Donald Trump is embracing perhaps Hollywood’s most memorable drill sergeant to portray his vision of a hardened military and mock the Biden administration’s embrace of the LGBTQ+ community serving openly. Trump’s recent rallies have featured a video with clips of R. Lee Ermey as Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hartman in Stanley Kubrick’s 1987 classic Vietnam War film “Full Metal Jacket.” Ermey’s character was known for his vulgar and at times racist outbursts. Kubrick's daughter, Vivian Kubrick, said she believes her late father would have embraced Trump and forgiven his use of an anti-war film to make his point about building a powerful military. Matthew Modine, an actor in the movie, says Trump twisted the film into a "perverse, homophobic and manipulative tool of propaganda.”
