In Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket,” Turner’s Frontier is set within the confines of Vietnam and shows the frontier in all its brutality. Unlike other Western-style films, which romanticize the frontier, Kubrick openly attacks the myths of Turner Frontier, stating that rather than stripping the frontiersmen and reforming them as the ideal example of American society, Turner's mentality , consisting of completely stripping away one's culture, in effect transforms the frontiersmen into childish characters, incapable of thinking for themselves. Furthermore, Kubrick states that when the border becomes an institutionalized idea, the border process can backfire and end up creating a border crosser with serious mental problems, which could lead to the death of many people if pushed to the limit. edge of the abyss. self-destruction.The film opens with potential U.S. Marine recruits going through the basic training process, in preparation for being sent to war in Vietnam. They are undergoing the disassembly and reconstruction process overseen by Drill Sergeant Hartman. While most of the recruits put up with Hartmann's abuse, Private Leonard Lawrence doesn't fare so well. Hartmann gives Lawrence the nickname "Gomer Pyle", due to Lawrence's consistent failures to adopt the basic coaching style mentality, leading Hartman to punish others for Lawrence's failures. It is the first frontier which, in Turner's words: "[The frontier] takes off the clothes of civilization and puts on it the hunting shirt and the moccasin." " (Turner. 2.) As such, the other Marine recruits have already been stripped of their civilized outside world and adopted a primitive communal lifestyle in order to survive...... middle of paper ... ...frontiersman 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 [November 2013] 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 of American History. New York: Henry Holt and Company Incorporated, 1948: 1-18.