REPRESENTATIONS OF IRAQ IN AMERICAN SNIPER

Abstract

This study investigates representations of Iraq in the film American Sniper(2014). The film encapsulates Hollywoods anti-Muslim discourse post 9/11, which wasparticularly designed to shape public opinion and lay the groundwork for policies that encroach upon civil liberties.To legitimize the draconian, unprecedented measures the Bush Administration introduced in the tumultuous aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the filmdoes not only reinforce the perception of Muslims as primitive savages deserving of every cruelty inflicted on them, but also creates a narrative that conflates patriotism with unequivocalsupport for the governments heavy-handed response. As a point of departure, this thesis draws on a litany of assertions Edward Said made regarding Orientalism, especially his contention that when the United States emerged as a dominant superpower in the aftermath of World War II, supplanting the once mighty and far-flung French and British empires, it inherited a vast repertory of derogatory stereotypes and essentialist tropes about the Islamic Orient. The film, American Sniper,abounds with familiar Orientalist imagery about Muslims, which aim to lock the public in a perpetual state of patriotic hysteria and lend credence to an imperialist discursive tradition that has for long presented the Orient as an inferior, benighted savage that needs to be kept at bay at all costs.