Our response to a film is determined by how we are made to identify with a character. How is this true for Full Metal Jacket?

I feel sympathetic for Pyle because I can only imagine how it feels to be in his situation. Although I feel entirely empathetic for the group, which determines how I feel about Pyle. The reason I feel empathetic because I have been part or a team where someone is awful at what they are supposed to be doing, to the point where it affects me and the team. It made me annoyed, although not to the extent of soap beating, I had the same response to what I had to Pyle. I asked myself ''why are you even there?''
My response to Pyle is entirely Central because I felt annoyed by him because of the effect he was having on the group, who I have aligned with. There are countless examples of where Pyle is holding back the group, and you can see the exact moment, quite early on, where the group turns on him.
Throughout the first 10 minutes, Pyle is constantly, subliminally, shot isolated from the group. In the first drill scene where Hartman slaps Pyle twice, then makes him walk behind the group, shot separately from them, and with his pants down. He is constantly surrounded by uniformity and shown to be an outsider. The narrative structure reflects Pyle's failures also. Pyle fails, then in the next scene he doesn't, then he does, then he doesn't etc. Kubrick does this to constantly reinforce the failures throughout the narrative, and alienate Pyle from absolutely everyone.
Another example is in the scene where Pyle climbs up the tall obstacle. The group go up in twos, and you see two groups pass him, emphasising his inability to keep up physically with the demands. The groups passing him shows that Pyle himself, has became an obstacle, and is physically getting in the way of the group. And this subtly creates the divide between the group and Pyle, who is no longer part of the group.
In particular we start to see the divide when Pyle cannot get over the logs. Everyone else on the obstacle is shot using a static shot, but Pyle is shot using a handheld shot. The static shots create uniformity and a more 'military' feel, but the handheld is unique for Pyle, and gives him the special treatment because he can't fit in with the uniform of the group. This divide is created because Pyle isn't just breaking the group, he is breaking the way the film is broken. This is reinforced when the group are shot in slow motion running through the mud. Pyle is shot in the centre, and falls, dragging Joker down, and tripping the entire group up, slowing them down, slowing the camera down, and slowing everything down.
This is the point where I start to get the Central feeling towards Pyle. When he stops holding himself up, and starts affecting the entire group. Because of the empathy I feel for the group, when Pyle holds them up, I tap into the personal experiences I have had about being in a group, and give that reading to Pyle, rom the point of view and through my allegiance of the group.
From this point on, Pyle becomes a threat, someone who threatens Hartman, and the entire group with failure, which is something naturally, nobody likes. The alienation creates towards Pyle is not driven by the hatred for him, but more for the allegiance for the group. The film presents the group and Pyle as opposites, and forces you to align with one, and by doing so, you oppose the other. Personally, I have more understanding working in a group and being part of a team, who doesn't want to fail, as opposed to Pyle's situation. Which is why I feel empathetic for the group, it is a simply as having experience of being in a group and one person who, regardless of the reason, threatening you with failure. This causes you to oppose them on the grounds simply that they are heading towards failure, and you want to succeed. Just like you want the group to succeed, and Pyle is threatening that.

After we have the reaction shot of Cowboy, Kubrick has manipulated the spectator to see Pyle as a threat. As in the jelly doughnut scene, we see the group being directly punished by Pyle's actions. It has changed from Pyle affecting himself with his failures, to affecting the platoon, and threatening their situation. As Pyle eats the jelly doughnut, he is shot from a low angle shot, this is to align us visually with with the group, and show the divide between Pyle and the group.
This leads onto the soap beating scene, where the whole group has a turn at beating Pyle with soap in a sock. Joker hesitates and Cowboy orders him to beat him, and Joker ends up beating Pyle the hardest. I don't think Pyle deserves to be beaten, but through his actions throughout the film, I can understand why. This is the scene where the group isolate the weak, and work together to complete a goal, they become Marines. This scene also creates the allegiance with the group, because our views are represented through the character of Joker. And we see him hesitate, but he then takes his anger out, and severely beats Pyle. The platoon take allegiance to what Pyle said in the doughnut scene, which gives them allegiance with the core. And because we have allegiance with the group, the spectators align with the Marines. This is why you do not feel sorry for Pyle, because you understand he was weak, and you understand he was never going to make it as a soldier unless he was treated so harshly, like the idea of tough love. Pyle became the perfect Marine, a killing machine.

During the second half of the film, it appears to change, and it seems as if we are positioned to align with Joker. But this is not true, again we are constantly made to identify with the group as opposed to an individual.
This is made clear to us where we see the scene of the group looking at Handjob's dead body. We see identical shots of the entire crew, one at a time voicing their opinion of the US soldier dying for the cause. The differing views of every soldier, especially Animal Mother on the cause being 'freedom' further distances the spectator from an individual inside the film. Joker fades into part of the group and again, we are left with no clear protagonist. The only constant we have in the film is the group as a whole, and this primarily is the cause in the spectator aligning with the group.


If Joker would have stopped the beating of Pyle and refused to do so, he would have stood out, and this would of changed our entire reading of the film. This is because Joker would of became the main protagonist, standing out from the group and standing up for what is right. He becomes the hero in the narrative and we would subconsciously align with Joker regardless. But because he conforms to the group, we are left with only the group because we can empathize with the group over Pyle. Because personally, I know what it is like to be in a team and have someone who is keeping you behind, as opposed to knowing what it feels like to be beaten with a soap.