From Inculcation to Liberation
Pop Culture-Addled Snipers in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper and Alba Sotorra's Game Over
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12914675 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Fareed Ben‐Youssef (0000-0003-2326-4618, Texas Tech University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 209-227 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-11 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of War and Culture Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1752-6272 • E-ISSN: 1752-6280 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17526272.2023.2299060 |
| OpenAlex | W4390732218 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014) and Alba Sotorra's Game Over (2015) explore the inculcating pull of pop myths on soldiers. Eastwood's biopic focuses on Chris Kyle, American military history's most lethal sniper. Sotorra's documentary Game Over considers Djalal, an Iranian Catalan youth who moves from being an America-idolizing gamer to a sniper in Afghanistan. Initially, they see themselves as Western cowboys and perfect soldiers. War, however, leaves them disillusioned and traumatized. Via distinct generic formats (documentary v. feature film) and nationally determined political frameworks (US v. Spain), they ask: can mythologies fueling the post-9/11 war machine empty it of its force? Mobilizing postcolonial, disability, and trauma studies, this comparative analysis theorizes how objects of soft power can both harden a soldier's mind and liberate it from the battlefield's thrall. Ultimately, the article reveals contrasting, potentially limited strategies subjects across cultures deploy to break the hold of American visions of power
Art · Art history · Battlefield · Media studies · Movie theater · Mythology · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Vision · Anthropology · Classics · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Global Security and Public Health · History · Law
| Highly cited | No |
|---|