Long-time readers of this site have heard me mention this before, but several years back, while teaching an honor’s seminar in interpretation theory, I made the intentionalist argument via a backhanded play: having assigned H.A. and Margret Rey’s Curious George to my class, I supplied along with it three essays (ostensibly from scholarly journals), each purporting to analyze the story through a specific theoretical lens.
The essays were fakes (see a portion of one here)—I had written them myself and attributed them to professors and academic journals I’d invented (without making my students aware of this just yet)—but each one represented a well-argued reading of the story: one from the perspective of queer theory and iconography (the tension created in the interpretive space between experiencing the illustrations and “reading” the text; the shape of the Big Yellow Hat; the tall, phallic tries in the foreground; an illustration of George and the Man in the Big Yellow Hat being rowed out to a waiting steamship by a sailor, whose crotch and straining muscles provided the focal point of the illustration—all while George smiled, his tongue exposed; George slipping in the Man in the Big Yellow Hat’s pajamas, etc); one that drew on feminist theory (the notable lack of women in the story); and finally, one from post-colonial theory (the Man in the Big Yellow Hat goes to Africa, traps the native Other, and brings him home as a trophy/pet, where he sets out to try to domesticate the troublesomely curious monkey).
Ultimately, my point was to argue that, though all of these interpretations were plausible and, indeed, coherent and compelling, if argued persuasively—in what way could H.A. and Margret Rey’s Curious George be said to mean any of these things?
Clearly, the “meaning” here was being derived from what we were able to do with the signifiers—with how we were able to resignify them so that they fit a narrative of our own interpretive process. What was missing, however, was the final (and most important) step: what is the likelihood we had correctly reconstructed the Reys’ signs? And of course, to decide that, we had to focus on the Reys’ intent. Were the Reys—either consciously or unconsciously—writing a homoerotic narrative (or, more literally, a narrative implying approval for bestiality)? A misogynistic narrative? A racist, imperialist narrative of subjugation of the native other? Or were they simply interested in writing a story about a man and a monkey?
Not surprisingly, the class—after careful consideration of the evidence—decided on the last.
The bottom line being, that though Curious George could come to mean a lot of things, what that meaning is remains dependent upon how the signifiers (both verbal and iconongraphic) are resignified and shaped into a narrative of our own process of decoding and re-encoding. And in both principle and kind, some of the “meanings” we considered in class were derived no differently than were the meanings early Puritan settlers took from a locus infestation (which, when seen through a particular interpretive worlview, suggests a sign of God’s wrath), or those a child sees in clouds, where he discovers a fluffy bunny or a rocking chair; because without appealing to authorial intent, we become the authors of the text; and because we are in effect rewriting that text, we have created an entirely new text.
All of which I bring up in prelude to this piece, by Newsday’s Jim Pinkerton, which takes a critical look at King Kong:
Is “King Kong” racist?
Lots of people say it is. And, if it is, why does the film keep getting remade? What does it say about us if the new “Kong” is a huge hit?
Any movie that features white people sailing off to the Third World to capture a giant ape and carry it back to the West for exploitation is going to be seen as a metaphor for colonialism and racism. That was true for the original in 1933 and for the two remakes: the campy one in 1976, and the latest, directed by Peter Jackson. (In addition, a “Kong” wannabe, “Mighty Joe Young,” has been made twice.)
Movie reviewer David Edelstein, writing in Slate.com, notes the “implicit racism of ‘King Kong’ – the implication that Kong stands for the black man brought in chains from a dark island (full of murderous primitive pagans) and with a penchant for skinny white blondes.” Indeed, a Google search using the words “King Kong racism” yielded 490,000 hits.
Comparing the new film with the original, The Washington Post’s Stephen Hunter observed, “It remains a parable of exploitation, cultural self-importance, the arrogance of the West, all issues that were obvious in the original but unexamined; they remain unexamined here, if more vivid.”
And by more vivid, Hunter might be referring to the natives of mythical Skull Island, where Kong is discovered. Director Jackson took people of Melanesian stock – the dark-skinned peoples who are indigenous to much of the South Pacific, including Jackson’s own country of New Zealand – and made them up to look and act like monsters, more zombie-ish than human. Indeed, one is moved to compare these human devils to the ogre-ish Orcs from Jackson’s mega-Oscar “Lord of the Rings” films. The bad guys are dark, hideous and undifferentiatedly evil.
One might note that the original source material for both films dates from the same period: “Kong” in ‘33, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” four years later. Both works are ultimately meditations on the West and Western uniqueness. Which is to say, what’s the role for white Europe – and for its ethnic offshoot, North America – in a world that is mostly non-white?
Some would label such sentiments as racist, but others would note that every ethnicity naturally feels a special affection for its own kind. Yet, in the West, outright invocations of white nationalism, such as the 1915 film “Birth of a Nation,” were politically unacceptable, even in the ‘30s, and so the same race-conscious sentiments were encrypted into allegory – in print or on celluloid.
The new “Kong” drills home its race consciousness by making repeated references to Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel, “Heart of Darkness,” which denigrates both the colonizing whites and colonized blacks. In the novel’s climax, the once-idealistic character Kurtz writes of Africans, “Exterminate all the brutes!” Conrad presents Kurtz as crazy, but Africa is presented as a crazy-making place.
The new Kong is, as always, a noble beast with a tender side. But, at the same time, his killing is presented as a cruel necessity. And at the end of the film, the white people – love interests Naomi Watts and Adrien Brody – are brought closer together, thanks to their brush with the big ape.
But if the movie is so loaded with race-charged imagery, why isn’t it being protested? Why aren’t we seeing pickets and boycotts? Perhaps it’s because today, as people look around the world, they see that most political strife is, in fact, ethnic strife. Folks like to say that “diversity is our strength,” and they resolve to fight racism, but every day’s news reminds us that ethnic conflict lurks in the human heart.
That’s a gloomy reality that “Kong” captures, in its crypto fashion, and so there’s no point in getting worked up over it.
Is it possible Kong is a movie “about” colonialism and western cultural arrogance? Certainly. Is it likely? Well, that’s the point, isn’t it: to believe as much, you have to believe that the original author and filmmakers were encoding their film with just such a message, even if their intent was an unconscious one; and given the thinking on race, manifest destiny, western supremacy, assimilation, et al., percolating through the sciences and cultural conversation at the time Kong was made, it is quite possible that the original Kong was in fact interested in exploring such topics—if only peripherally and allegorically.
The remakes, then, are by necessity forced to reinterpret the source material (shot-by-shot Gus Van Zant remakes are rare)—and nobody would make the claim that either the 1976 version or this latest Peter Jackson remake are, consequently, the “same text” as the 1933 film, precisely because it is obvious to us that the new directors and writers and effects people and casting agents, et al, have supplied new perspectives to the familiar palimpsest (some of which is doubtless drawn from their own fluid interpretations and internalizations of the previous versions). So again, to make the claim for what these movies “mean”—as opposed to what it means to them as viewers—critics should be appealing to the intent of the filmmakers.
Is the new Kong “racist”? Is it approving of cultural arrogance? Is it ennobling of the Other (in which case, one can make the claim for it that it is the romantic stepchild of Rousseau)? Is it indifferent to any of these ideas—content simply to pay homage to the original (or the 1976 remake)? And if so, does that make it simply a film about a giant ape? Or does it make it a film about a giant ape that at one point was intended as a cultural critique of western imperialism, or a critique of third world cultures (and a implicit defense of colonialism), or of the threat of the big strapping (ex) slave to the “virtue” of the weak, fair-haired, waifish white women?
All interesting questions—but all dependent, if we’re truly interested in what the films mean—on the creators’ (“authorial”) intent.
All else is to engage in arguments over our own films—the ones we’ve made in our minds and imbued with our own meanings.
****
related: “Kong in Love” (the sexual politics of Kong)
some other recent discussions on language and interpretation here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here
Jonah Goldberg addressed this a while back when people were saying Lord of the Rings was racist.
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg010303.asp
His basic point: Is it more racist for someone to see an ape and think “black person” than for someone to see an ape and think “ape”?
I think the people saying Kong is “racist” are the true racists.
When I see a monkey or ape, I understand it’s an animal.
It’s the lily white progressives who see an animal and this “Hey look, it’s a person of color!”
The thing that we know for certain is: It’s a ripping yarn about a giant Ape, a girl, a love interest, and a rather unscrupulous producer. Does it really need to be any more than this, even if there is more “there” there?
Hey, I still don’t get why they get all excited about a big ape and ignore the T. Rex stomping around.
How realistic is that?
And what about the “queer theory” interpretation? Or would the film have to be titled “Hung Kong” for that to apply?
Just wonderin’…
SB: him
It’s clearly about the futile struggle to free Tookie. Or women. Or gays. Depending on how you resignify the signifiers.
Or it could just be a dumb story about a monkey. Sorry, gorilla.
We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.
It says so in the Talmud, or something.
Here’s another article suggesting Peter Jackson/King Kong is racist (the bad guys in the LOTR films looked “just a bit too Maori?” Maybe because they were Maori? “one has to ask why Jackson so wanted to make King Kong as opposed to anything else?” Maybe because it was the movie that inspired him to get into filmmaking in the first place?)
Reminds me greatly of Borges’ “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.”
Jim Pinkerton: Author of The Kong.
I believe you have just proven Jeff (and what I’ve thought all along) is that when you deconstruct deconstruction someone ends up with their head up their ass.
tw “close” can go either way.
Jeff,
You logocentrist you. Just how in hell can I expect to be oppressed by dead white males if I have to bother with authorial intent? And think of all the research I might have to do? History, biography, geesh!
The next thing ya know, you might actually have to know something to be a literary critic.
You’ve gone to far this time young man!
Back in 1933, Merian C. Cooper told Fay Wray: “You’re going to have the tallest, darkest leading man in Hollywood.” Which doesn’t sound like he was thinking of Kong as some kind of uber-Stepin Fetchit.
It’s odd how the PC crowd, which insists that any judgment by a westerner of a non-western cultural artifact is co-optation, is fine with imposing practically any meaning they choose on products of western culture. Intent doesn’t seem to count for much. By the same “logic” we get Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest as a symbol of Western colonialist exploitation. Right. I’ll bet that back in 1600, Shakespeare was thinking about that topic all the time.
Incidentally, it’s funny that PCers almost reflexively associate coarse, subhuman creatures like Kong and Caliban with non-westerners. It would be pretty easy to read some racist attitudes into that assumption. If that’s what you were looking for.
I enjoyed the post Jeff, but I think you gave too much effort, and sadly, some credibility to the insane claim of racism in the Kong story.
Racism is the “automatically get some coverage” topic. The fact that blogs and link sites pick this up and discuss it at all just gives weight to the possibility that Kong might be racist. Why else would we be talking about it?
Hollywood is singing the blues of bad box office draws. They went way over budget on this monster of a film (yeah, a pun) and are counting on a big hit. Did they really sink billions of dollars into getting a subtle swipe at the black man?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and a movie about a 5 story gorilla is just a movie about a 5 story gorilla.
The article I linked to does make a connection to Shakespeare:
BECAUSE OF THE APE-OCRISY!
Aw, come on. SOMEBODY had to say it.
Great topic. I have not seen the Jackson film yet, so this is just based on the original. First, I think that it is pretty unlikely that any 20th century American could make a film with a man or beast in chains being brought on a boat to America without being conscious of some parallels to the slave trade. To me, it’s pretty easy to read the original Kong as consciously arguing against “racist†ideas such as the superiority of whites and the right of the “civilized†to control the lives of the “primitive.†But at the same time, they are sympathetic to people who harbored those ideas and unconsciously retain some of them against their best judgment.
The original was a great film. Can’t wait to see Jackson’s.
This reminds me of my English Lit class in college that focused in part on Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises”. After several discussions in class the professor’s hot buttons were pretty darn easy to read. Everything is a metaphor for something, and I mean everything. To the point you wondered if Hemingway wrote a damn thing that meant what he said. It got to the point that the more outrageous the metaphor the more credit you were given for “understanding” Hemingway.
I believe I came up with something along the likes that Robert Cohn was of course the “Colon” or “asshole” of the story which is the standard metaphor of that character but it really was a direct sexual metaphor of desired relationship with Barnes. The whole fairy tale I fleshed out with Brett’s masculin haircut, Bull Horn metaphors and more. All of it was an excersize to placate the professor and earn the highest possible grade. He ate it up.
I have no idea what my point is.
How come nobody has mentioned any of this news that debunks the “Katrina was racist” theory? from Drudge: Higher % of whites died then blacks http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=Nationarchive200512NAT20051214b.html
APF, I’ll believe the charge that Shakespeare was racist/sexist/colonialist/whatever when it’s supported from well-researched contemporary sources. A modern professor of theatre(!) making the bald claim that Othello is a racist caricature (how? Has this woman even read Othello?) doesn’t exactly refute my claim that politically correct types throw out these charges to show their own exquisitely sensitive self-righteousness. Insight into the works they’re slagging is irrelevant at best.
T/W: “class.” The school kind, or the social kind? Doesn’t matter, I guess; they’re both instruments of oppression.
Whoever wants to see it as racist will do so. Personally, I’ll laugh at them, but they can still do so.
There would be a better chance of such symbolism being true if the work in question would be one that had more overt symbolism present, such as Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, or any of the Matrix movies. Making these kinds of statements with Kong is rather ironic, since those offended by the “racism” they find in Kong only find “racism” there by the insertion of long overused stereotypes that they also claim to be offended by. It therefore appears that it would be racist to find racism in Kong.
I don’t know if King Kong is racist, but I always thought that Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks was about the Global War on Terror. It has all the elements:
The duplicitous enemy who spouts ugly gibberish (“Ack-gack! Ack-ack-gack tack RAK!”), is sexually obsessed with American women, and commits unspeakable atrocities in its mission of conquest;
the appeasing academician who refuses to believe his eyes and insists on giving our mortal enemy chance after chance;
clueless politicians who expose the entire nation to danger in the name of political correctness;
fatuous journalists who hide the nature of the threat until after it’s too late;
hawkish military leaders who are pushed aside in favor of kinder, gentler commanders;
skyscrapers collapsing in big orange fire balls;
the nation’s underappreciated youth rising to the occasion and saving us with their ingenuity;
the destruction of Paris;
and so on.
I once delivered a paper at the RMMLA conference in which I made the textual argument that because Shakespeare gave Taliban all the best lines (as Milton did Satan), he was at best ambivalent of the character—but regardless, suggestions that we read Caliban as a demonization of the Other were strained. To me, he was a dramatic type frequently used by Bill: cf. Iago.
It was funny, because the professor reading after me was about to argue that Willie’s depiction of Caliban was racist. Man, you should have seen him editing on the fly.
Great post, Jeff.
wish i could take one of your classes.
Here’s another example:
). I instantly associated Aslan with Seth and Osiris, Loki and Baldur, and the Fisher King. The old myths of betrayal, sacrifice, death, and rebirth from before the beginning of time.
I read the Chronicles of Narnia in 6th or 7th grade. I was raised strict RCC, but i never saw Aslan as a Jesus metaphor. When Lewis said the deep magic, i knew exactly what he meant. Not religion, religion was never magic for me.
At the time i was into BullFinch’s Mythology and the Golden Bough (precocious, huh? improved my SAT scores, i’m sure!
Later on, i read the Perelandra trilogy and the Screwtape Letters, and learned Lewis was an Anglican bishop or somesuch.
But that did not change the deep magic for me.
Hmmm.
Sometimes a movie about a big-ass monkey is a movie about a big-ass monkey.
But don’t tell Pinkerton that.
The weird thing is that, at least to my mind, the only “colonial” reading that’s supported by any of the stories is “anti” colonial.
To one degree or another, it’s obvious (and particularly emphatic and obvious in Jackson’s version) that bringing Kong to New York is a *mistake*. That Denham should have left Kong on Skull Island where he belongs. To argue that the story is some sort of “hooray for the White Man” pro-colonialism thing seems to require inferring a “subtext” that goes directly *against* the “text!”
Pinkerton says:
What does it say about us if the new “Kong†is a huge hit?
Is there a name for this incredibly annoying lefty prose tic?
By “us,” he means “everyone but me and everyone I know and everyone who’s nodding while reading this and Margaret Cho.” Like when a Village Voice review of a transvestite minstrel show says that it “challenges our narrow ideas of race and gender,” that’s not a confession to ignorance blessed away by RuPaul Kingfishes.
The Village Voice “we” isn’t the good ol’ “royal ‘we’” we all know and loveâ€â€it’s a boogeyman horde of slopehead redneck zombies being shit-talked out of earshot.
I guess it’s a kind of aristocratic apophasis, but I’m one of “us,” so I can’t be trusted with an obscure term of rhetoric.
…
And hey lookâ€â€irony!
Well, Pinky’s a libertarian, and generally a very good columnist. But columns like this show just how ingrained is our willingness to reify race consciousness.
Hmmm.
Ok that’s just idiotic. If it were that definitive then why did the average clergy wear black? Why was black the color of mourning?
This so reminds me of Zinn and Chomsky’s DVD commentary on the Lord of the Rings:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2003/04/22fellowship.html
Essentially Hobbits are warmongering criminals…
There are very few words in the English language that have become as meaningless as “racist.” One size fits all. Apply in any situation. “White (black, brown, yellow) people are superior in the eyes of God.” “Primative tribes in Africa had silly supersitions.” Hit ‘em all with the same stick.
The biggest problem is that many are recoiling from the charge the Kong is racist and jumping all the way over to “it’s just a movie about a monkey” and implying that the makers don’t accept racial stereotypes that most of us would reject.
I’m still waiting for the colonialist interpretation of Brokeback Mountain.
I have a big yellow hat.
feminist.
Well, I thought the point of the first Kong movie was that biplane-mounted machine guns were just the right tool for Americans to use when there’s a sudden need to whack an unnaturally powerful and rampaging beast. So does that mean that I see Kong as the Hun? Maybe, but I still think biplane-mounted machine guns are way, way cool.
TW many, as in: Many, many bullets were used to cap Kong.
Well, Pinky’s a libertarian, and generally a very good columnist. But columns like this show just how ingrained is our willingness to reify race consciousness.
His use of so many passive constructions and weaselings away from his own (ahem) authorial intent in the piece are, to say the least, uncharacteristic of libertarian writings. I never suspected he might harbor any doubts about any of the stupid things he saidâ€â€or, excuse me, that “people say.”
The dude’s just too ingrained.
tw: straight
I don’t mean he’s queer. Geez. Didn’t “everyone’s gay” crit go out of fashion ten years ago?
Sulla,
Isn’t it obvious that Cowboy A’s *ss is being colonized by Cowboy B’s, well, you know.
I’m really ashamed of myself. Sorry all.
feminist.</blockquote>
Touché
The gorilla has the smallest penis size in relation to its body size of all the great apes: 1.5 inches.
By taking the ratio of average height (six feet) to penis size (1.5 inches), we can determine that King Kong’s penis is approximately 12.5 inches long, or just a little over one foot.
Now then: Peter Jackson is a white male who is 5’6 1/2” tall, or the equivalent of over five King Kong penises.
However: Mr. Jackson is only the equivalent of 1/2 of a blue whale’s penis, which virtually guarantees that he will never do a remake of 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.
This fact also guarantees me another four semesters’ worth of grant money and a free Penises Of The Animal Kingom And Hollywood poster for my office.
Iago certainly had a racist tint to his character. Partly to establish that his motivation for power had something tangible to feed it. Partly (and this is where I am reading into the author’s intent) to place just a bit of sympathy for his actions in the mind of the Elizabethan audience. That sets the ending up to be not only powerful through the story, but powerful on a personal level with the audience (at least those in the boxes, as opposed to the court).
Bob_R: Why can’t King Kong be a movie “just about a monkey”? As with any story there are presuppositions (savages, the greedy producer, the ingenue) all playing to a “type”, but why should it have some larger, unspoken theme attempting to subtly upbraid us for the way we are?
When Kong was on the Empire State Building, swatting at those pesky bi-planes (snigger not at the homophobic signifier) he was secretly cursing “FOKKER”.
tw “perhaps” I could be wrong.
Come on Jeff!
What big ape wouldn’t want to get his groove on with a skinny white woman?
“Aristocratic apophasis” is way too obscure. Let’s call it Anointed Personal Exemption Syndrome.
Everyone has APES!
APES! APES! APES! APES! APES!
Is it possible today for an elite critic to withhold mention of western colonialism and cultural arrogance in reviewing such a film?
Of course not–he (or she, pardon me) would then be accused of racism. So, really, reviewing the film is secondary; more important is establishing one’s racially correct bona fides.
That’s one monkey, ain’t nobody gonna spank.
Two people brought it up already, Steve being the first, but the Lord of the Rings (Orcs=Blacks) nonsense was the first thing to come to my mind.
Orcs are Orcs and Apes are Apes and Ape shall not kill Ape.
A Cowboy who can sing
A Horse that can dance –
ergo:
Bestiality.
I prefered to think of it as Tom Berenger’s best role, with the added benefit of a young Sela Ward and Marilu Henner at the height of her Yow-ness.
Despite the bestiality, which I guess takes place off-camera.
Tom M: Kong certainly could be “just about a monkey” and Huck Finn could be “just about a kid taking a trip down the river.” One of the things that makes them excellent is that their authors have layered them with different meanings for different readers. Kong is not Curious George. Yes, it can be viewed that way with great pleasure. But it can also be read as a commentary on human hubris in general or the slave trade in particular.
I’m not really sure what the makers were trying to say about race, but saying “the film is racist” or “it’s just a film about a monkey” both have the effect of cutting any interesting discussion off.
As I recall, in the original Kong and Son of Kong, the capitalist exploiters wound up either dead or in financial ruin, while the apes were the only vaguely noble characters, very explicitly brought down by the society that carried them off and yet nevertheless proving morally superior to their oppressors in the end. If this is how you celebrate Western exploitation…
… and in a related note, for a laugh, in Son of Kong when the crew mutinies, they chant “No more bosses!” as they throw the officers over the side…
Perhaps the motive for the original film makers sending white people to Africa to bring back a monkey is because that’s where the monkeys are.
I’ve always felt that literary criticism tells us more about the critic than it does about the meaning of the story.
Having spoken to a number of authors about their work, I find that their reaction to such theories is generally, “I did that? Cool!”
You’ve read Frederick Crews’ books on Pooh, no?
By the way, that’s a pretty simplistic and in my opinion wrongheaded interpretation of Conrad Pinkerton puts forth.
“Theory.” Never has so much been invested for so long to learn so little.
This is what happens to english departments and womens’ studies departments etc. when popular but misapprehended economic theories are refuted and dropped from economics departments.
By the way, my name really is Peter Jackson, but I’m not that Peter Jackson. Sorry.
:peter
Which illustrates why these excrutiatingly boring leftwing blame games are bogus: Inflated, conflicted souls erecting pointless “interesting discussions” where there are no essential values aside from that tired racism de jour canard. To an urban college idealist with a scrap of sociology, or to the MSM, the whole world’s a white oppressor.
They do so, of course, in order to satiate their own discomfort. Blame—even invented out of thin air—is so satisfying when you have no core principles aside from talking points or political correctness.
And there we have it. No Pinkerton, most political strife is far more, er, primal. It has to do with abuse of power, corruption, theft, lies, all of them equal opportunity offenders. You denying basic evil to recast it as a purely racial struggle is much a part of the problem.
But so goes Hollywood, consciously or otherwise. In a film portraying say, an evil thieving white oppressor pitted against an equally evil murdering black opportunist, naturally the black man comes out burnished to a higher lustre because, well, his was a noble struggle against racism and his actions are therefore understandable and at least partly justified.
We invent what we cannot find naturally and we love it, don’t we?
Y’know, I could swear that one of the I Was Hitler’s Cat books I read mentioned that two of Hitler’s favorite films were King Kong and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.
Which means, I guess, that people can either speculate endlessly about the subtexts of these films or shrug and admit that both would be on anyone’s “Best 10 List” of pre-1942 cinema.
Whichever [TW]works[/TW]
That’s the best one of these yet.
Didn’t the students easily figure out who had written all three essays, once they noticed stuff like run-on sentences containing 189 words? Or run-on sentences with 189 words, five parentheticals, six semicolons, a colon, slash and God-knows-how-many commas? Or the parenthetical clauses within clauses that are within sentences and are themselves set off by dashes?
KONG = HITLER!!!
Hm. There are people working hard to imply King Kong is racist.
Meanwhile, a few months back I was in a long, online argument with hundreds over whether PETA’s meat = Jewish Holocost and meat = black people being lynched campaign was racist. There were some who couldn’t be convinced. . . despite blacks and Jews who found it offensive (including lynching victims).
But people will work to find racism in King Kong.
The public associated ‘blackness’ with moral corruption…”
One of the most sickening scenes I’ve ever witnessed in academia was when a white speaker at a conference used the word “blackmail” and then, seeing two “blacks” from the community sitting in the front row, proceeded to apologize to them profusely for his “unintended insult.” It embarrassed the hell out of those poor people to be used as props for the speaker’s conspicuous display of sensitivity. Still makes my stomach turn to think about it.
LOTR has been mentioned a few times.
How ‘bout Jar-Jar Binks for a few rounds of let’s whack Georgie with the racist stick?
Evidently, you don’t know what a run-on sentence is. But here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with sentence length.
And besides, I altered the style for each. One of the perks of being a fiction writer.
Let me guess: he amended his comment and called it “African-American-mail.”
Hey Bumper,
Go ahead and eat that root and have yourself a big ‘ol time.
Some of us have a gunfight in the morning.
Fargo – Now there’s a racist movie.
Another example of authorial intent? Guess it must be.
“[D]emonization of the Other,” indeed.
I heard there’s another movie coming out, Silverback Mountain.
It’s gripping tale of two male gorillas exploring the tender expanses of forbidden gay gorilla love in a closed hierarchial paradigm.
Anyone who doesn’t admit to the greatness of the film is nothing but a redneck, tooth-stumped homosimianphobe!
In my wasted time as a undergrad, I read something claiming The Three Stooges should be interpreted and celebrated as Marxist/anarchists subverting bourgeouis authority & society.
(Of course, the article didn’t go to the logical conclusion that if the Stooges actually upended the bourgeouisie and took control of society, utter madness and chaos would ensue.)
I feel quite ashamed that I paid so much tuition to bathe in such stupidity. Particularly when I see the Kong-baiters, who obviously studied similar nonsense to what I had. I want my tuition money back.
(Oh, and David Ehrenstein, who’ve I’ve encountered over at Cathy Seipp’s site? What a vile load of hateful pigshit. Jeff, you are blessed to never have him befoul your site.)
I saw only the original 1933 version. But I don’t think Kong was about racists oppressing blacks.
First, Kong was mean. He killed about as many as he could, including those who did not menace him. The girl was the exception, a story complication that differed from the simplicity of Godzilla. Her presence made it harder to kill or subdue Kong.
Second, the islanders costumes were not outlandish. They were consistent with pictures we have of peoples spread across the Pacific within living memory. Their rituals were also a reasonable interpretation of material from there.
The islanders showed courage. They fought Kong rather well. Certainly just as well as the New Yorkers. Kong was visibly wounded by the islanders spears.
The islanders had resourcefully built a wall to keep out Kong and the other prehistoric beasts of Skull Island. The were neither slothful or idiotic.
Yes, the islanders did fear Kong. And they were quite sensible to do so.
Contrast the Skull Islanders to the depiction of natives in the Tarzan movies. The latter were nearly useless morons who ran like rabbits when a lion grunted. That is demeaning.
i, the bad guys in the LOTR films looked “just a bit too Maori?†Maybe because they were Maori?
Oh, for God’s sakes – the bad guys were also white under all the makeup. I work with people who were extras on the movie (which seems to be about a third of New Zealand).
ii, What’s this crap about “the PC crowd”? – deconstructionist academic papers have as much to do with progressive politics as detailed arguments against cyanide being used in Austwitz have to do with conservative politics. You lot are beating straw men up again – hope you feel proud at how courageous you are.
iii, Jackson’s “Kong” featured Polynesians on the crew of the ship, and one of the main characters of that crew was (dum dum dah dah) an American Black. And he was the smart and solicitious one, too.
iv, Peter Jackson ain’t American. The connotations of transporting primates around in ships while chained ain’t quite the same. Now, if the ape was eating people as a form of contempt and engaging in extreme violence as a culturally sanctioned form of revenge against slights of dignity, *then* Jackson might be racist.
v, Tom W. – you’re an idiot. Mars Attacks came out in 1996, based on an earlier comic book.
vi, There’s a common ad playing on TV and in NZ theatres about gorilla penis sizes. A voiceover goes on about how small they are in comparison with humans while a male gorilla looks increasingly uncomfortable and a female gorilla looks disgusted. Eventually she grabs one of the two human characters (large, Maori) and carries him off into the bushes while the other (small, Pakeha) starts to film and comments on her “being affectionate” and trails off into “Hey, hey – that’s not *right*”. The punch line being, of course, for the benefits of Sky nature documentaries.
One notes that Jackson’s Kong doesn’t actually show genitals or show any awareness of Watts as a sexual object (thank Christ). Unlike Brody’s character.
vii, Watts is supernaturally pretty on camera. The film is great, the date I was with cried, and I had a good dinner with her afterwards.
viii, Said dates’ boyfriend was also in “Lord Of The Rings”. As an elf, since he’s good-looking and tall. Fucker.
ix, The bastards must have digitally erased Watts’ nipples for most of the film. Anyine who’s seen “21 Grams” will realise what a tragedy that is.
x, The ape was on a Pacific Island in Jackson’s version and, AFAIK, in the original too. Not Africa.
xi, I’m on holiday and and also studying. I have no time to kick you sorry lot around verbally when you spout your various political inanities, which you so richly deserve. Sorry – we’ll be back into it next year.
Figured you for a kid. So, how do you go from “I am still going to school and spending most of my time preparing to deal with the real world” to “I know more than actual grown-ups who have been supporting themselves for decades?”
I swear, the funniest thing about you is that you have no idea how ridiculous you are.
Figured you for a kid. So, how do you go from “I am still going to school and spending most of my time preparing to deal with the real world†to “I know more than actual grown-ups who have been supporting themselves for decades?â€Â
Because I’m an actual grown-up who has been supporting myself for decades, but I’m in a field which sorta requires continued (nay, continual) education just to keep up.
I swear, the funniest thing about you is that you have no idea how ridiculous you are.
You really have no idea how little I care about the opinions of wingnuts. I’ve seen Little Green Echo Chambers in effect before.
Scratch a post-colonial theorist and you’ll find a leftist. Sorry. That’s just the case.
Scratch a post-colonial theorist and you’ll find a leftist. Sorry. That’s just the case.
Scratch a neo-Nazi Holocaust denier and you’ll find a rightist. Equally the case, and equally irrelevant.
So, you don’t even have the “I’m a dumb kid who believes his teachers” excuse?
Why, of course you don’t care. You’re above it all. That’s why you’re still responding.
I think your worldview requires ignoring what people actually do and how they actually live, so I’m not too surprised by that.
“Irrelevant” to what? You said that certain critical positions aren’t suggestive of political stances. I said yes, they were, and gave an example. You then gave another example and called the fact that certain critical positions are indicative of political positions are “irrelevant.”
Which, if I’m following you, means you’ve just called your initial argument both wrong AND irrelavent.
Thanks.
Turns out I wasn’t even needed.
[…] — often times as if the people fighting pretend they’ve never been fought before. From “Monkey Shines,” December […]