Over the last few years, two American heroes such as Chris Kyle and Edward Snowden have been portrayed by two Academy Award-winning directors, Clint Eastwood and Oliver Stone, in two features: American Sniper (2014) and Snowden (2016).
Both young and certainly brave, Kyle and Snowden decided, quite early in their lives, to serve their governments – the former in the US Navy SEAL, the latter in the CIA. What made them heroes was the common, strong, will to protect American people: but whereas Kyle decided to go to Iraq to fight an outer enemy in the so-called “War on Terror”, Snowden ended up leaking data and information to oppose the US government itself. Hence, we have two narratives which play with American founding myths and values in profoundly diverse manners.
The Kyle Narrative traces its roots back to the Western Frontier, to the legendary bravery of men (pioneers, cowboys, marshals) who risked their lives to protect their lands and families, or to establish US justice and law in savage territories. The only grey area that the depiction of such heroes could accept is an excessive zeal leading to unnecessary violence – a downside that, under certain circumstances, can make the hero even more admirable and, somehow, human. Accused by some of being a “hate-filled killer”, Chris Kyle showed – at least in his memories – a remarkable lack of mercy for Iraqi “insurgents”, whom he did not hesitate to define “savages”. But he served his country with uncompromising commitment (he claimed the killing of more than 250 people), and his life came tragically to an end when a young veteran, reportedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, shot him.
The Snowden Narrative follows a very different path. Its roots may be traced in the Orwellian nightmare of 1984: a dystopian society, partially modeled on the Soviet Union, where any ordinary citizen can be spied by a ubiquitous Big Brother: freedom is denied, sexual intercourse strictly forbidden, any will or thought or act against the government severely punished. As emphasized by the official propaganda, “slavery is freedom” and “war is peace”: indeed, a never-ending war is carried out by the main political powers (a bunch of super-states) in order to preserve the status quo. We are very far from the myth of the American Frontier: this is just a bleak, Kafkaesque world where it is very hard to separate good from evil, a world where your main adversary is your own government. When Edward Snowden fully realized that the mass surveillance carried out mainly by the NSA (National Security Agency) was so extended to be unconstitutional, he decided to put at risk everything he cared about by leaking a series of top secret documents to a restricted number of journalists. That was the inception of the Datagate scandal of 2013. Four years later, he is still living in Russia as a political refugee and cannot return to the US, where he would be prosecuted as a criminal.
This is a story that hints at a disturbing resemblance between the US and its principal adversary of the Cold War Era: is it ever possible that the government of the United States has become what it has always sworn to fight and defy? The cognitive dissonance implied by the Snowden case puts the Western public out of his “comfort zone” and raises questions undermining its deepest beliefs.
Can you really accept a narrative that menaces to invert the world you live in? A similar observation may be made about the truth on 9/11: even if the official version of what happened that day has always been biased by incongruent and unexplained issues, accepting a different narrative may be simply psychologically unbearable for many Americans. Countless conspiracy theories have been formulated over the years (not a novelty at all, if one just thinks of the multiple narratives produced about JFK assassination), but conspiracies are nothing more than good plots for spy stories unless a new truth is officially proved, recognized and accepted. And even when something far more serious than a conspiracy theory is disseminated, the consequences may be almost irrelevant: a few years ago, an investigation conducted by a group of architects, engineers and scientists offered plenty of evidence to back the more than plausible hypothesis that the three buildings of the World Trade Center collapsed because of a controlled demolition. As a matter of fact, this did not lead to re-opening the case, nor did media give particular attention to the new evidence.
The destabilizing potential of the Snowden Narrative may represent one of the interpretative key to explain why the Datagate scandal did not seriously compromised the continuity of the Obama administration in spite of a fading trust in the US president. Obama could certainly count on his undeniable communication skills and on his ability to present himself as a reliable, serious politician: but it is possible to argue that it was precisely (and paradoxically) the incredible gravity of the charges raised against his administration to save him.
The gulf separating the Kyle and the Snowden narratives may also offer an explanation to the diverse ways the two biopics were received by the public – and this not only in the US, but all over the world.
American Sniper was a huge box office success, earning 350 million dollars domestically and 197 million in the rest of the world for a total of 547 million; it also conquered six Oscar nominations (included Best Picture) and won in the sound editing category. Snowden was a box office failure, domestically (21 million dollars) as well as worldwide (just 37 million dollars), and it did not receive any Academy Award nomination. Is the overall artistic quality of the two features so different to justify such diverse outcomes? I argue it is not: in general, both movies were appreciated by critics, and on IMDb (the largest movie database in the world) they are both given – at the time of writing – an average public rating of 7.3. If there is a difference between the two pictures, it is certainly of ideological nature. American Sniper adopts a black & white approach that basically ignores the historical context in which Kyle operated (the opportunity of invading Iraq is never questioned, and the war itself is presented as the rightful, inevitable reaction to 9/11). On the contrary, Snowden‘s approach – while being more complex and subtle – is certainly much more faithful to real facts. In other words, it is much less manipulative to its audience.
There are stories that people is always glad to hear, and there are other stories that people would be pleased not to hear at all. Should you be asked to choose, would you prefer to watch a movie that enhances the beliefs on which your perception of the world is based, or one that undermines them? If we talk about science fiction, many would probably opt for the latter (just consider, for example, the success of a movie like The Matrix) since it is much funnier and entertaining. But when it comes to consider the reality you live day by day – that is a whole different matter. At stake, here, there is the meaning of your own life.
This is one of the main reasons why so many people, today, are willing to give up an increasing part of their freedom to gain more security (and this is why Edward Snowden, in a recent tweet, invited his followers to worry about staying free, not safe). Terrorism, after all, is like a story we do not want to hear: the more it is true, the more our daily life’s foundations become vulnerable.
There is only one problem, which we may consider the “elephant in the room” of the entire matter: even if understandable, these fears gradually lead to annihilate any opportunity for civil societies to represent a self-aware, consistent, power counter-balancing the other forces within the political system. If such a balance is not in place, concepts like “public sphere” and “public opinion” risk losing any substantial relevance. This is probably what whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg meant when, back in 1972, he questioned the ultimate outcomes of his actions.
Will the Pentagon Papers in the hands of the public eventually do more? Or is it possible that the American people, too, are part of the problem; that our passivity, fears, obedience weld us, unresisting, into the stalemate machine: that we are the problem for much of the rest of the world?
Daniel Ellsberg, “Papers on the War” (1972)
It is evident that our democracies have become, to a considerable extent, simulacra hiding something quite different (on this topic, Sheldon Wolin’s essay Democracy Incorporated is as provocative as insightful). Our political systems would need to be questioned and rethought in-depth but, as far as we are driven by fear and persist in applying old interpretative schema, this is never going to happen: the self-destructive trajectory that Western countries are following will never change. Ever. In the wake of a digital era that is radically changing the entire political, economic and social landscape, are we willing to get rid of the simulacra that still make us feel comfortable in order to face the harsh, naked reality?
If the answer is “no”, or “not yet”, then we should simply stop talking about the “human rights” and the “democratic values” on which our societies pretend to be founded. Hypocrisy has already caused enough damage to our societies.
Advertisements Share this:
