FULL METAL JACKET "The hidden hand"

“THE HIDDEN HAND”

An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s

FULL METAL JACKET

5) Women and Children

The most significant hidden theme that I have found through reading other reviews of FMJ is the destruction of innocence and femininity as a central aspect of military training.

Feelings such as love, intimacy, empathy, curiosity and trust can be considered innocent or feminine qualities, but they are also major obstacles to the goal of turning young men into willing and obedient killers, and so must be brutally repressed in preparation for the battlefield.

The destruction of these aspects of the self is played out in FMJ first as the elimination of the child, represented by Private Pyle, and then in the destruction of the female, represented by the prostitutes and the sniper.

There are many details depicting Pyle as the symbolic infant child, who Hartman is trying to stomp out of his trainees.

Hartman’s first question to Pyle is: “Did your parents have any children that lived?”

He is made to walk behind the platoon, sucking his thumb with his trousers around his ankles.

The second time he is shown sucking his thumb, he is sat on an oversized table, while the platoon perform exercizes.

When Joker is given the task of training Pyle, Hartman spouts: “He’ll teach you everything. He’ll teach you how to pee”. Joker then teaches Pyle skills that are learned in childhood such as how to tie his shoe laces and make his bed. He even tells him: “Tuck your shirt in”.

Pyle has a baby-fat physique, a chubby face and a habit of grinning.

After the soap beating Pyle cries in the dark like a baby.

In addition to Pyle representing the infant, Hartman tells Cowboy: “That is not your daddy’s shotgun.”

In the 1985 version of the script are a variety of additional child metaphors.

When asked by Hartman why he joined the marines Pyle replies: “Sir, to become a man, sir.”

Hartman fits a condom over a canteen of milk for Pyle to drink from.

A key factor indicating that Pyle has the mentality of an infant is his confusion over left and right.

Hartman smacks him left and right for putting his gun on the wrong shoulder.

As Joker teaches him how to tie his laces: “Left one over the right. Right one over the left.” The two cadets are sitting at the wrong end of the barracks as if their bunks had moved to the other side of the screen.

During target practice Pyle is seen wearing a white wrist band on one arm, but when the shot cuts to an over-the-shoulder view of him firing at the targets the wrist band has swapped over to the other arm.

In virtually all of the marching shots another platoon of recruits are seen in the distance, marching in an opposite direction.

And when Joker is instructing Pyle how to move his rifle over to his right shoulder Hartman can be seen and heard in the distance shouting to his troops: “Your left shoulder!”

Eventually Pyle overcomes his left / right confusion, at which point the platoon are shown marching as the camera angle pans across their path from left to right, indicating the perceptual shift.

Everything seems to be going much better for Pyle until the jelly donut incident. As a result the child is brutally beaten out of him by the other recruits, which leaves him as a cold psychopath.

The references to children is a strange paradigm because, as well as trying to destroy the child within, the platoon also act like children. These themes continue into the Vietnam sections of the movie, where they become synonymous with the destruction of femininity.

The first hooker in the story tells Joker: “Hey baby, me so horny”, and in negotiating a price Joker replies: “Five dollars is all my momma allows me to spend.”

Cowboy gloats at the second hooker as she steps off the motorbike: “Hello little school girl. I’m a little school boy too”.

And Animal gives a slight hesitation in describing the enemy during his interview: “They send us in first, the squad. Make sure there’s no uh … no little uh … (smirking) … no Vietnamese waiting with B-40 rockets to blow the tanks away.”

In the script a story is told of Animal chasing a 12 to 13 year old girl through the streets “with his dick hanging out”, at which point he says: “If she’s old enough to bleed she’s old enough to butcher.” He then tells a story to his friends of shooting a young girl in the face. Another marine is described as playing with a yo-yo and both the dead NVA soldier sat next to Crazy Earl and the dying sniper are described as being “not more than 17 years old”. Also in the script, after the first major fire fight, the platoon encounter a small child in the building they have just raided. The child tries to attack them with hands and fists.

The destruction of the feminine takes a slightly different course in the film. Hartman doesn’t directly attack this aspect of the platoons minds, but he instead gives the men the motivation with which to begin attacking it within themselves. He does this by constantly challenging their sense of masculinity. With systematic regularity he calls the recruits ladies or sweethearts and tells them: “Sound off like you got a pair”. In the script Pyle is also told by Hartman: “With those tits on you you belong in Playboy.”

Hartman also challenges their sexuality, especially in the first dialogue scene. To Cowboy: “Only steers and queers come from Texas …” and to Pyle: “Do you suck dicks?”

The irony of all this is that Hartman intentionally places Joker in the mothering role, so as to nurture Pyle’s soldiering abilities. This was working fine until Hartman spoiled it by punishing the entire platoon for each of Pyle’s mistakes. Later, in the toilet, Hartman screams at the broken down and psychotic Pyle: “Didn’t mommy and daddy give you enough attention when you were a child?” – again implying Joker’s mothering role.

All these challenges to masculinity strongly affect the troops once they are unleashed in the war zone. They go to great lengths to constantly prove their manhood to their buddies.

The crazy helicopter gunner takes a pause in his shooting spree after saying: "I got you Mother".

Joker is told to take the inexperienced Rafterman on a dangerous assignment and so finds himself in the mothering role again. Incidentally, in the script Rafterman is described by Joker as being “like a kid.”

The child-like Rafterman is deperate to prove his manhood: “A high school girl could do my job … I want to get out into the shit. I wanna get some trigger time.” Rafterman seems impressed by the masculine posing of the lusthog squad, who claim to be “Life takers and heart breakers”. After shooting the sniper in gung-ho fashion, he is over the moon with himself: “Am I a life taker? Am I a heartbreaker?” He has destroyed the feminine and proven his masculinity. The evil grin on his face as he awaits Joker’s mercy execution of the sniper says it all. He even gives a psychotic laugh after Joker pulls the trigger.