“THE HIDDEN HAND”
An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s
FULL METAL JACKET
© by Rob Ager June 2008
4) Equally Worthless
“I am hard, but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless.” Or at least that’s what Gunnery Sergeant Hartman tells his recruits. Of course this isn’t the case. He immediately follows this piece of dialogue by telling a black recruit, who he nicknames Private Snowball: “Well, there’s one thing you won’t like. We don’t serve fried chicken and watermelon in my mess hall on a daily basis.”
Hartman then proceeds throughout the entire training to harass the overweight Private Pyle with a great deal more vigour than he does any of the other recruits. Though it can be argued that this special attention was due to Pyle’s lack of ability, Hartman’s special disliking is very obvious in one particular line up of the men. He calmly instructs Cowboy and then Joker: “That is not your Daddy’s shotgun … Put the rifle around your head, not your head around the rifle”, but then screams at Pyle for a mistake that was no worse by comparison: “FOUR INCHES FROM YOUR CHEST PYLE! FOUR INCHES!” Also, when Hartman discovers Pyle’s footlocker has been left unlocked he barks a ridiculous line: “If there is one thing I hate it is an unlocked footlocker!” The one thing he hates deep down is Pyle himself.
In the script Hartman tells the recruits to urinate into the same toilet bowl and then half drowns Pyle in the groups urine. Also in the early script, Hartman makes several derogatory statements about Jews and Atheists.
This discriminatory attitude carries over into the tour of duty scenes. Animal makes two harshly racist comments toward his black fellow trooper, Eightball: “Hey jungle bunny. Thank God for the sickle cell huh.” And: “All fucking niggers must fucking hang.” Another racist comment, which in the script was spoken by Animal Mother to Eightball, takes place in the journalists barracks after Payback’s waffle about the thousand yard stare: “How do you stop five black guys from raping a white chick? … Throw ‘em a basket ball”.
Of course these racist attitudes would no doubt affect the occupying forces attitudes both to their enemy and the population they were supposedly defending.