Over the weekend, former President Donald Trump shared a new campaign ad featuring clips from Full Metal Jacket, a film directed by Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick’s daughter, Vivian, is just fine with it.
Trump’s ad, which focused on making the U.S. military “great again,” used clips from the military thriller as examples of how troops would operate with him back in office.
It also showed clips of U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine talking about Pride Month and soldiers in drag implying the military would be “woke” under a Vice President Kamala Harris administration.
“WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!” Trump tweeted.
Upon seeing Trump’s new ad, many said the former president misused the clips from Full Metal Jacket. As the movie covers abuse in the military, it’s often considered anti-war.
“You never actually watched ‘Full Metal Jacket,’ did you,” one X user responded to Trump’s ad.
“It’s better if you watch the film and try to understand it,” another X user replied.
But Vivian Kubrick, the famed director’s daughter, weighed in to say she thinks the ad works. She said that, though “an anti-war movie is incongruous with promoting the idea of a tough non-woke US military and thus war itself,” Trump probably used clips from Full Metal Jacket because it’s “powerful.”
“I’m sure the irony of using FMJ footage is not lost on Trump or his team—Trump is always seeking to end wars and use peaceful methods,” Vivian Kubrick tweeted. “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.”
Plus, she said her father would have been a Trump supporter and forgiven Trump for “using FMJ incongruously, if it helps the cause of freedom.”
Though some were surprised that Vivian Kubrick was a Trump supporter, she frequently appears on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars show, pushes an anti-vax agenda, and believes Bill Gates is “A EUGENICIST LOVING PSYCHOPATH PEDDLING GENOCIDE,” among other things.
Her X bio also includes Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America Great Again.”
“BARACK: YOU’RE A TRAITOR AND A SHAMELESS TREACHEROUS LIAR AND YOU ALWAYS HAVE BEEN,” Vivian Kubrick tweeted about former President Barack Obama campaigning for Harris over the weekend. “YOU’RE TELLING AMERICANS TO VOTE FOR THE MOST USELESS, CORRUPT AND REPULSIVELY CRASS PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN US HISTORY.”
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