In Stanley Kubrick's “Full Metal Jacket”, Turner's Frontier is presented within the borders of Vietnam and shows the frontier in all its brutality. Unlike other Western-style films, which romanticize the frontier, Kubrick openly attacks Turner's Frontier myths, stating that instead of stripping the frontiersmen and reforming them as an ideal example of American society, Turner's mentality, of completely stripping their own culture actually transforms frontiersmen into infantile figures, incapable of thinking for themselves. Furthermore, Kubrick states that when the frontier becomes an institutionalized idea, the frontier process can backfire and end up creating a frontiersman with severe mental problems, which could lead to the deaths of many people if the frontiersman is pushed on the brink of the abyss. self-destruction. The film opens with potential US Marine recruits going through the basic training process, in preparation to be sent to war in Vietnam. They undergo the dismantling and rebuilding process overseen by Drill Sergeant Hartman. While most of the recruits accept Hartmann's abuse, Private Leonard Lawrence doesn't fare so well. Hartmann gives Lawrence the nickname "Gomer Pyle", due to Lawrence's continued failures to adopt the core training style mentality, which leads Hartman to punish others for Lawrence's failures. This is the first frontier that, in Turner's words: "[The frontier] strips off the garb of civilization and dresses it in the hunting shirt and moccasin." (Turner. 2.) As such, the other Marine recruits have already been deprived of their civilized outside world and have adopted a primitive communal lifestyle to survive... middle of paper... rontiersman himself. Works Cited Anderson, Mark Cronlund. Cowboy imperialism and Hollywood cinema. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Limited, 2007. Ebert, Roger. (1987). "Full Metal Jacket", [Online]. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/full-metal-jacket-1987. [November 2013].Gruben, Patricia. "Practical Joker: The Invention of a Protagonist in 'Full Metal Jacket,'" Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. XXXIII, n. 4 (2005): 270-279 [online]. http://search.proquest.com.libproxy.uregina.ca:2048/docview/2036716/141FBFAE82564C172D3/1?accountid=13413 [2013, November]Kubrick, Stanley (1987). "Full Metal Jacket", [Online]. http://viooz.co/movies/4862-full-metal-jacket-1987.html. [November 2013]. Turner, Frederick Jackson. "The Significance of the Frontier in American History." In The Frontier in American History. New York: Henry Holt and Company Incorporated, 1948: 1-18.