Critiquing the Constructed Muslim Identity: A
Study of the Film American Sniper
through the Lens of Levinas’ Otherness
Ijul Rahaman
Senior Research Fellow
Department of English
Cooch Behar Panchanan Barma University
Cooch Behar, West Bengal, India
Abstract:
This
paper will discuss the images and representations of the Muslims and their
cultures as fantasized in Clint Eastwood's
film American Sniper (2014) as part of the Hollywood film media through
the perspective of Levinas' "Otherness". According to Guy Debord,
people generally do not live in the real world anymore as they are immersed in
the world of images and representations. Like the news media and print media,
the film media directs what people think and controls how people act in the
world. Film media as a popular medium is engaged in the construction,
dissemination and perpetuation of new ideas and beliefs. It is used as a
determining tool of how the commoners should perceive the rest of the world.
This paper will show how the Western film media culture plays a great role in
the stereotypical formation of Islamic identities fantasizing them as complete
"Muslim Others" of the "Western Self" and thus influencing
and remapping the history globally or the emergence of Islam as imaged by the
Hollywood in the global politics.
Keywords: American Sniper, Levinas, Muslim identity,
Otherness, Representation
Introduction:
American
Sniper, directed by Clint Eastwood, is a 2014 biographical war
drama film which displays American rivalry with some Iraqi terrorists working
under Al-Qaeda, a pan Islamic militant organization. Films like American Sniper
function to spread Islamophobic and anti-Muslim environment world wide. The
protagonist of the film Chris Kyle is the representative of the Western Self as
against the Muslim Others where Mustafa stands as the representative. The movie
presents that in every way the Iraqi Muslims lead their life with a completely
different set of systems of thoughts and beliefs from the Americans, and
therefore they bear nothing in common with the Western people and their
cultures. Thus, they are constructed as different from the Western ways of
living. In the movie, Mustafa gets represented as other, inscrutable, as in
Western culture the Muslims are considered very difficult to be known and
understood. Mustafa, and the other Iraqi Muslims in this movie are represented
with universal disdain for peace and justice, and they spread violence
terrifying the rest of the world. Thus, the film constructs a binary of self
and other between the Muslim and the non-Muslim, establishing the Islamic body
as the centre of terror and violence in the pretext of politics and religion.
In
this research paper, the perspective of “otherness” by Emmanuel Levinas has
been used as a theoretical framework to
explain and critically analyze the Muslim Identity in the film media.
The Muslims as the others of American society are essentially the non-Western,
those who are beyond the Western boundary of knowledge, exterior to the Western
culture and social life, outside the reach of
Western system of thought, and beyond the Western self-understandings
(Auslander 129). The otherness of the other is outside the reach of the self,
and therefore beyond the boundaries of knowledge of it, and understanding of
the world, and for Levinas “The face to face remains an ultimate situation”
(Levinas 81). The portrayal of the Muslims and Islam in the movie has been done
enforcing some negative qualities which make the Muslims a complete other of
the Western world. This research article will explore and critically analyze
the Western constructed notion of the “Self” and its “Others”, as reflected in
the movie American Sniper where the Western Society has been mobilized as the
“Self” of Muslim “Others”.
This
research paper is a modest attempt to explain the constructed representation of
Muslim characters as “others” of the “Western self”. The Hollywood film
industry creates a discourse of its own, and this cinematic discourse which
refers to a system of meaning that directs and controls how people perceive,
think about, and act in the world generally views and represents the Muslims
initially as barbaric with a completely different ideology as against the
Western set of mind, and their religion
and culture as a violent political ideology to achieve some goals. This
barbarism is further transformed into extremism and terrorism step by step, and
a great threat to the Western people, and therefore, the Western people have a
great role to fight the Muslims to save
their country. The Western film American Sniper is generally the story
of two snipers, where one is the American Chris Kyle as the hero who works as a
sharp-shooter to defend his country, and another is Mustafa from Iraq who also
works as a sharp-shooter but to spread threat and violence terrifying the rest
of the world.
American Sniper,
as an example from the Hollywood film industry, played a great role in
constructing identity and images of Muslims as others who are always beyond the
Western system of thoughts. Hollywood film industry like the Western media acts
as an image maker, and creates the negative images of the Muslims and their
cultures, and connects the Muslims always with terrorism and their religion, to
not a religion of peace and submission to others, but as a violent political
ideology that always threatens the Western peace and prosperity, and above all
Western normal lifestyles. This
particular movie represents the constructed notion of the fear of Muslims as
extremists and terrorists, who need to be killed to maintain and preserve the
Western Self.
The
American sniper Chris Kyle has been portrayed as a man of greatness fighting
for his countrymen. He thinks in a rational way, he is civilized, educated,
developed and has always good reasons to kill the Muslims, while the Iraqi
sniper Mustafa on the other hand is a rioteering, and a terrorist, someone who
is totally uncivilized, savage, barbaric, who comes to terrify the Western
peace. The American sniper is shown as someone who is able to love and care for
others and treat them well, and his
violent acts of killing the Arab Muslims are only driven by his sincere love
for his country and countrymen, and the horrible news about Muslim intervention
in their social life as he watches on TV. Even when he is killing the Muslims,
he is viewed with a great sympathy for others as if he does not want to kill
anyone, but is forced to do so to save his countrymen. When he comes back home
from Iraq after killing Mustafa, he can not reconcile with a peaceful life in
American society as the normalcy of his American life is shattered into pieces
due to acts of violence and terror created by the Muslim others. On the other
hand, there is nothing in the background story to tell about the Arab sniper.
We know nothing about him, and what we know is that he is a terrorist, and only
a terrorist, and nothing more than this
at all. He is dangerous for the Western
people, because in every way he is challenging the Western normal lifestyles.
Here, the director of the movie acts not according to the actuality of events,
but fully submits to the same patterns of portraits and images of the Hollywood
film industry that has demonized the Muslims as a significant "
Others" of the "Western Self".
Here
in the movie, the Muslims, especially the Iraqi sharp shooter Mustafa is given
the tag marks of non-human, savage, barbaric, heartless who even does not think
for a moment to terrify the world for some political and religious sakes. The
woman and child, like all Iraqis in the film, are rendered as conspicuously
“others”, distant, dangerous, unknowable and malevolent for the Western peace
and prosperity. The movie stands as a striking instance from the part of the
Hollywood film industry of creating and shaping the identity and position of
the Muslims stereotyping them as barbaric, violent, savage, terror-spreading,
rioteering, and above all the complete “others" of the Western people.
The
movie American Sniper promotes the
notion of Islamophobia or anti-Muslim sentiments. It portrays the killing of a
lot of Muslims who are represented as having connections with the Al Qaeda group and Chris Kyle is
overzealous in his military mission to kill them all. The movie portrays the
entire Muslim community in such a dehumaning way that a sharp shooter like
Chris is needed to kill them. The movie first creates an anti-Muslim sentiments
or Muslim “Others” against the Western “Self”, and then glorifies the American military power to
engage in the acts of violence in the name of maintaining American peace and
prosperity against the constructed Muslim fear. It first, in this movie,
creates an environment of terrorism through the Muslim character of Mustafa,
and then sends Kyle to hunt and kill him and men like him who are shown to have
connection with the Al Qaeda group. The movie acts in the process of giving a
new meaning to the Muslim life with a different set of ideas and practices,
nothing in common with the Western people and their cultures . Thus, the
Hollywood film industry, like the Western print media, gives a new definition
to the Muslims and their cultures, and represents them accordingly. The
American representation of the Muslims as others of the Western self defines a
bonding with opposing non-Western characteristics, and the relation is enforced
as “a relation without relation” (Levinas 80).
The
construction of the hero and villain in this particular film has been so
perfectly thrown in the field that nobody can be able to think of anything else
other than what the director of the film attempts to spread. The masterful
creation of America as the Self and Iraq as the Other of the self has been
perfectly implemented in the movie. The ideologically structured motive of the
American government is very much reflected here shedding light on the
difference between an American sniper and a sniper groomed with Iraqi temper.
The director’s making of two heroes and their roles completely opposing each
other in their mission are in actuality suggesting the gap of assimilation of
the Self with the Other and an attempt to be in security by throwing the Others
in a safe distance. The Iraqi military forces as inscrutable are beyond the
knowledge of the West, and therefore forcing the West to take action. The two
snipers with two different purposes, while one has been taught to create riots
and violence, the other is represented to have pressure to kill others in spite
of having unwillingness to kill.
In
the movie American Sniper, Chris Kyle
joined the American army as a sharpshooter or sniper and he was sent to Iraq to
kill the terrorists there. He was
married to Taya, and soon after his marriage he was appointed to be
readily engaged in the American war with Iraq. He reached Iraq and started
slaying the terrorists there step by step and he stopped his mission just after
killing the mastermind of terrorism named Mustafa. But, when he returned back
to his native land America, he was portrayed as not getting reconciled with the
regular social life there because of his devastating experiences in the war
zone. He was being agonized with the reality of killings and bloodshed in war.
He was most afflicted with the action when he had to come to shoot a little
child because of its supposed link with the Al Qaeda terrorists group. The
cataclysmic and ravaging experiences that he went through during his mission
started haunting him like an insomnia patient even in American society. The
advent of an unknown Islamic fear in American soil is being portrayed as
destroying American peace and prosperity.
“The introduction of the new into a thought, the idea of infinity, is the
very work of reason. The absolutely new is the Other” (Levinas 219).
This
is a film regarding the sacrifice of two heroes from two countries with very
different worldviews. On one hand, Chris Kyle is the real hero, the honor of
the country who has been portrayed as a hero for the country, to stop terrorism
and to bring peace. On the other hand, Mustafa is also the hero, but in a
derogatory way. He is the man of terror who always terrifies the world with his
tactics to scatter violence in the name of religion. While Kyle’s sacrifice has
been honored, the sacrifice of Mustafa has been linked with terrorism. This
movie unfolding the stories of two heroes from two countries brings to light
the socio-political backdrops of these two countries, one attempting to come
out of terrorism while another violently attempts to stick to terrifying the
world.
The
qualities which are attributed to the Muslim characters in the movie the American Sniper are significantly very
much opposing to the American society and, therefore, a great threat to
American stability. The way the otherness is given to the Muslim characters is
operating to erase the actual Muslim determinations, thereby enforcing some of
the differences and the need to keep themselves safe from the other's actual
otherness. The qualities of otherness are forcibly thrown in the Islamic body
to have the Self in a more powerful position. The politics of construction of
the self and its Other is very diligently working in this film. The way Chris
Kyle and Mustafa are designed and assigned with duties are suggestive of the
American politics of dissemination of Islamic world as terrifying and dangerous
for the sophistication of the West. Chris Kyle as a sharpshooter is glorified
as a man of the better world with an exigency to remove all the evils of the
world while Mustafa as a sharpshooter has been treated with all the evils
advancing through his hands.
Conclusion:
This research article has
been a modest attempt for the critical analysis of Muslim images and
representation in the particular film American
Sniper as part of the bigger Hollywood Film Industry which operates for the
creation and dissemination of Islamic body as a depot of terror and violence
leading to greater crisis for some non-Muslim countries like America. Here,
Iraq has been depicted as a center of acts of violence terrorizing the American
stability. American sniper as the savior of the world from any upcoming danger,
Iraqi sniper as a destroyer of the international peace, and duty of an American
sniper to give this violence a final touch by killing the masterminds of the
mission are very tricklingly shown in this movie. The Muslim characters as others
of the Western self have been constructed as part of a defensive action of
American society. Muslim characters as complete others of the American society
is nothing but a fabrication of the
American world that attempts to shape and reshape the self strong and vigilant by creating an exigency of an other from which there
should be a continual struggle to make the American world better and greater in
every aspect.
Works
Cited
American Sniper.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, Village Roadshow Picture, 2014
Green,
Todd H. Fear of Islam: An Introduction to
Islamophobia in the West. Fortress Press, 2015.
Hand,
Sean. Emmanuel Levinas (1st ed.)
Routledge, 2009.
Levinas,
Emmanuel. Totality and Infinity: An Essay
on Exteriority. Duquesne University Press, 2007.
Zero Dark Thirty.
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, Columbia Pictures, 2012.