Terministic Screens and Partisan Audiences: A Burkean Cluster Analysis of Clint Eastwood's American Sniper

Abstract

After its 2014 release and box-office success, Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, a war film dramatizing the life of Navy Seal Chris Kyle, became a controversial picture for both conservative and liberal partisan audiences. The film, however, put forth a predominantly anti-war argument, depicting the futility of war and the damage it inflicts on both Americans and Iraqis. In this study I examined scenes and dialogue in the film, using Kenneth Burke’s cluster analysis method, to explain the anti-war argument in the film. Further, I show how specific key terms resonate with partisan terministic screens, explaining the misreading of the film. I discovered that the most significant key term in the film is Family, and its antithesis is War. Any terms that cluster around War, even terms meant to uphold Family, ultimately prove destructive to Family. The film relies heavily on showing how War destroys Family. However, I also discovered that what deflects the anti-war message for partisans is the character of Chris Kyle, a conservative who continually adheres to his right-wing ideology as justification for war until it almost destroys him and his family. This depiction of a conservative viewing the Iraq War as a black-and-white conflict between “good” and “evil” taps into conservative vocabularies and liberal vocabularies: conservatives identify with Kyle’s language, and liberals abhor it. Both partisan audiences, through this selection, deflect the anti-war statement in the film.