FULL METAL JACKET "The hidden hand"

“THE HIDDEN HAND”

An in-depth analysis of
Stanley Kubrick’s

FULL METAL JACKET

3) Cowboys and Indians

The John Wayne dialogue of FMJ are also part of an overall wild west theme. Visually, this is most manifested during the marine interview montage and the prostitute gang bang scene. Both scenes show billboards of a western movie outside a Vietnamese cinema. In the shot of Joker being interviewed a cardboard Native American in full head dress can be seen near his right shoulder. When the squad are negotiating their price for the hooker, six shooter pistols can be seen painted above the entrance. Cowboy also asks the Vietnamese pimp: “How much chief?” and Eightball tells the hooker: “Let’s get mounted”.

As well as Cowboy’s nickname there are lots of other wild west references, usually embedded in the dialogue.

Joker’s first line: “Is that you John Wayne? Is this me?”

Cowboy’s interview: “There’s not one horse in Vietnam.”

Joker and Cowboy reunited: “Hey Lone Ranger”.

Joker in the barracks with his buddy journalists: “Don’t listen to any of payback’s bullshit. I bet sometimes he thinks he’s John Wayne.”

The lusthogs acting for the camera crew: “I’ll be General Custer … Who’ll be the Indians? … We’ll let the gooks play the Indians.”

In the 1985 FMJ script as Animal Mother runs to rescue Eightball and Doc Jay, Joker narrates that: “Animal thinks he’s John Wayne”.

It has also been commented by some reviewers that the female sniper resembles the character Wendy Torrance from Kubrick’s horror film The Shining, though the reasons for this resemblance have been obscure. Considering that in The Shining Wendy’s character subliminally represented a Native American (see The Shining review) her resemblance to the sniper in FMJ fits perfectly with the Cowboys and Indians theme. In the squads warped view of themselves as gun-slinging cowboys the sniper represents their Native American opponent just waiting to be gunned down in a blaze of glory.

The Cowboys and Indians theme also symbolizes the child-like fantasy world of the Lusthog squad. Crazy Earl carries a Red Ryder B B Gun in his backpack. This toy gun was also specifically described in the 1985 version of the FMJ script. A very important variation in that same script is that Joker is gunned to death at the end of the story, and the editing is described as being intercut with shots of Joker as an eight year old child running with a toy rifle and faking his own death. As a typical social commentary by Kubrick, this was probably touching upon the notion that military brainwashing doesn’t just occur in training. It is present in the very toys that children are given to play with.