History YMMV / FullMetalJacket

** Does Hartman truly believe his rhetoric about war and the Marines being elite killers and warriors or is he just saying what he needs to? Considering how the events of the war that follow radically go against his claim of the Marines and war in general, it's worth asking if he's ever even seen real combat himself or has he spent much of his career as a drill sergeant with little idea of what he's preparing men for (his medal rack '''does''' include multiple service medals for Korea and Vietnam-- and being a PhonyVeteran on Parris Island would be sorted out very quickly -- meaning he has been overseas in some capacity before).

** Does Hartman truly believe his rhetoric about war and the Marines being elite killers and warriors or is he just saying what he needs to? Considering how the events of the war that follow radically go against his claim of the Marines and war in general, it's worth asking if he's ever even seen real combat himself or has he spent much of his career as a drill sergeant with little idea of what he's preparing men for.

* CompleteMonster: The [[SociopathicSoldier unnamed door gunner]] spends the entirety of his brief appearance shooting down Vietnamese civilians, [[EvilLaugh laughing]] and casually chatting with other soldiers the entire time. He has over 150 confirmed kills, including women and children. His crimes are considered loathsome even in the [[WarIsHell nightmare world]] of [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar wartime Vietnam]], [[EveryoneHasStandards disgusting even other soldiers]].
%%Do NOT add Complete Monster entries without going to the cleanup thread first.

** [[spoiler:Cowboy's squad getting lost, falling for a trap designed to drag them in and waste their ammunition, and receicing no clear direction from superiors]] is a very unsubtle allegory.

* MisaimedFandom: It goes over a lot of people's heads that this is an anti-war movie.
** Tons of people seem to love Sgt. Hartman, particularly military personnel who think that more drill sergeants should be like Hartman. The entire point of the character is that he's meant to be an asshole and a demonstrable failure of a drill instructor. Hartman doesn't understand Pyle and is ultimately out of his depth in dealing with him. Hartman praises Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK (his commander-in-chief), [[SkewedPriorities for his good marksmanship]]. He's physically abusive to his troops, [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure punishing all of them for the actions of one]], and even punches Joker and both slaps and chokes Pyle. Hartman even considers his troops hating him to be a good thing. [[spoiler:These character deficiencies ultimately get him and Private Pyle killed in a MurderSuicide and leaves mental scars on Private Joker.]] In fact, Ermey said in interviews that he deliberately played Hartman as a very ''bad'' drill instructor who stays just barely within the rules to avoid getting in trouble. Yet, the DrillSergeantNasty character was codified by this film, Ermey was typecast as this sort of character for the rest of his life, and it's still what most people think of when they imagine a drill sergeant.
** Almost every Website/YouTube video of Hartman will have some comment along the lines of "My 'Nam drill instructor was just like this, and what he taught saved my life." Whilst not completely implausible, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that a lot of these comments are PhonyVeteran [[ForumSpeak YouTube War Experts]] trying to idolize Hartman and pointing to fictional stories from "the 'Nam" to justify it.
** In-universe, Hartman gloats about the Marine-taught shooting prowess of Austin sniper Charles Whitman and [[WhoShotJFK Lee Harvey Oswald]]. Doubly obnoxious because Whitman's massacre would have been barely a year old by the time the movie was set, which would be the ''point''. The insensitivity is another sign that Hartman isn't a very good person. The problem is, most people don't even ''remember'' the Whitman massacre anymore, so it just seems like a trivia piece to modern viewers. On top of this, Oswald actually demonstrates piss-poor marksmanship, with one missed shot, one neck shot, and one off-centre headshot when, with a 4x scope at 88 yards, Kennedy's head would have taken up the entire scope.
** Once again proving Creator/FrancoisTruffaut's maxim that it's impossible to create an anti-war movie, the film overall is very popular with military personnel, especially Marines and Vietnam veterans, naturally, as well as some [[ForumSpeak YouTube War Experts]] who [[PhonyVeteran claim to be Vietnam veterans]].

* AdaptationDisplacement: It's based on a novel, ''The Short-Timers''.

* AdaptationDisplacement: It's based on a novel.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Judging from all the fanart, the film seems to have a cult following in Japan.

** [[Cowboy's squad getting lost, falling for a trap designed to drag them in and waste their ammunition, and receicing no clear direction from superiors]] is a very unsubtle allegory.

* SignatureScene: The blanket party scene is so famous that searching up "blanket party" on Google Images yields multiple shots from it as the top results.
** This scene is so iconic that it's one thing drill instructors point out as something that recruits are never allowed to do under any circumstances unless they want the entire platoon to be screwed to hell and back. The drill instructors will institute punishment and violence is not allowed to be a part of it (though it will occassionally happen behind closed doors).

---> "I'll PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!"
---> "It looks to me like the best part ran down the crack of your mama's ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress!"
---> "Your days of fingerbanging ol' Mary Jane Rottencrotch through her purty pink panties ARE OVER!"
---> "You climb obstacles like old people fuck!"
---> "I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give them a reach-around!"
* TearJerker: Pyle's entire arc. The poor guy simply is not suited to being a Marine, but Hartman refuses to see that and simply comes down even harder on him to shape him into being a killer and turns the other Marines against him. He ends up so broken that [[spoiler:he ends up killing Hartman and himself.]]

** Tons of people seem to love Sgt. Hartman, particularly military personnel who think that more drill sergeants should be like Hartman. The entire point of the character is that he's meant to be an asshole and a demonstrable failure of a drill instructor. Hartman doesn't understand Pyle and is ultimately out of his depth in dealing with him. Hartman praises Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who killed JFK, [[SkewedPriorities for his good marksmanship]]. He's physically abusive to his troops, [[IWillPunishYourFriendForYourFailure punishing all of them for the actions of one]], and even punches Joker and both slaps and chokes Pyle. Hartman even considers his troops hating him to be a good thing. [[spoiler:These character deficiencies ultimately get him and Private Pyle killed in a MurderSuicide and leaves mental scars on Private Joker.]] In fact, Ermey said in interviews that he deliberately played Hartman as a very ''bad'' drill instructor who stays just barely within the rules to avoid getting in trouble. Yet, the DrillSergeantNasty character was codified by this film, Ermey was typecast as this sort of character for the rest of his life, and it's still what most people think of when they imagine a drill sergeant.

** Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in general, thanks to the legendary performance by Creator/RLeeErmey. Good luck trying to find any drill sergeant in films made post-''FMJ'' that is not, in some way, based on Hartman.

** Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in general, thanks to the legendary performance by Creator/RLeeErmey.

* DoNotDoThisCoolThing: Which drove Kubrick absolutely bonkers. Even when he tried to make war as shitty as possible, alternating between long periods of crushing boredom and the actual combat many soldiers giving few opportunities for heroism with getting killed by an ambush the most likely scenario, some people still got off to things like the heli gunner shooting the civilians, and the dehumanizing boot camp led by ''[[TropeCodifier the]]'' DrillSergeantNasty. Creator/SamuelFuller called it "another goddamn recruiting film," believing that teenage boys going to Kubrick's picture would come out impressed and seduced by the idea of wartime combat and flouting authority.