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Stanley Kubrick’s daughter Vivian has claimed she is “very confident” that her late father would have been a Donald Trump supporter after the presidential candidate used footage from the director’s Oscar-nominated 1987 film Full Metal Jacket in a campaign video.
The clip in question was posted to Trump’s X/Twitter account with the caption: “WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!”
The video includes scenes from Full Metal Jacket in which a brutal, racist Marine Sargeant played by R. Lee Ermey shouts at and assaults Matthew Modine’s Private Joker. These scenes are captioned: “President Trump.”
It then cuts to footage of military officers expressing support for LGBTQ+ rights. These scenes are captioned: “Comrade Kamala.”
Modine has spoken out against the video, telling Entertainment Weekly in a statement that: “Trump has twisted and profoundly distorted Kubrick's powerful anti-war film into a perverse, homophobic, and manipulative tool of propaganda."
However, in her own statement posted to X/Twitter, Vivian Kubrick responded directly “to those who think my father wouldn’t have wanted Trump to use” footage from Full Metal Jacket.
She wrote: “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.”
After arguing at length that Trump is in fact a peaceful leader, she continues: “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.
“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.
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“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!
“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! Capisce?”
New York-born Kubrick, who died in 1999, is widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His movies include 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Paths of Glory and Dr Strangelove.
