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Matthew Modine is calling out Amazon Prime Video for seemingly removing the words “Born to Kill” from the artwork for his 1987 war drama Full Metal Jacket.
The Oscar-nominated film — which stars Modine as Private/Sergeant J. T. “Joker” Davis — follows a platoon of U.S. Marines throughout boot camp training for the Vietnam War.
The movie poster features an army helmet with the words “Born to Kill” and a peace sign. While the original art is still present on Prime Video’s thumbnail for the film, the words “Born to Kill” appear to be removed from the banner on the background of the listing once you click on the movie.
After noticing the altered image, Modine took to social media to explain the significance of the iconic slogan.
“Who decided to remove ‘BORN TO KILL?’ Not only did they alter a piece of iconic art by Philip Castle, but they completely misunderstood the point of it being there,” he wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter). “Pvt. Joker wears the helmet with ‘BORN TO KILL’ and the peace ☮️ button as a statement about ‘the duality of man.'”
Social media users were quick to accuse the streaming platform of censorship.
“There is no censorship quite as powerful as corporate and self-censorship. It goes way beyond anything a government could successfully implement. We oppress ourselves,” one wrote, while another added, “It’s really sad that so much is censored because ‘someone will be offended.’ Sometimes you need to be offended to get the point of something.”
A third person said, “Wow. That is wild. Historical revisionism of artistic works knows no bounds.”
However, others noted that the words were likely left out of the listing as a design requirement — since, as we mentioned, the original slogan is still available on the thumbnail.
“Once again, this isn’t censorship. Many platforms have rules against written text on the main background graphic,” one offered. “It’s there to prevent studios from filling the graphic with critic quotes, mostly.”
Another commented, “Matthew, someone posted the other day it’s got to do with not allowing text on the main page photo, because if they allow it the promoters will slap all sorts of critic reviews and stars all over it. The thumbnail still includes the wording, just not the banner on the listing.”
Someone else wrote, “The alteration isn’t a statement, it’s just a design choice so the image doesn’t compete with the text.”
DECIDER has reached out to Amazon Prime Video for comment, but did not hear back by the time of publication.
