Opinion
JENNIFER CALFAS
EDITOR IN CHIEF
AARICA MARSH
and DEREK WOLFE
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITORS
LEV FACHER
MANAGING EDITOR
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
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4A — Monday, February 16, 2015
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EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
W
hat my friend and fellow film writ-
er Conrad Foreman, LSA junior,
wrote about “Son of God” applies
to “American Sniper”: “Jesus
is back. And he’s white.
Again.” But John Wayne is
also back. And he’s killing
savages. Again. In short,
Chris Kyle, the all-American
hero of “Sniper,” gives god-
fearing Christian Americans
the orgasm they’ve been
waiting for: Jesus, mixed
with John Wayne, carrying
a gun, killing A-rabs.
All this controversy over
whether “American Sniper”
is U.S. propaganda will be resolved when we
recognize the film for what it is — just another
Hollywood Western.
The classic Westerns, as anyone who’s seen
them knows, weren’t too friendly to the Native
Americans. See, when the European Ameri-
cans had finally settled the American West
(that is, settled on top of the Native Americans’
already-existing settlement), the European
Americans, who had thus far been nothing but
settlers, didn’t know what to do or who to be
anymore. So when the caravans reached the
Pacific Ocean, and it seemed that there was no
further west for the Manifest Destiny to take
them, the ex-settlers decided to make movies
so they could remember what they used to do
and who they used to be.
But when these early filmmakers remem-
bered what settling was like (that is, when
they looked at the historical record), they
realized that, at best, the true story wouldn’t
sell movie tickets and, at worst, would get
them accused of treason. So instead they
produced movies that made the genocide the
European Americans committed against the
Native Americans appear justified.
By the time Clint Eastwood put on his pon-
cho and cowboy boots, it was no longer “cool,”
as the kids say, to portray Native Americans as
demonic savages. It was still all right to por-
tray the cowboy as a fair-haired, fair-skinned
pseudo-Christ on a crusade against something
… just not against the so-called savages. So
Eastwood went to Italy and filmed some new
Westerns and people called them spaghetti
(that is, “spaghetti Westerns”).
Now, with the coming of Chris Kyle and
“American Sniper,” Eastwood has invented a
new kind of Western — the hummus Western.
(One of Kyle’s comrades literally says that
Fallujah, Iraq, the site of Kyle’s first tour of
duty, is “the Wild West of the Middle East.”)
All the taboo, classic Western stuff East-
wood couldn’t do in his spaghetti Westerns,
he’s finally done in the hummus Western. In
“American Sniper,” the Iraqis have replaced
the Indians. Unlike the all-American cowboy
Chris Kyle and his comrades, the Iraqis have
no backstories. We can watch Kyle slay doz-
ens of them because the film renders them
as non-persons. Spoiler alert: But when it
comes to Kyle, who the film portrays to us as
a fleshed-out human being with a wife, family
kids, etc., seeing his death would be just too
brutal, so it’s censored.
Eastwood’s overall project appears to be
the same as the project of the classic Western
filmmakers: rewrite history so that the white
people look justified killing brown people. But
there’s an important difference: America is no
longer interested in settling like they were in
the American West. The ideological useful-
ness of the concept of “Manifest Destiny” has
expired: She no longer aspires to gain new ter-
ritory. The result is far more cruel and vicious.
The savages today aren’t savages because they
impede upon the United States’ divine right to
The hummus Western
V
oting has been delayed on a set of bills in the Michigan
State Senate that would alter the existing legislation for
criminal penalties in cases of animal cruelty and neglect.
The bills would create three different degrees of killing or torturing
an animal, which would increase the maximum prison terms for
first- and second-degree offenses. The legislation would also make
it easier to prosecute breeders and pet-shop operators who are
repeat offenders, and to monitor cases of animal neglect and cruelty
that include large numbers of animals. These amendments are
nuanced and work to protect animals and create safer communities
in general, and as such should be passed and enacted as soon
as possible.
Currently, under the Michigan Penal Code,
all cases of animal killing and torture are
classified under the same offense and are
subject to a four-year felony charge. These
bills would create first, second and third
degrees of animal killing and torturing.
Also, those accused of killing or torturing an
animal, or threatening to do so to exert control
over a person, would be subject to a 10-year
felony charge. The amendments would create
a penalty for breeders and pet shops that
have incurred five or more prior convictions
and introduce a mandatory minimum of five
years of probation for cases of animal neglect
or cruelty that involve 25 or more animals,
among other things.
Researchers have found that threatened or
perpetrated animal abuse or killing is common
in abusive relationships, with around 71 percent
of women with pet-ownership histories
entering domestic violence shelters reporting
that their abusive partner had threatened or
committed violence against their pet. These
amendments would address this problem
and protect victims of abusive relationships
by imposing harsher punishments for this
emotional abuse and manipulation. Moreover,
studies have indicated a link between animal
cruelty and other forms of violence. Therefore,
taking animal abuse more seriously could,
through rehabilitation, help prevent other
violent crimes.
These bills would also help create safer
communities by imposing a minimum five-
year probation for large-scale animal neglect.
This change, at the discretion of the judge,
would enable animal hoarders to be put on
mental health watch and potentially allow
for mental health treatment. This solution
would be effective, considering animal neglect
as the result of animal hoarding is often
unintentional, and is indicative of a problem
that will not go away without treatment.
Codified
understanding
of
the
mental
components at play in situations of animal
neglect, however, should be extended to other
areas of the law.
Lastly, these bills work to protect valued,
yet vulnerable members of society — pets.
Violence toward these animals can be viewed
as damaging to families and communities. The
tiered system of punishment for killing and
torturing these animals is logical, as it reflects
how penal codes deal with other instances of
violent crime. Blanket treatment of violent
crimes, and therefore of animal abuse, fails
to consider the range and complexity of these
crimes, creating disparities in the severity
of its punishment. Furthermore, a four-year
felony charge is simply not enough to deal
with the crime of animal torture and killing,
especially considering that this charge doesn’t
always result in prison time. Since many non-
violent crimes, such as drug use, result in
more jail time, it is fitting that these violent
crimes should be taken more seriously. These
amendments would help to create a criminal
justice system that results in punishment
more fitting to the crime committed.
The existing legislation regarding animal
cruelty needs change, and these bills offer
balanced amendments that consider the
complexities of animal abuse and neglect.
If Michigan wants to treat animal cruelty
seriously, the passage of these bills should be
a priority.
L
ast Wednesday, your net-
work covered the Univer-
sity’s Inclusive Language
Campaign,
a
$16,000 effort to
educate students
on
the
impact
behind
common
phrases like “I
want to die” and
“That’s so gay.”
Amanda McLit-
tle, coordinator of
Diversity
Educa-
tion in University
Housing, told the
Daily in Septem-
ber that the program was an attempt
to improve campus climate, after
events last school year like Theta
Xi’s “Hood Rachet Party” evidenced
a serious need to do so. The program
went into effect at the start of the Fall
2014 term.
Your coverage of the program
was fantastic, managing to stir up
controversy over an innocuous Uni-
versity program five months after it
launched. Your video caption, “Uni-
versity is dictating what students can
say,” met every standard for a click-
worthy phrase — incite all of the
drama, include none of the facts.
A public university “dictating” the
speech of its students?! Now there’s
a story that’ll rile up those First
Amendment defenders.
And that’s how your business
model works. You fill a niche in
the market. As of January 2014,
38 percent of Americans self-iden-
tify as conservatives. Yet accord-
ing to a 2002 study, 20 percent of
journalists said that they leaned
“a little to the right,” and just five
percent “leaned pretty far to the
right.” I wonder how many in that
five percent work for you.
Your ideology-driven model is
working. Forty-seven percent of
conservatives list you as their main
news source on all things political.
Your median primetime viewership
in 2013 was higher than those of both
CNN and MSNBC combined, and
was the only major cable network
to see viewership grow between the
first quarters of 2013 and 2014.
I’m writing to you because you’ve
covered quite a few stories about
my University recently, most of
which centered on issues of speech
freedoms. I can’t say they were
terribly accurate.
Your recent coverage of the Uni-
versity’s Inclusive
Language
Cam-
paign was shared
on social media
by students who
were outraged by
the
University’s
attempt to “stifle”
their freedom of
speech, as one
student
posted
online.
And really, who cares that the
initiative was based on student feed-
back and aimed at creating a more
harmonious campus community?
Painting the program as an absurd,
double-think government plot to
indoctrinate American students into
not being able-ist or homophobic
assholes free to speak their mind is
a much better way to ensure high
web traffic.
All you had to do was splash
“Trouble with Schools” across the
screen in punchy graphics, and find
a student eager to give an interview
full of nice, quotable sound bites
that corroborated your viewpoint.
The end result was a well-packaged,
social-media-friendly story likely to
be shared by those already holding
the views it promoted.
In a digital era where publications
compete for continually diminishing
advertising dollars, the most success-
ful stories are those that generate
the most attention, and consequent-
ly, page views. And so for that, Fox
News, you deserve a gold star, a
medal of distinction for your contri-
butions to the industry.
And, if I were a liberal, I would
also owe you a big thank you. The
right gets more of their political
news from you than from any other
news source. There are several issues
today that would strongly benefit
from cohesive conservative policies
and leadership. But because it is con-
suming the stories that your analysts
and writers deem likely to help you
retain your vast
market
power,
the
party
is
instead focused
on meaningless,
non-actionable
items like fake
free
speech
violations at a
Midwestern
university.
Eventually,
your poor fact-checking and fail-
ure to adhere to journalism’s ethi-
cal standards might come back
to haunt you. Maybe some other
Republicans will start to realize
that your manipulative tactics do
more harm than good for our party.
Maybe your faulty reporting will
produce a story so big and inac-
curate that it will create a scandal
similar to the one experienced by
Rolling Stone earlier this year. But
hey, in the meantime, your antics
are sure to drive profits, and that’s
all you seem to care about anyway.
And so I commend you, Fox
News, for your relentless effort to
push journalism into an age of click-
worthy content devoid of facts, and
your unapologetic pursuit of profit at
the expense of the party you appear
to support. But, next time, would
you mind doing it at the expense of
someone else’s school?
— Victoria Noble can be
reached at vjnoble@umich.edu
A more humane society
Michigan State Senate should pass animal cruelty laws
Love for all, hatred for
none TO THE DAILY:
I’ve always felt safe in America.
Granted, growing up as a Mus-
lim American in the post-9/11
era poses its challenges, but I’ve
always maintained the “it won’t be
me” mentality. That is, until Tues-
day evening. The news reported
that three innocent Muslim stu-
dents were brutally murdered in
their home near Chapel Hill, N.C.
Muslim students. Just like me.
Their assailant was a vocal anti-
theist whose heinous act adds to
the growing list of Islamopho-
bic sentiments, protests and hate
crimes in America.
Let’s not forget that Duke Uni-
versity rescinded its initial deci-
sion to allow the Muslim call to
prayer after threat of financial boy-
cott from the likes of Franklin Gra-
ham, or that anti-Muslim threats
tripled following the release of the
movie “American Sniper.”
The only combatant to this big-
otry is tolerance. I call upon my
fellow Americans to stand togeth-
er as one, regardless of race and
religion, and share in acceptance.
In a phrase, I proclaim my Muslim
community’s motto of “Love for
All, Hatred for None.”
Ibrahim Ijaz
LSA freshman
Send letterS to: tothedaily@michigandaily.com
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Fox News
Manifest Destiny: they are savages
simply for existing. Andrea Smith
got it right in her essay, “Indige-
neity, Settler Colonialism, White
Supremacy:” America has marked
Arabs as inferior and deemed them
to be constant threats to the well-
being of the American empire. So
unlike the classic Western, the
hummus Western attempts to jus-
tify killing of savages and occupa-
tion of their land on the grounds
that the mere fact of their existence
constitutes a threat.
Nonetheless, some people might
ask, “Was Chris Kyle, the one who
lived and breathed, a real American
cowboy?” That’s like asking, “Is a
Disneyland castle a real castle?”
A Disneyland castle is physical,
material manifestation of a fan-
tasy castle. No castle ever really —
materially speaking — existed that
looked like Cinderella’s. Likewise,
Chris Kyle, the one who lived and
breathed, was a physical, material
manifestation of a fantasy person
— the American Cowboy. No cow-
boy ever really existed materially
that looked like the Ringo Kid. So
what does that make the movie-
version Chris Kyle? The imitation
of a person who was the imitation
of a fictional character. This cycle
of representation entirely excludes
any reality principle.
But still, was Chris Kyle a real
American hero? The question is
nonsensical. Hollywood invented
the concept of an “American hero”
(which I interpret as more or less
synonymous with “American cow-
boy”) to help sell movie tickets.
That is to say, an “American hero”
exists only in the world of cinemat-
ic fiction. There can be no “real”
American heroes because an Amer-
ican hero, by definition, can only
be fictional. But there are certain-
ly character archetypes, like the
American cowboy, who inspire peo-
ple who live and breath. To borrow
Jean Baudrillard’s phrasing, when
“the map engenders the territory,”
it creates something hyper-real —
something materially existing but
based on a fiction (e.g., a Disney-
land castle or the living, breathing
Chris Kyle). Thus, ironically, the
fictional Chris Kyle played by Brad-
ley Cooper is far more an American
hero than was the living, breathing
Chris Kyle.
So, with all this in mind, I ask
sincerely: Who would want to be an
American hero anyway?
— Zak Witus can be reached
at zakwitus@umich.edu .
ZAK
WITUS
VICTORIA
NOBLE
P E R S P E C T I V E S
A V I D E O S E R I E S
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And, if I were a
liberal, I would also
owe you a big
thank you.