Operation Sniper: How American Sniper Constructs Audience as Killer

• In Event: ICA Interactive paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Mass Communication Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

Drawing on critical-cultural theories of Interpellation by Luis Althusser, mythology by Roland Barthes, and construction of the Subject by Michel Foucault, this paper analyzes the movie American Sniper (Warner Brothers, 2014), focusing on the scene in which an Iraqi child and his mother are killed by an American soldier, to unravel their meanings, motivations and purposes and explain how the scene was made up to legitimize the American military deployment in Iraq, the way in which the war is conducted and the version Washington offers about the conflict.

Author

• Alejandro Botia, Middle Tennessee State U