“My first impulse is to call you a dumb Obama ass-licking c**t”: “American Sniper” fans tell me off [View all]

[tenderfoot]

I dared criticize "American Sniper." You'd be horrified by the response from aggressive, deluded "patriots"
Sophia A. McClennen

We knew early on that critiquing the film was risky business since it would be followed with immediate and intense attacks. This was evident when Seth Rogen and Michael Moore experienced severe public backlash in response to less-than-favorable tweets about the movie. In a return of the “with us or against us” logic that framed the Bush administration’s response to 9/11, the film suddenly stood in for patriotism in general. If you critiqued the film, you hated the country, the military and your own freedom. And those that you had offended were going to make you pay for it.

It was just this sort of narrow thinking that I had in mind when I wrote a piece critical of the film for Salon. I suggested that the film suffered from two key flaws—delusion and aggression—and that both of those flaws had been present in public appearances by “American Sniper” director Clint Eastwood. Most important, I connected them to a hostile tendency common to a highly vocal sector of the GOP.

Little did I know that whatever my piece may have lacked in its assessment of the film, it would be the film’s defenders that would perfectly prove my point. Within minutes of the piece going live, my email inbox and Twitter feed began to light up with negative comments. Many of those early ones I deleted, but I soon realized that keeping them and analyzing them would be a useful exercise in understanding the hate speech that is threatening the health of our democracy. (You can access our full data analysis of the messages here.)

more: http://www.salon.com/2015/02/20/my_first_impulse_is_to_call_you_a_dumb_obama_ass_licking_ct_american_sniper_fans_tell_me_off/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow