‘American Sniper’ has led to a rise in threats against muslims.
Collectively, Americans have thrown $200 million to the pockets of the producers of American Sniper. But despite the movie’s commercial success, many have criticized the movie for the portrayal of Muslims and the war on terror.
More recently, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) pointed out an “increase of serious threats against the Arab and Muslim-American communities.”
In a letter from ADC President Samer Khalaf addressed to Bradley Cooper (via Deadline):
“A majority of the violent threats we have seen over the past few days are result of how Arabs and Muslims are depicted in American Sniper. We are in receipt of hundreds of violent messages targeting Arab and Muslim Americans from the moviegoers of the film. Many of these threats are made through social media forums, such as Twitter and Facebook. The threats advocate for the murder of Arabs, some going so far as to say,“Great f**cking movie and now I really want to kill some f**kin ragheads.” In another threat a user wrote, “American sniper makes me wanna go shoot some f**kin Arabs.”
It is important to point out that the ADC is not calling for Clint Eastwood to cancel the film and pull it from theaters. Because by removing the movie from theaters it will only cause people to want to see the movie even more.
The goal, Khalaf argues, is to have Cooper and Eastwood “use their visibility” to draw attention to “the serious dangers facing their respective communities.”
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