Thesis
Same story, different war: framing the monomythic memory of the Iraq War in American Sniper
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2016
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100704
Abstract
Based on the life of United States Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, Clint Eastwood's 2014 Academy Award-winning war drama American Sniper depicts the life of the most lethal sniper in the history of the U.S. military. This paper seeks to address the ethicality of the film's attempt to frame the nation's collective memory of the purpose and consequences of the Iraq War. Adopting the concepts of representative anecdotes (Burke, 1969), prosthetic memory (Landsberg, 2004), and truthfulness and deception (Bok, 1978) as theoretical frameworks, I argue that the film is an unethical representation of the Iraq War, because it memorializes a deceptive, monomythic narrative of American exceptionalism that vilifies the Iraqi people and glorifies the violence and morality of the individual soldier.
Metrics
64 File views/ downloads
83 Record Views
Details
- Title
- Same story, different war
- Creators
- Miles John Paul Sari
- Contributors
- Porismita Borah (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Edward R. Murrow College of Communication
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525119601842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis