portrayed as a barbaric horde and the US troops as patriots trying to bring civilization and democracy to an ungrateful populace. Selma, meanwhile, holds a ‘mirror’ up to the ugly truth of America’s past, a recent past whose wounds remain open."

• Matt Taibbi wrote that "Sniper is a movie whose politics are so ludicrous and idiotic that under normal circumstances it would be beneath criticism" and that "Eastwood plays for cheap applause and goes super-dumb even by Hollywood standards."

• Chris Hedges, in an article titled "Killing Ragheads for Jesus", wrote that "American Sniper lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a 'Christian' nation to exterminate the 'lesser breeds' of the earth, a grotesque hypermasculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans trapped in a stagnant economy and a dysfunctional political system, yearn for the supposed moral renewal and rigid, militarized control the movie venerates."

• Zaid Jilani attacked American Sniper's inaccuracies, arguing both the film and Kyle's reputation "are all built on a set of half-truths, myths and outright lies." He first criticized Eastwood's direction of a sequence in which Kyle is serving in Iraq right after he is shown watching news footage of the September 11 attacks, suggesting the Iraq War was in direct response to the attacks. Jilani also argued the film glossed over certain fabrications in Kyle's autobiography, including the claims most of the book's proceeds would go to veterans' charity and that Kyle had killed 30 people in post-Katrina New Orleans. Jilani focused the most, however, on the film's portrayal of Kyle as a man tormented by and remorseful for his actions, writing such torment is "completely absent from the book the film is based on," quoting passages from Kyle's autobiography in which Kyle wrote he enjoyed his occupation and would have killed more people.

• Max Blumenthal compared decorated Navy SEAL Chris Kyle to mass murderer Lee Malvo via Twitter, and in an interview on The Real News, criticized the film American Sniper, saying the movie heavily distorts the historical, political and social truth of the war on Iraq, that the film falsely portrays all Iraqis including even children and women as "endemic terrorists." He added the film is "filled with lies and distortion from start to finish," makes a hero out of "a pathological liar and a mass killer" and promotes falsehoods about Chris Kyle along with the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. Blumenthal said the film is a "bogus whitewash of the atrocities committed by American troops in Iraq."

• Seth Rogen was accused of criticizing the film when he tweeted that the film reminded him of the Nazi sniper propaganda film showing in the third act of Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds. He later stated that he was not criticizing the film but making a comparison.

• Sophia A. McClennen, a Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University, said there are "insanities and fantasies at the heart of" American Sniper and that "despite the fact that the film depicts Kyle as a hero and a martyr, the real American sniper was heartless and cruel. Rather than struggle with moral dilemmas as we see in the film, the actual man had no such hesitation and no such conscience. But to focus on American Sniper's depiction of Kyle is to miss the larger problems of the film. In addition to sugarcoating Kyle, the film suffers from major myopia — from a complete inability to see the larger picture. And that is why criticism of the film has to look at its director, Clint Eastwood, and the troubling ways he represents a dark, disturbing feature of the GOP mind-set."

• Ross Caputi, a former marine who participated in the US's second siege of Fallujah, criticized American Sniper, writing that "What American Sniper offers us — more than a heart-wrenching tale about Chris Kyle's struggle to be a soldier, a husband, and a father; more than an action packed story about America's most lethal sniper — is an exposure of the often hidden side of American war culture. The criminality that has characterized American military engagements since the American Indian Wars, and most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan, is hardly noticeable in this film."

• Comedian Bill Maher stated "He's a psychopath patriot, and we love him," and "'I hate the damn savages' doesn't seem like a very Christian thing to say," comparing Kyle disfavourably to anti-war general Dwight D. Eisenhower.

• Journalist Eamon Murphy wrote on Mondoweiss that "it's hard to know, when watching Eastwood's Iraq War, where doltish film conventions end and rotten politics begins. (Bushism was an awful lot like an idiotic blockbuster in the first place.) The bits of military exposition are outrageously at odds with the facts, but they also sound so hokey it seems almost stupid to object by citing reality."

• Sheldon Richman commented on the popular/cultural evaluation of Kyle: "Despite what some people think, hero is not a synonym for competent government-hired killer. If Clint Eastwood’s record-breaking movie, American Sniper, launches a frank public conversation about war and heroism, the great director will have performed a badly needed service for the country and the world." "Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News commentator, said, “Chris Kyle was clear as to who the enemy was. They were the ones his government sent him to kill.” Appalling! Kyle was a hero because he eagerly and expertly killed whomever the government told him to kill? Conservatives, supposed advocates of limited government, sure have an odd notion of heroism. Excuse me, but I have trouble seeing an essential difference between what Kyle did in Iraq and what Adam Lanza did at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It certainly was not heroism."

• Peter Maass wrote the film "ignores history" and that the film makes no attempt to provide "anything beyond Kyle’s limited comprehension of what was happening." He added that the movie is "utterly false to the experience of millions of Iraqis and to the historical record. Further, it’s no act of patriotism to celebrate, without context or discussion, a grunt’s view that the people killed in Iraq were animals deserving their six-feet-under fate." Maass also wrote public statements made by Bradley Cooper, the film’s star and co-producer, appear to show Cooper may "fail to understand how war movies operate in popular culture. When a film venerates an American sniper but portrays as sub-human the Iraqis whose country we were occupying—the film has one Iraqi who seems sympathetic but turns out to be hiding a cache of insurgent weapons—it conveys a political message that is flat wrong. Among other things, it ignores and dishonors the scores of thousands of Iraqis who fought alongside American forces and the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians who were killed or injured in the crossfire." Maass added, "While it is about a certain type of bravery, the film itself is not brave."

• Film historian Max Alvarez, in an article titled From Psychopaths to American Hero? A Short History of Sniper Cinema, expressed the view that "It can only be hoped that American Sniper will not set the tone for future Hollywood movies in which “sharpshooters” are portrayed heroically."

• Janet Weil wrote that ""American Sniper" is well acted, slickly produced, and occasionally gripping. It's also war propaganda." She criticized the political, historical, social, cultural, philosophical, moral, ethical, religious, ethnic and racial aspects of the film. She said the film stereotyped and objectified Iraqis, and presented children as legitimate targets. She also said the film presented an overly simplistic portrayal of Iraq as a country.

• Gary Legum alleged the film misused Christian values. He wrote that "right-wing" Christians who think American Sniper embodies Christian values use patriarchal language to defend Chris Kyle in the “clash of civilizations.” Legum further wrote that "... Chris Kyle ... embodied the fanatical, driven purpose of those 10th-century Christians who invaded the Holy Lands and saw slaughtering Muslims by the thousands as their God-given duty. In his autobiography upon which Clint Eastwood’s hit film is based, the self-professed Christian, who had tattooed the Crusader’s red cross on his arm, referred to the Iraqis he was paid to shoot as “savages” and a “savage, despicable evil” who all “deserved to die.” ... Kyle ... or any other militant Christian, can pick and choose whichever passage from the New Testament justifies his own desire to kill for Jesus. Unfortunately it’s us non-believers who still have to live in the world they make."

• Roy Scranton, who served in the US Army in Iraq from 2002-2006, analyzed the film in the Los Angeles Review of Books, and criticized the political, historical, social, ethnic and racial aspects of the film. He said the film stereotyped and objectified Iraqis. He further wrote: ... "The trauma hero myth also serves a scapegoat function, discharging national bloodguilt by substituting the victim of trauma, the soldier, for the victim of violence, the enemy." ... "Never mind the tired Vietnam-era trope of the bomb-wielding child, a fiction that Eastwood grafted onto Kyle’s less sensational autobiographical account of shooting a woman." ... "the film obviates the questions of why any American soldiers were in Iraq, why they stayed there for eight years, why they had to kill thousands upon thousands of Iraqi civilians, and how we are to understand the long and ongoing bloodbath once called the “war on terror.” It does that precisely by turning a killer into a victim, a war hero into a trauma hero." ... "Yet when the trauma hero myth is taken as representing the ultimate truth of more than a decade of global aggression, as with American Sniper, we allow the psychological suffering endured by those we sent to kill for us displace and erase the innocents killed in our name. ... the real victims of American political violence disappear under a load of shit." "... American Sniper may portray a loss of innocence that makes the dirty war in Iraq palatable as an individual tragedy, but [it] only do[es] so by obscuring the connection between American audiences and the millions of Iraqi lives destroyed or shattered since 2003. Focusing on the suffering of ... Kyle allows us to forget the suffering of the very people whose land was occupied in our name. " "But the failure does not belong to the writers. It belongs to all the readers and citizens who expect veterans to play out for them the ritual fort-da of trauma and recovery, and to carry for them the collective guilt of war.   Such an expectation is the privilege of those who can afford to have others do their killing for them. Off-loading the problem of war onto the figure of the traumatized veteran, however, has long-term costs we have yet to reckon. The imperative to see war clearly is persistent, and as urgent today as ever ... Understanding the problem of American political violence demands recognizing soldiers as agents of national power, and understanding what kind of work the trauma hero is doing when he comes bearing witness in his bloody fatigues."

• Political scientist Joseph Lowndes wrote that "American Sniper need not directly claim a link between 9/11 and Iraq, it need not subscribe to Chris Kyle’s claim that Iraqis are “savage” and “evil.” One could easily read both as meant to convey the narrow, provincial perception of the protagonist. It need not even endorse any American presence in the Middle East at all. American Sniper dispenses with conventional politics to portray the raw, emotional core of white vulnerability. James Baldwin once wrote that the monstrous violence visited by white Americans on the world is due to this people having opted for safety over life. American Sniper, attending to the triple insecurities of race, gender, and empire, serves as an exclamation point to that observation."

• Paul Edwards wrote that American Sniper displays "baldly ridiculous ideas long universally discredited, and a politics rooted in deep, indomitable ignorance and a form of stupidity that prides itself on denial of irrefutable reality." He also wrote the film displays "the sleazy depravity of a mind that can craft a mawkish, fawning tribute to a diseased serial killer from a biography in which the killer himself spells out in appalling detail his own disgusting sickness.   So much has been written about this paean to a subhuman monster -– much of it on whether or not it is moral and heroic to murder people wholesale for flag and country -– that the only truly important thing about its success has not been articulated. That is the grossly ugly fact that such a huge number of Americans jubilantly support this morally dirty film and its message.   Of course, an audience that embraces films featuring all kinds of vicious, repulsive, sadistic murderers -– cannibals, necrophiles, zombies, vampires -- can be expected to flock to any flick that promises to satisfy its craving, and promotion for American Sniper puts it right in their wheelhouse.   What is profoundly disturbing culturally but should not be surprising is that, unlike goofy trash about chainsaw maniacs, anthropophagous esthetes, and midnight bloodsuckers, American Sniper glorifies a real self-confessed serial murderer, and its supporters don’t care. It makes no distinction, that is, between imbecile fantasy and appalling truth. The fact that the “hero” and much of his story was real only enhances his glamour in their eyes.   What gives the film its fierce attractive power for them is that the relentless propaganda of “the Global War on Terror” has imbued them with the same hateful, furious, kneejerk, Nazi-style “patriotism” that Kyle embodied.   As long as the tag-team of our “news” media and the Hollywood War Porn industry continues, the fan base for U.S. military ubermensch horror films will grow. As Germany learned in the deadly 1930s, there is nothing quite so dangerous to a nation’s liberty as a furious, stupid, violence-addicted, enemy-fixated underclass. The monster that a culture creates and keeps in its basement can sometimes break its chains, to rend and dismember it."

• Dan Sanchez wrote: "The most harrowing scene in American Sniper involves an Iraqi character nicknamed “The Butcher” torturing and executing an Iraqi child by taking a power drill to his skull. The scene lends credibility to the narrative of Chris Kyle as basically a hero facing villains. In the film, “The Butcher” is a lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Sunni insurgent, terrorist, and founder of Al Qaeda in Iraq, which later became ISIS. However, in the Iraq of the real world, power drilling human heads is more of a predilection, not of Sunni insurgents, but of their enemies in the Shiite militias." ... "Both of these Iran-sponsored real-life head-drilling “butchers” of Iraq rose to power thanks to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and are now commanding forces either in the US-backed Iraqi government, or under its protection, fighting alongside the US military against the now ISIS-lead Sunni insurgency. At the end of the day, the American Sniper was not the enemy of the Iraqi Butchers, but their benefactor.   As radio host Scott Horton never tires reminding his listeners, the chief role of the American troops in Iraq was to fight a bloody civil war on behalf of the Shiite side and to install Iran-backed Shiite militias in power. These militias used death squads to ethnically cleanse Baghdad and other cities of Sunnis, and, as Will Grigg never tires reminding his readers, imposed a Sharia-compliant constitution over a once-secular country. This Shiite jihad was, in effect, Chris Kyle’s true mission, for which millions of American Christians now lionize him."

• Another article by Dan Sanchez: "“There are four types of people who join the military. For some, it’s a family trade. Others are patriots, eager to serve. Next you have those who just need a job. Then there’s the kind who want a legal means of killing other people.” – The title character of the 2012 movie Jack Reacher, played by Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, listing the "four types" to Rosamund Pike's Helen Rodin. As for the fourth type, Reacher was referring to another character in the film, an American sniper prosecuted for murders both in Iraq and the US. Jack Reacher's "American Sniper": James Barr, played by Joseph Sikora. Judging from Kyle’s own words, this character is a much more accurate portrayal of Chris Kyle’s psyche than the one created by Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper. “But after you kill your enemy, you see it’s okay. You say, Great. You do it again. And again. (…) I loved what I did. I still do. If circumstances were different–if my family didn’t need me–I’d be back in a heartbeat. I’m not lying or exaggerating to say it was fun.” – Chris Kyle, American Sniper. Here’s an idea: Clint Eastwood could make American Sniper the first movie in a trilogy about heroes who gleefully murder people in other countries from a safe distance. Next up: “American Drone Operator” and “American Neocon Laptop Bombardier.” American Drone Operator, Scene 1: Bradley Cooper into a cellphone: “I’m ready to come home baby!” Sienna Miller: “Okay… then come home.” Cooper steps out into a parking lot in Indian Springs, Nevada. In a sane and moral world, it wouldn’t be American Sniper raking in tens of millions, but Citizenfour. (Photos of Edward Snowden and Chris Kyle: “one of these men risked his life to help protect your freedom. The other is Chris Kyle.”) Finally, be sure to watch for comparison the Nazi version of American Sniper (the one controversially referenced by Seth Rogen), this film-within-a-film from Inglorious Basterds:" link

• (An article from almost 11 years ago, referenced by Janet Weil above.) Journalist Dahr Jamail in his direct report from Fallujah on American snipers "Slaughtering Civilians in Fallujah:" "...the Americans bombed one of the hospitals, and were currently sniping people as they attempted to enter/exit the main hospital ... " photo caption: "Iraqi woman wounded in the neck by an American sniper. Doctors predicted the wound would be fatal." ... " As I was there, an endless stream of women and children who'd been sniped by the Americans were being raced into the dirty clinic, the cars speeding over the curb out front as their wailing family members carried them in. One woman and small child had been shot through the neck – the woman was making breathy gurgling noises as the doctors frantically worked on her amongst her muffled moaning. The small child, his eyes glazed and staring into space, continually vomited as the doctors raced to save his life. After 30 minutes, it appeared as though neither of them would survive. One victim of American aggression after another was brought into the clinic, nearly all of them women and children. This scene continued, off and on, into the night as the sniping continued." ... "One small boy of 11, his face covered by a kefir and toting around a Kalashnikov that was nearly as big as he was, patrolled areas around the clinic, making sure they were secure. He was confident and very eager for battle. I wondered how the U.S. soldiers would feel about fighting an 11 year-old child? For the next day, on the way out of Falluja, I saw several groups of children fighting as mujahedeen." ... "Although the ambulance already had three bullet holes from a U.S. sniper through the front windshield on the driver's side, having westerners on board was the only hope that soldiers would allow them to retrieve more wounded Iraqis. The previous driver was wounded when one of the sniper's shots grazed his head. Bombs were heard sporadically exploding around the city, along with random gunfire. It grew dark, so we ended up spending the night with one of the local men who had filmed the atrocities. He showed us footage of a dead baby who he claimed was torn from his mother's chest by Marines. Other horrendous footage of slain Iraqis was shown to us as well." ... "One of the bodies they brought to the clinic was that of an old man who was shot by a sniper outside of his home, while his wife and children sat wailing inside. The family couldn't reach his body, for fear of being sniped by the Americans themselves. His stiff body was carried into the clinic with flies swarming above it." ... "What I can report from Falluja is that there is no ceasefire, and apparently there never was. Iraqi women and children are being shot by American snipers. Over 600 Iraqis have now been killed by American aggression, and the residents have turned two football fields into graveyards. Ambulances are being shot by the Americans. And now they are preparing to launch a full-scale invasion of the city. All of which is occurring under the guise of catching the people who killed the four Blackwater Security personnel and hung two of their bodies from a bridge." Photo caption: "Young Iraqi boy shot in the neck by a U.S. sniper in Falluja."

• Journalist and author Robert Fisk, who reported on several wars and armed conflicts, tweeted that American Sniper is "rubbish."

• Adam K. Raymond wrote about "5 Things American Sniper’s Chris Kyle Allegedly Lied About."

• Brock McIntosh, an ex-soldier, commended Chris Kyle for telling his story in his book. McIntosh wrote that “American Sniper” is "rife with lies" and that the movie is "as fictional as Buffy Summers." He also wrote: "... Americans were responsible for thousands of Iraqi deaths and almost none were held accountable." ... "So enough about Chris Kyle. Let’s talk about [Bradley] Cooper and [screenwriter Jason] Hall, and the culture industry that recycles propagandistic fiction under the guise of a “true story.” And let’s focus our anger and our organizing against the authorities and the institutions that craft the lies that the Chris Kyles of the world believe, that have created a trail of blowback leading from dumb war to dumb war ... "

• Robert Fantina wrote American Sniper "glorifies the life of a mass murderer. It has long been a fact of U.S. life that murder when committed in uniform is somehow noble, and the perpetrator heroic. And today, it is all the more glorious if the victims happen to wear hijabs and kufeyahs. So violence and terrorism against Muslims, or any Arab for that matter, receives nothing but silence from the United States. A few incidents are instructive ..."

• Lorraine Ali, who has lost family in Baghdad, lamented American Sniper’s’ discounting of Iraqi lives. She wrote: "... But the bigger problem here is that the Iraqis in Eastwood’s production are mere props, grizzled monsters who torture children with drills, swarthy insurgents who proliferate like cockroaches, bumbling, hapless victims who can barely string a sentence together let alone protect themselves. Their foreign “chatter” (harshly spoken Arabic) is alienating, and their values are not like ours. Would you send your child to his death in the name of blowing up convoys or hide a cache of weapons under his bed? The Iraqis here do. Plus, their faith is downright spooky. In “American Sniper” the call to prayer — a sound more commonplace than car alarms in the Muslim world — is foreboding, shorthand for bad things to come. By the time our on-screen hero refers to the Iraqis as “savages,” the film has already made that point about 10 times over. If all of “American Sniper” were this lunkheaded, then the fact that its Arabs can’t even sip tea without looking like Satan’s henchmen could be passed off as an expected part of one more ham-fisted war movie. But given the care the film takes in depicting Kyle’s own struggles with PTSD, his moral conundrums on the battlefield and his complicated life as a husband and father, the dehumanization appears more a plot strategy than an oversight. Just as the evil-versus-good narrative helped sell the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, it’s also helped sell “American Sniper.” The film broke box-office records this month ... Finally, a success story stemming from the Iraq war.

• "American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee writes to Bradley Cooper and Clint Eastwood requesting action as threat complaints triple."

• Henry Giroux compared and contrasted the films Citizenfour, Selma and American Sniper. He wrote: "America’s addiction to violence is partly evident in the heroes it chooses to glorify. Within the last month three films appeared that offer role models to young people while legitimating particular notions of civic courage, patriotism, and a broader understanding of injustice. Citizenfour is a deeply moving film about whistleblower Edward Snowden and his admirable willingness to sacrifice his life in order to reveal the dangerous workings of an authoritarian surveillance state. It also points to the role of journalists working in the alternative media who refuse to become embedded within the safe parameters of established powers and the death-dealing war-surveillance machine in legitimates. Snowden comes across as a remarkable young man who shines like a bright meteor racing across the darkness. Truly, the best of what America has to offer given his selflessness, moral integrity, and fierce commitment not only to renounce injustice but to do something about it. Selma offers an acute and much needed exercise in pubic memory offering a piece of history into the civil rights movement that not only reveals the moral and civic courage of Martin Luther King Jr. in his fight against racism but the courage and deep ethical and political americas-ed-deficit-300x449commitments of a range of incredibly brave men and women unwilling to live in a racist society and willing to put their bodies against the death dealing machine of racism in order to bring it to a halt. Selma reveals a racist poison at the heart of American history and offers up not only a much needed form of moral witnessing, but also a politics that serves as a counterpoint to the weak and compromising model of racial politics offered by the Obama administration. The third film to hit American theaters at about the same time as the other two is American Sniper, a war film about a young man who serves as a model for a kind of unthinking patriotism and defense of an indefensible war. Even worse, Chris Kyle himself, the hero of the film, is a Navy Seal who at the end of four tours of duty in Iraq held the “honor” of killing more than 160 people. Out of that experience, he authored an autobiographical book that bears a problematic relationship to the film. For some critics, Kyle is a decent guy caught up in a war he was not prepared for, a war that strained his marriage and later became representative of a narrative only too familiar for many vets who suffered a great deal of anguish and mental stress as a result of their war time experiences. This is a made for CNN narrative that is only partly true. A more realistic narrative and certainly one that has turned the film into a Hollywood blockbuster is that Kyle is portrayed as an unstoppable and unapologetic killing machine, a sniper who was proud of his exploits. Kyle models the American Empire at its worse. This is an empire steeped in extreme violence, willing to trample over any country in the name of the war on terrorism, and leaves in its path massive amounts of misery, suffering, dislocation, and hardship. Of the three films, Citizenfour and Selma invoke the courage of men and women who oppose the violence of the state in the interest of two different forms of lawlessness, one marked by a brutalizing racism and the other marked by a suffocating practice of surveillance. American Sniper is a film that erases history, spectacularizes violence, and reduces war and its aftermath to cheap entertainment, with an under explained referent to the mental problems many vets live with when they return home from the war. In this case the aftermath of war becomes the main narrative, a diversionary tacit and story that erases any attempt to understand the lies, violence, corruption, and misdeeds that caused the war in the first place. Moreover, the film evokes sympathy not for its millions of victims but exclusively for those largely poor youth who have to carry the burden of war for the dishonest politicians who send them often into war zones that should never have existed in the first place. Amy Nelson at Slate gets it right in stating that “American Sniper convinces viewers that Chris Kyle is what heroism looks like: a great guy who shoots a lot of people and doesn’t think twice about it.” Citizenfour and Selma made little money, were largely ignored by the public, and all but disappeared except for some paltry acknowledgements by the film industry. American Sniper is the most successful grossing war film of all time. Selma will be mentioned in the history books but will not get the attention it really deserves for the relevance it should have for a new generation of youth. There will be no mention in the history books regarding the importance of Edward Snowden because his story not only instructs a larger public but indicts the myth of American democracy. Yet, American Sniper resembles a familiar narrative of false heroism and state violence for which thousands of pages will be written as part of history texts that will provide the pedagogical context for imposing on young people a mode of hyper-masculinity built on the false notion that violence is a sacred value and that war is an honorable ideal and the ultimate test of what it means to be a man."   "The stories a society tells about itself are a measure of how it values itself, the ideals of democracy, and its future. The stories that Hollywood tells represent a particularly powerful form of public pedagogy that is integral to how people imagine life, themselves, relations to others, and what it might mean to think otherwise in order to act otherwise. In this case, stories and the communal bonds that support them in their differences become integral to how people value life, social relations, and visions of the future. American Sniper tells a disturbing story codified as a disturbing truth and normalized through an entertainment industry that thrives on the spectacle of violence, one that is deeply indebted to the militarization of everyday life. Courage in the morally paralyzing lexicon of a stupefied appeal to patriotism has become an extension of a gun culture both at home and abroad. This is a culture of hyped-up masculinity and cruelty that is symptomatic of a kind of mad violence and unchecked misery that is both a by-product of and sustains the fog of historical amnesia, militarism, and the death of democracy itself. Maybe the spectacular success of American Sniper over the other two films should not be surprising in a country in which the new normal for giving out honorary degrees and anointing a new generation of heroes goes to billionaires such as Bill Gates, Jamie Dimon, Oprah Winfrey, and other leaders of the corrupt institutions and bankrupt celebrity culture that now are driving the world into political, economic, and moral bankruptcy, made visible in the most profound vocabularies of stupidity and cruelty. War machines and the financial elite now construct the stories that America tells about itself and in this delusional denial of social and moral responsibility monsters are born, paving the way for the new authoritarianism."

• Alexander Reid Ross wrote that "Movies like American Sniper ... promote the dehumanization of Muslims (especially Arabs), fan the flames of racial and religious hatred, extending beyond hateful epithets to admitted desires to murder Arabs. The killing of three Muslims in Chapel Hill is immediately related to the racial and religious aspects of white culture in the US, and the inability of the left to effectively respond."

• Louis Proyect wrote that “American Sniper” "is a film that turns history on its head" ... "[The documentary film] Same Same but Different ... can be seen now on Vimeo for free. For those who want to get an idea of what a real American hero is about, this 54-minute documentary is the best place to start. It allows Vietnam War veterans to describe their experiences as foreign invaders committed to Cold War verities and then being transformed into opponents of the war. What gives the film added poignancy are the Deep South origins of most of the subjects who unlike the Texas sniper Chris Kyle were able to break with a racist and militarist culture and become true American heroes." ... "Another really good old boy is Suel Jones from East Texas who served with the Marines in the DMZ, an area drenched with Agent Orange and that left American GI’s, their Vietnamese “enemies”, and noncombatants exposed to the dioxin that often destroyed their health and that of the children they brought into the world. Jones went back to Vietnam and worked with the Friendship Village that serves the needs of its victims. Jones is the author of “Meeting the Enemy: A Marine Returns Home”, a memoir that deserves to be read more than ever in a time when Chris Kyle’s “American Sniper” prepares the groundwork for the next generation of young Americans fighting to make the world safe for American corporations and unsafe for those who get in their way."

• Peter Van Buren criticized American Sniper in an article titled "War Porn -- Hollywood and War from World War II to American Sniper."

• Paul Street criticized American Sniper in an article titled "More Than Entertainment -- Hollywood’s Service to Empire."

• Adam Kokesh discussed the film with moviegoers, in a video report titled "American Sniper has warped Americans' fragile little minds."

• The Young Turks criticized American Sniper in a video report titled "American Sniper Chris Kyle Was Full Of Lies, Just Like The Movie."

Additional sources criticizing the film

The following list of links probably contains some duplicates with the main list immediately above

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/06/real-american-sniper-hate-filled-killer-why-patriots-calling-hero-chris-kyle

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/21/7641189/american-sniper-history

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/01/24/bill-maher-rips-american-sniper-pro-war-propaganda-psychopathic-patriot-chris-kyle.html

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/26/american_snipers_biggest_lie_clint_eastwood_has_a_delusional_fox_news_problem/

http://www.vulture.com/2014/12/movie-review-american-sniper.html

http://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7859791/american-sniper-iraq

http://www.activistpost.com/2015/01/american-sniper-lies-and-propaganda-to.html

http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/racism/the-disgusting-tweets-inspired-by-the-propaganda-film-american-sniper-screenshots/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/24/bill-maher-blasts-american-sniper-calls-chris-kyle-a-psychopath-patriot.html

http://theantimedia.org/the-real-american-sniper/

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120763/american-sniper-clint-eastwood-biopic-misrepresents-chris-kyle

http://portside.org/2015-01-22/american-sniper-dishonest-racist-film-spawns-death-threats-against-arabs-and-muslims

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/01/remembers-important-american

http://www.thewrap.com/american-sniper-complaints-grow-in-hollywood-should-clint-eastwood-be-celebrating-a-killer/

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120763/american-sniper-clint-eastwood-biopic-misrepresents-chris-kyle

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/American-Sniper-20150110-0019.html

https://soundcloud.com/marcfennell/american-sniper?in=marcfennell/sets/triple-j-movie-reviews

List of sources in support of the political, historical and social aspects of the film

• "Harvey Weinstein takes aim at journalists critical of American Sniper. The producer has praised Clint Eastwood’s film for informing audiences about post-traumatic stress disorder and hit out at "poorly researched" critiques, while star Bradley Cooper says discussion around the film is "fantastic." Cooper told journalists he was pleased at the film’s ability to highlight veterans’ struggles. Cooper said: “You never know when you make a movie that anyone is going to see it, so the audacity to think that it would cause any sort of effect would be pretty presumptuous.” He added that “any discussion that sheds light to the plight of the soldiers and the men and women of the armed services — for that discussion to occur is fantastic”.

Discussion (continued)

Thank you. I would be perfectly fine with rewording my article insertion in that manner. David A (talk) 08:18, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think the summaries above should go in the Criticism section. The sheer number of WP:RSs indicates that they represent at least a significant minority view. The current Criticism section https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=American_Sniper_%28film%29&oldid=644278833 condenses them all into a single paragraph. When you condense a Criticism section significantly, that is equivalent to tilting the article against the criticism, in violation of WP:NPOV. --Nbauman (talk) 18:05, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Read bottom line of this article [2]. Moore disavows that he is discussing the film. He actually gives the film positive reviews. --DHeyward (talk) 20:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

DHeyward, you appear to be Wikilawyering. Your source THR does not say any of those things you claim: it does not say Moore disavows that he is discussing the film. And Moore is quoted as liking some aspects of the film (BC's acting and antiwar message) but disliked other, key aspects of the film. IjonTichy (talk) 20:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

IjonTichyIjonTichy, what do you think about the argument that the Salon article should be removed because it originally appeared on Alternet? Personally, I am concerned about the extreme nature of the direct quotes from Kyle, and their extreme contrast to the public presentation of the man himself. To me, it seems like this contrast is extremely relevant to make available to the public awareness. David A (talk) 21:03, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, if it is inappropriate, would either of these two articles be acceptable instead? My main concern is the quotes after all. David A (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I also agree. The link to Chris Hedges article should be put in a citation however.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 21:09, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with AlterNet or salon - we could write Zaid Jilani in Salon expressed the view that ...

Yes, I think the article should cite Chris Hedges and Max Blumenthal, two respected investigative journalists and authors. The commentary by Chomsky may be best included in a new sub-section of the 'criticism' section, e.g. 'criticism of media coverage of the film'. IjonTichy (talk) 21:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The point of WP:UNDUE is to not give more attention to minority viewpoints:

Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight mean that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. ... Wikipedia should not present a dispute as if a view held by a small minority deserves as much attention overall as the majority view. Views that are held by a tiny minority should not be represented except in articles devoted to those views (such as Flat Earth). To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute.

Every blogger who has put out criticism is not to be included. - Gothicfilm (talk) 21:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But isn't that intended for scientific analysis, rather than censoring subjective viewpoints? The criticism section is already quite small as it is. David A (talk) 21:38, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Gothicfilm, you are quoting selectively from WP:UNDUE and omitting the beginning, which goes against your argument. WP:UNDUE begins with,

Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources.

There are many significant viewpoints from WP:RSs that are critical of the film, and they should be represented in proportion to their prominence. You have cut them down to one paragraph. You have added a rebuttal to the criticism that is twice as long as the criticism itself. I think we should include the criticism in the detailed form as we wrote above -- in at least the same length as Eastwood's criticism. Your objection isn't to whether they are WP:RSs, you just disagree with the criticism of the film. --Nbauman (talk) 00:10, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

No, the Eastwood section should be trimmed down. I did not add it or reduce the "Criticism" section. WP:UNDUE is about proportionality. The proportion of the "Criticism" section should be compared to the film's overall response, which is not mostly negative. Nowhere near it. These are the viewpoints of anti-war activists, and they should be identified as such. And don't tell me what I agree or disagree with. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:02, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I could see some opinions, but pros or cons, most of these movie critics are not even recognized as movie critics by trade...so pro or con it is just opinions.--MONGO 00:55, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

There is sufficient criticism of the film to start a new article titled something like 'Criticism of American Sniper (film)' or 'American Sniper (film) controversies.' In the style of, for example, 'Criticism of Fox News Channel.'   IjonTichy (talk) 01:01, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

In other words you are suggesting a POV FORK...a coatrack.--MONGO 01:09, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that would be a WP:POVFORK, which is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies. And there is not sufficient criticism of the film to start a new article on that subject. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:13, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Again, WP:UNDUE is about proportionality. We are not listing every critical article and blog. - Gothicfilm (talk) 07:36, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The point is that there have been a lot of valid critical articles, yet we have given undue weight/space to the positive ones. We could give brief mentions of the above articles, as we have done with others, but it is giving a misrepresentative, and possibly slanted, picture to not include any of them at all. David A (talk) 07:43, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Not include any of them at all? You've got your paragraph, and now you want to add to it. This is going against WP:UNDUE. The critical consensus is much more positive than negative. Stop with this crusade to overemphasize the minority viewpoint. You need consensus to put any more in. And your claim on your Talk page that the film "idolises" Kyle is not true. The film is ambiguous, and shows him conflicted. It is a misrepresentation to claim it is a pro-war film. - Gothicfilm (talk) 08:41, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, there have been lots of critical responses, so please stop your crusade to censor most of the references that you disagree with. The positive ones have been given far more room anyway. There was a heavily compressed paragraph as a counterpoint, but that is all. However, if you wish to shorten down the 3 new references that I added, I am openminded about that option. Removing valid notable sources altogether is morally unacceptable however. Also, the point is that going by the quotes that I have seen from Kyle, the film attempts to portray him in an enormously more favourable light. You can try reading through the criticism that I linked to if you wish. David A (talk) 08:59, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Stop acting as if you don't understand the concept of proportionality. You are going against WP:UNDUE. Your paragraph should be shorter because it is a minority viewpoint. This article is about the film, not Kyle. Those quotes are taken out of context and are made to sound as if Kyle was talking about all Iraqis, when he actually meant the insurgents - active combatants. - Gothicfilm (talk) 09:14, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

I am not good at compressing things completely, but am perfectly fine with if you wish to do it. Also, as I illustrated above, there are lots of critical voices about the movie, including the extremely valid The Guardian article that you attempted to remove. In addition, I have a very hard time seeing how quotes about taking excruciating pleasure killing savages, and wishing to kill anybody with a Quoran (all Muslims) can be taken out of context. David A (talk) 09:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

How about if we include most of the new above references in the extremely compressed format of: "Other critical voices include: (Writer A) of (Publication A),(Reference) (Writer B) of (Publication B), (Reference)..."? Would this be an acceptable compromise? David A (talk) 10:23, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Its kind of fascinating to me that rags like Salon actually pay people of limited journalist integrity and zero ability to do investigative journalism (these tall tales would never hold up in a court of law) to write articles for them....I guess there is a target audience of persons with a predisposed bias that only want to read about things that support their biases. Anyway, why are we, quotefarming the opinions of "journalists" that are not even movie critics by trade? Some opinions are fine including movie directors such as Michael Moore....but Jiliani? That guy was too radical even for his ultra liberal PAC...he was fired after he made anti-Semitic comments and questioned Obama's Afghanistan troop surge. I will say that this issue is not limited to the criticism section...The critique both pro and con does not need nor should it be half the article...that would be undue.--MONGO 12:43, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticism of onesided preferences usually cut both ways. Salon tries to provide an alternative news outlet without the usual slanted corporate control, and limited resources. Regardless, personally I find Moore's comment irrelevant, and am not fond of Jilani if he is indeed anti-semite (although I consider his quotes noteworthy), but which of all the above sources do you consider acceptable? The Guardian review should qualify, surely? Also, the new Salon article above is written by Sophia A. McClennen, Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University. That should also be relevant. David A (talk) 13:25, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

This NYT article should settle the question of whether the views of critics belong in this entry. The answer is "yes." I think that every major newspaper -- NYT, Los Angles Times, Washington Post, etc. -- has had a story now about the critics. That means it should get significant WP:WEIGHT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/movies/awardsseason/american-sniper-fuels-a-war-on-the-home-front.html ‘American Sniper’ Fuels a War on the Home Front By CARA BUCKLEY JAN. 28, 2015

Meanwhile, the left started its own pile-on. Bill Maher said the film was about a “psychopathic patriot.” Chris Hedges, a columnist for TruthDig and a former reporter for The New York Times, argued in an essay with an incendiary title that Mr. Kyle “was able to cling to childish myth rather than examine the darkness of his own soul and his contribution to the war crimes we carried out in Iraq.” In a TV interview, Noam Chomsky noted that Mr. Kyle wrote in his memoir that he was fighting “savage despicable evil.” Mr. Chomsky added that “we’re all tarred with the same brush” for largely keeping silent about official policy and the country’s global drone assassination campaign.

The Chris Hedges essay, BTW, is [http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/killing_ragheads_for_jesus_20150125 Killing Ragheads for Jesus] which is quoted above.

I think Chris Hedges gives a good statement of the critics' view.

I think the Criticism section should be a coherent summary of the ideas behind the critics, in full sentences, rather than a collection of snippits. It seems to be getting a little better. If I were writing it from a blank page, I would summarize Zaid Jilani's list of "lies" and Chris Hedges' introductory lead. That would give the readers a good idea of what the controversy is all about. This is an encyclopedia entry, not a book jacket. --Nbauman (talk) 13:20, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with this post. It would be far preferable if the consensus of the considerable amount of articles would be easier to read. However, to include as many references as possible while avoiding unnecessary brevity, would you consider it acceptable if I wrote a sentence at the end reading: "Several other articles have also been critical about the movie." With a following reference list of the left out critical articles? Of course, if somebody would like to read through all of them and categorise them in thecmanner suggested above, that would be even better. David A (talk) 14:00, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

You mean, "Several other articles have also been critical about the movie." with a whole string of links. Yes, that's what I was thinking of. Wikipedia style doesn't allow us to include what they disparagingly refer to a linkfarm, although I disagree with that. But we could definitely link to half a dozen (maybe more) of the best links, and hopefully someone will come along and improve it by briefly summarizing what the links are about. --Nbauman (talk) 18:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. I think that this method should satisfy the demands of compromise. However, the question is which of all the above articles that are considered the most notable and informative? David A (talk) 19:36, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Nbauman, you wrote, "In a TV interview, Noam Chomsky noted that Mr. Kyle wrote in his memoir that he was fighting 'savage despicable evil.'" There are at least two ways in which that's no criticism at all, right? —Blanchette (talk) 23:05, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Need for description

There does need to be a description of who these sources being quoted are. If they were against the war well before the film was made, they did not come to it with a neutral opinion. - Gothicfilm (talk) 19:14, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

So what if they are against the war? Is that somehow a disqualifier for having a valid viewpoint? In any case, I think it should be blatantly obvious from the referenced articles themselves what their viewpoints are, and if possible there are links to their entries within Wikipedia. Should we insert lots of background about Clint Eastwood as well before his response? No, it would be silly and redundant. David A (talk) 19:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

First Lady Michelle Obama quotes on American Sniper

Obama spoke to a Washington gathering on Friday, January 30 organized by Got Your 6, a group that promotes accurate portrayals of veterans in entertainment:

The number-one movie in America right now is a complex, emotional depiction of a veteran and his family. And I had a chance to see “American Sniper” this week on that long flight we took – (laughter) -- and while I know there have been critics, I felt that, more often than not, this film touches on many of the emotions and experiences that I’ve heard firsthand from military families over these past few years.

Now, I’m not going to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but this movie reflects those wrenching stories that I’ve heard -- the complex journeys that our men and women in uniform endure. The complicated moral decisions they are tasked with every day. The stresses of balancing love of family with a love of country. And the challenges of transitioning back home to their next mission in life.

And here’s why a movie like this is important: see, the vast majority of Americans will never see these stories. They will never grasp these issues on an emotional level without portrayals like this. Like I said, I’m lucky -– I have had the chance to visit our wounded warriors at Walter Reed, go to base after base. I’ve been able to sit down with groups of caregivers and military spouses and hear about their struggles and their triumphs.

And let me tell you, those experiences have changed me. They have changed me. They’ve made me want to do everything I can to support our troops, veterans and their families. But for all those folks in America who don’t have these kinds of opportunities, films and TV are often the best way we have to share those stories.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/01/30/remarks-first-lady-got-your-six-screenwriters-event-conversation-power-t

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/first-lady-michelle-obama-offers-praise-for-american-sniper-1201419881/

Perhaps some of these quotes should be used in the article. - Gothicfilm (talk) 01:51, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Why should that long quote from Michelle Obama go in the Controversies section? I don't see anything controversial about it. --03:10, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Paul Edwards has room to talk? Look at list of movies he has been a cameraman on...what a hypocrite.--MONGO 21:07, 4 February 2015 (UTC)