Do Not Do This Cool Thing: Difference between revisions
→Films -- War
(Actually, no, the Colonel is just shown as unabashedly awful in the movie, especially to military viewers. See the Headscratchers entry for details on why.) |
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** For that matter, the popularity of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is an example of this - he's become such an iconic character that pretty much ''every'' [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] in fiction since has been based on him (95% of them even being played by the [[R. Lee Ermey|original actor]]), despite the fact that getting shot and killed by one of his own recruits ([[Too Dumb to Live|who he continued verbally abusing despite the loaded rifle in said recruit's hands]]) means he's a demonstrable ''failure'' of a drill instructor.
* ''[[Inglourious Basterds]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this in a subtle, creepy way: there is a scene where [[Show Within a Show|Germans are watching]] a Nazi propaganda movie about a German sniper who [[One-Man Army|killed massive numbers of Allied troops]] while behind enemy lines. They are laughing and enjoying themselves watching people from our side get slaughtered, while [[You Bastard|you're laughing and enjoying yourself]] watching people from their side get slaughtered.
** Arguably a subversion of the trope, because making the audience confront this mental realization is the entire reason Tarantino made the movie.
* ''[[Jarhead]]'' also lampshades this trope. It's largely about that and the mindset of the Marines (such as author Anthony Swofford) stoked up and eager to [[A Real Man Is a Killer|lose their battlefield virginity with a kill]]. When they hear that they're about to be sent to the Persian Gulf, they rent a load of war movies to watch the cool battle scenes, including ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', where [[Lampshade Hanging|the irony of liking anti-war movies for the violence is explicitly pointed out and reveled in]]. In a [[Double Subversion]], this was [[Misaimed Fandom|misinterpreted by audiences]], who cheered along with the Marines. Additionally, the film ends {{spoiler|with none of the main characters killing any enemies in the war, which they are extremely disappointed about.}} In the book Swofford points out how "It doesn't matter how many Mr. and Mrs. Johnsons are anti-war. The actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not.".
* At the time ''[[Platoon]]'' came out, [[Roger Ebert]] opened his print review by mentioning the Truffaut quote and adding that "If Truffaut had lived to see ''Platoon'', the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion." Since this film has encouraged people to recruit, apparently not.
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