SpringerLink
Log in

Feminist geopolitics, cinema, and the sensible encounter in American Sniper

  • Published:
GeoJournal Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This article employs a critical feminist geopolitical frame to analyze American Sniper, a film focused on US military intervention. This approach is especially useful to unpack the spatial, temporal, and political nuances that shape and are shaped by power relations, intimate domains, and discursive and ontological fields beyond the rigid demarcation of sovereign states. American Sniper allows us to situate the nexus of US foreign policy and public perceptions of political events within and beyond US borders. We counter dominant, masculine representational systems within this film through an exploration of the film’s presentation of military and humanitarian interventions vis-à-vis racialized tropes, Orientalist assumptions, and differing scales of difference between viewers and events onscreen. In particular, we define and deploy a type of critical feminist geopolitical frame, the sensible encounter—an active exchange of knowledge and affect between viewer and film—as a way to explore agency and decolonize the politics represented onscreen.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
EUR 32.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or Ebook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (Germany)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Not applicable.

Code availability

Not applicable.

Notes

  1. The film was actually filmed in Los Angeles, CA and Morocco. (www.movie-locations.com).

References

  • Agamben, G. (2005). State of exception. University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2005). Photography, war, outrage. PMLA, 120(3), 822–827.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2009). Frames of war: When is life grievable? Verso Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, D. (2007). Geopolitics and visuality: Sighting the Darfur conflict. Political Geography, 26(4), 357–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carter, S., & McCormack, D. P. (2006). Film, geopolitics and the affective logics of intervention. Political Geography, 25(2), 228–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coward, M. (2008). Urbicide: The politics of urban destruction (Vol. 66). Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dalby, S. (1990). American security discourse: The persistence of geopolitics. Political Geography Quarterly, 9(2), 171–188.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalby, S. (1991). Critical geopolitics: Discourse, difference, and dissent. Environment and Planning d: Society and Space, 9(3), 261–283.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalby, S. (2008a). Imperialism, domination, culture: The continued relevance of critical geopolitics. Geopolitics, 13(3), 413–436.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dalby, S. (2008b). Warrior geopolitics: Gladiator, Black Hawk Down and the Kingdom of Heaven. Political Geography, 27(4), 439–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Der Derian, J. (2009). Virtuous war: Map** the military-industrial-media-entertainment-network. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, D. P., & Marston, S. A. (2011). Introduction: Feminist engagements with geopolitics. Gender, Place & Culture, 18(4), 445–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, D., Zonn, L., & Bascom, J. (2008). Post-ing the cinema: reassessing analytical stances toward a Geography of film. In The geography of cinema–A cinematic world (pp. 25–50).

  • Dodds, K. (2008a). ‘Have you seen any good films lately?’ Geopolitics, international relations and film. Geography Compass, 2(2), 476–494.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodds, K. (2008b). Hollywood and the popular geopolitics of the war on terror. Third World Quarterly, 29(8), 1621–1637.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodds, K. (2011). Gender, geopolitics, and geosurveillance in The Bourne Ultimatum. Geographical Review, 101(1), 88–105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodds, K. J., & Sidaway, J. D. (1994). Locating critical geopolitics. Environment and Planning d: Society and Space, 12(5), 515–524.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, L. (2002). Women on the frontlines: Rethinking war narratives post 9/11. GeoJournal, 58(2–3), 159–165.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, L. (2012). Gender, militarization and sovereignty. Geography Compass, 6(8), 490–499.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowler, L., & Sharp, J. (2001). A feminist geopolitics? Space and Polity, 5(3), 165–176.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fluri, J. (2011). Armored peacocks and proxy bodies: Gender geopolitics in aid/development spaces of Afghanistan. Gender, Place & Culture, 18(4), 519–536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Graham, S. (Ed.). (2008). Cities, war, and terrorism: Towards an urban geopolitics. Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hole, K. (2016). Towards a feminist cinematic ethics: Claire Denis. Edinburgh University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, J. (2001). Towards a feminist geopolitics. Canadian Geographer/le Géographe Canadien, 45(2), 210–222.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, J. (2005). Feminist geopolitics and September 11. In A companion to feminist geography (pp. 565–77).

  • Hyndman, J. (2007). Feminist geopolitics revisited: Body counts in Iraq. The Professional Geographer, 59(1), 35–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hyndman, J. (2019). Unsettling feminist geopolitics: Forging feminist political geographies of violence and displacement. Gender, Place & Culture. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1561427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kennedy, L. (2008). Securing vision: Photography and US foreign policy. Media Culture and Society, 30(3), 279.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirby, P. (2015). The girl on fire: The Hunger Games, feminist geopolitics and the contemporary female action hero. Geopolitics, 20(2), 460–478.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kirby, P. (2020). Battle scars: Wonder woman, aesthetic geopolitics and disfigurement in Hollywood film. Geopolitics, 25(4), 916–936.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McHugh, K. E. (2015). Touch at a distance: Toward a phenomenology of film. GeoJournal, 80(6), 839–851.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, W. J. (2002). Showing seeing: a critique of visual culture. Journal of Visual Culture, 1(2), 165–181. NBC. (1992). Nightly News. November 24, 1992.

  • Mountz, A., & Hyndman, J. (2006). Feminist approaches to the global intimate. Women's Studies Quarterly, 34, 1/2.

  • Movie Locations. http://movie-locations.com/movies/a/American-Sniper.php

  • Myadar, O. (2020). Place, displacement and belonging: The story of Abdi. In Geopolitics (pp. 1–16).

  • Myadar, O., & Davidson, R. A. (2020). “Mom, I want to come home”: Geographies of compound displacement, violence and longing. Geoforum, 109, 78–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Myadar, O., & Dempsey, K. E. (2021). Making and unmaking refugees: Geopolitics of social ordering and struggle within the global refugee regime. In Geopolitics (pp. 1–8).

  • Neider, M. B., Chen, X., Dickinson, C. A., et al. (2010). Coordinating spatial referencing using shared gaze. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 718–724. https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.5.718

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rose, G. (2003). On the need to ask how, exactly, is geography “visual”? Antipode, 35(2), 212–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Said, E. W. (1979). Orientalism. Vintage Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlosser, K. (2015). Apocalyptic imaginaries, Gramsci, and the last man on Earth. GeoHumanities, 1(2), 307–320.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Scott, A. O. (2014). Review: ‘American Sniper’ a Clint Eastwood film with Bradley Cooper. Retrieved August 5, 2018, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/movies/american-sniper-a-clint-eastwood-film-starring-bradley-cooper.html

  • Shapiro, M. J. (2008). Cinematic geopolitics. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sharp, J. P. (2000). Remasculinising geo-politics? Comments on Gearoid O’Tuathail’s critical geopolitics. Political Geography, 19(3), 361–364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shaw, M. (2000). New wars of the city:‘urbicide’ and ‘genocide.’ University of Sussex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shohat, E. (1990). Gender in Hollywood’s Orient. Middle East Report, 162, 40–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shohat, E., & Stam, R. (2014). Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the media. Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Stahl, R. (2018). Through the crosshairs: War, visual culture, and the weaponized gaze. Rutgers University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Tuathail, G. Ó. (1999). Understanding critical geopolitics: Geopolitics and risk society. The Journal of Strategic Studies, 22(2–3), 107–124.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tuathail, G. Ó., & Toal, G. (1996). Critical geopolitics: The politics of writing global space (Vol. 6). University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tuosto, K. (2008). The ‘grunt truth’ of embedded journalism: The new media/military relationship. Stanford Journal of International Relations, 10(1), 20–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Willis, S. (2003). What goes around comes around: A parable of global warfare. Social Text, 77, 21(4), 127–138.

  • Wright, G. A. (2009). The desert of experience: Jarhead and the geography of the Persian Gulf War. Pmla/publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 124(5), 1677–1689.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Young, M. (2003). In the combat zone. Radical History, 85(4), 253–264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

None.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, Development, and the Environment, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Orhon Myadar & Tony Colella

Authors
  1. Orhon Myadar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Tony Colella
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

The first draft of the manuscript was written by OM and both authors commented on and revised all subsequent drafts.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Orhon Myadar.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

There is no conflict of interest with regard to this essay, authorship or research represented therein.

Ethical approval

The authors of the paper “Feminist Geopolitics, Cinema, and the Sensible Encounter in American Sniper” have complied with ethical standards of research under the guidance of the University of Arizona.

Research involving human and/or animal participants

No research involved human participation.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Myadar, O., Colella, T. Feminist geopolitics, cinema, and the sensible encounter in American Sniper. GeoJournal 87 (Suppl 1), 133–140 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10654-z

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10654-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation