Showing vs. Telling

“Show NOT tell!” These three words are ingrained in my head by my high school newspaper advisor. My years of dedication to print and broadcast journalism, along with the fact that my dad was a South Vietnamese villager during the War made the rhetorical difference between how American soldiers in Platoon and Full Metal Jacket portrayed their feelings toward the South Vietnamese stand out powerfully. While in Full Metal Jacket Kubrick creates a very interesting and innovative scene where soldiers are being interviewed about their feelings toward the “gooks”, it just does not get the same emotional response as the scene in Platoon where the soldiers come into an innocent village, brutally murder two people, and then set the village on fire.

Both Kubrick and Stone are trying to inform their audience that the American soldiers did not care about the South Vietnamese and that they were confused as to why they were even fighting for them. Stone brilliantly shows the viewer what Kubrick tried to tell. Hearing a soldier say “we’re shooting the wrong gooks”, as in Full Metal Jacket, does not leave quite the impact in the viewers mind as seeing Barns actually shoot a woman in Platoon. I had to grit my teeth as one soldier bashes in a man’s head. I actually hated all Americans who fought in Vietnam for a while after the scene. This was until I realized that Stone’s purpose was to show the choice between a man’s evil and good side when all emotion has been stripped from him. Perhaps I personally tie more sentiment to this village scene because I picture my dad, aunts, uncles, and grandparents as the villagers. What if their village had been attacked by the soldiers? At any rate, Full Metal Jacket did not conjure up any feelings of hatred for the soldiers, I merely felt sorry for them that they didn’t really know their purpose in Vietnam.