The 20th centuries’ invention of the modern firearm has allowed man to execute his enemy hundreds of meters away, with a single slow steady trigger pull. Chris Kyle knows this better than anyone, living through hell during his 4 tours of the Iraq war, later published into the well known autobiography: “American Sniper”. What made this autobiography so popular? The confluence of the influence of societal norms, the psychology of a perceived adventure, and the propagandist esque nature of the topic turned ‘American Sniper’ into the autobiography it has become.
Societal norms influence a person's decisions, and thoughts. Along with that comes the romanticization of the military in american culture. American defense spending is just shy of 600
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“American Sniper” portrays America as the saviour of Iraq, and that military deployment overseas is a positive result of what has already occured. Defining propaganda shows us how current general, social, and political ideals can all be manipulated. Propaganda is defined as “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view, or the dissemination of propaganda as a political strategy.”. Good propaganda will always be more difficult to identify, which is what “American Sniper” aims to do: Using bits and pieces of propaganda to aid to the popularity of the book. The way Kyle attempts to use this to his advantage, is by normalizing himself in the book as the most decorated US sniper in history, and war being a daily occurance, almost as in a ploy to make people read “American Sniper” because “everyone has, it’s normal”. This idea of normalization is backed by “Propaganda and Persuasion Vol 5” and its comments on group normalities “Group norms can be used as anchors because people have a tendency to conform to the norms of the groups to which they belong.“(Jowett and O'Donnell 37). Kyle faithfully executed the creation of an atmosphere of normality around “American Sniper”, bringing in more readers adding to the popularity of “American