Full Metal Jacket Satire

Stanley Kubrick’s war film Full Metal Jacket begins by introducing the new recruits for the U.S Marine Corps getting their heads shaved off. While their heads are being shaved the song Hello Vietnam is being played in the background. The next scene then cuts to the introduction of their drill sergeant named Drill Sergeant Hartman. Drill Sergeant Hartman takes on a more aggressive approach with the cadets in order to turn them into harden marine. These sort of tactics are shown in the first minutes Sgt. Hartman such as him insulting his cadets primarily the overweight cadet Leonard. Wherein the beginning, Sgt. Hartman forcefully asked him to choke on his hand after being an “insubordinate”. After Sgt. Hartman’s hazing of the cadet it followed by the cadets basic training with Pvt. J.T Davis aka Joker doing the narration. The basic

Such scene in particular was the intro of their drill sergeant. Whereas his introduction was him explaining the cadets their situation by using explicit words concerning basic training. Now the reason as to why it was such a hilarious scene is because it was him insulting the cadets without remorse or empathy. This form of comedy is known as dark comedy. Dark comedy is a comic that uses macabre humour, in other words it makes light out of the subject that is considered to be taboo. In this occurrence, it was sergeant Hartman’s monologue in the first 7 minutes of the movie. Another scene in particular that I found humorous was private ‘Pyle’ marching with his pants down while sucking his thumb. This scene is another sample dark humour as it makes light hearted about private Pyle’s condition, such as making him the punching bag of the movie. So to sum up the use of dark comedy in Full Metal Jacket is used a lot in the first 13 minutes of the film as a result of the serious of the movie