Here’s Donny!
The daughter of the late film director Stanley Kubrick says former President Donald Trump has her “blessing” to use footage from her father’s Vietnam War masterpiece “Full Metal Jacket” in a campaign video touting a return to a strong US military.
Vivian Kubrick on Sunday defended the 45th president’s new campaign video, which used the iconic performance of real-life Marine Corps drill instructor R. Lee Ermey in the 1987 film to rail against “woke” initiatives pushed by the Harris-Biden Pentagon.
“I agree in principle that an anti-war movie is incongruous with promoting the idea of a tough non-woke US military and thus war itself – however – these are very dangerous and strange times and thus using this footage is doubtless pure expedience,” Kubrick began a lengthy X post.
“Because I’m sure the irony of using [‘Full Metal Jacket’] footage is not lost on Trump or his team – Trump is always seeking to end wars and use peaceful methods,” continued Kubrick, who composed the movie’s score pseudonymously and briefly appeared as an extra. “However, that’s primarily what FMJ is about, the shocking and complicated paradoxes of human nature.
“And thus, on this tooth and claw planet, you need a very strong military – so I’m going to stick with the idea that FMJ footage was used primarily because of its powerful, realistic portrayal of boot camp, juxtaposed with the entirely demoralizing and inappropriate injection of WOKE ideology into the USA military,” she went on. “Which I agree with myself and which I’m certain my father would have agreed with.
“Truthfully, I believe my father (who supported Reagan), would very much approve of saving America, indeed the world, from the highly destructive Globalist forces threatening to take over this planet,” she added. “And if that footage from FMJ helps Trump make the point that the US military needs properly trained, super tough, focused, dedicated warriors, and not introduce the demoralizing effects of woke-ism, and attracting people to join up simply to have their sexual reassignments paid for, then Trump has my blessing.
“Finally, knowing my father very well, I can assure you he had a profound grasp of how paradoxical human nature is! Which accounts for how at the same time he made anti-war films, he had a great passion for guns (self-defense not hunting) and he had quite a few!” she emphasized.
“My father had a great respect for life – his movies being unimpeachable evidence of his love for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness! So on that basis, I feel very confident he would be a Trump supporter and would forgive using FMJ incongruously, if it helps the cause of freedom!”
The Manhattan-born, Bronx-raised Kubrick, who moved to England in 1961 and lived there until his death in 1999, directed 13 films — including the war movie “Paths of Glory,” the ancient Roman epic “Spartacus,” and the Cold War farce “Dr. Strangelove,” as well as near-universally acclaimed classics “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” and “The Shining.”
Actor Matthew Modine, who played the protagonist Private Joker in “Full Metal Jacket,” expressed the opposite view in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter Roma last month.
“If Stanley were alive today, with the state of the world, he’d make a black comedy,” he said after receiving the lifetime achievement award at the Lucca Film Festival. “Not many people know that Kubrick had a fantastic sense of irony and humor. If he were here, he’d be brilliant at creating a comedy about the grotesque absurdity of leaders like Putin and Donald Trump. He’d make a great comedy with those characters.”
Trump, 78, rolled out the video decrying America’s “woke military” under the current administration, which cross-cut between Marine recruits being run through their paces at Parris Island, SC before shipping out to Vietnam and current US military service members dressed in drag.
“Let me see your war face!” Ermey shouts in Private Joker’s face while portraying Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in one clip.
“Happy Pride!” says Admiral Rachel Levine, the current assistant secretary of US Health and Human Services, in a juxtaposed clip. “Happy Pride Month! And actually, let’s declare it a summer of pride!”
Other clips show active-duty drag queens like Navy Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley, who identifies as non-binary and was hired to be a digital ambassador as part of a pilot program to boost recruitment.
“Let’s make our military great again,” the video blares in all caps at its conclusion.
The 45th president has also played the video at campaign rallies and suggested that Ermey was wrongfully denied an Oscar because as a real-life drill instructor “he wasn’t part of the establishment.“
Ermey was never nominated for an Academy Award, though his “Full Metal Jacket” role got him a Golden Globe Best Supporting Actor nomination.
Little is known about Kubrick’s political stances or whether he explicitly supported Reagan. However, most biographers agree that he left the US for England in part due to concern about rising crime in his native New York, as well as disdain for the Hollywood system.
After he was sworn in as the 40th president, Reagan, an admirer of “Dr. Strangelove,” reportedly asked where the infamous Pentagon “war room” depicted in the film was located — only to be told it was the stuff of fiction.
One of the screenwriters of “Full Metal Jacket” did say after the war film’s release that he expected Kubrick would be smeared as “a fascist.”
“I know there’s going to be a lot of outraged and offended responses to this movie,” Michael Herr told the Washington Post at the time.
“The political left will call him a fascist, and the right – well, who knows? I can’t imagine what women are going to think of this film,” added Herr, who wrote a memoir of Kubrick published in 2001.
Politicians and even former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Mark Milley have also accused Trump of “fascism,” while the former president has claimed Milley represents the institutional rot at the Pentagon.
The former president has also contrasted Milley with Ermey in campaign speeches, calling his ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman a “stiff” and “stupid.”
Vivan Kubrick donated $93.69 to Trump’s 2024 campaign in August, per Federal Election Commission filings.
In the past, the Kubrick scion donated to the former president’s 2020 campaign and the presidential bids of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Paul, the father of Rand.
She did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
