King Kong and Black Sexual Potency
The release of the Peter Jackson-directed remake of King Kong opens the door for an examination of an interesting subtextual reading of the original. Like all great art, the original King Kong is open to a multitude of interpretations; there is no single appropriate reading of the text. (You should hear my Marxist version of the tale; that Carl Denham is one disgusting capitalist pig!)I haven't seen the remake as I write this, but I saw-and appreciate-the Jessica Lange version made in the 70s and it fits the bill of goods I'm selling, so I have little doubt that Jackson's remake will probably be able to fit into this interpretation as well.
What is King Kong? Not the movie, but the character. He's an ape on an island inhabited by black savages. It's an island that, according to the map used in the movie, doesn't appear to be in close promixity to Africa. I'm not sure where Skull Island is, but it's prehistoric. There are dinosaurs and other denizens of our preliterate past. Stuck in this time warp are dark-skinned human beings. And Kong himself is dark. He is their god. He is their Michael Jordan, if you will.
Into this land before time comes a ship filled with far more intelligent-or at least more worldly and educated-white people. They have come with knowledge of modernity. They have cameras! They also have the smarts to outwit the gigantic ape-god after he arrives at his annual-or thereabouts-sacrificial festival.
You see, these people that time forgot, these prehistoric, preliterate black savages toss up one of their womenfolk as a sacrifice to Kong. It's never really made certain what Kong would have done with these sacrifices, but the assumption is that, well, he ate them. I mean it's not like they're around whenever the great white hunter tracks down Ann Darrow to save her. Where are they? Just bones stuck in Kong's teeth, probably.
Anyhoo, this time around, Kong has a new, different kind of sacrifice waiting for him. A blonde, white woman. Not preliterate, not prehistoric, not black. White. Blonde. It's pretty darn apparent that Kong isn't exactly in a hurry to eat the lovely Miss Darrow.
Comments
William Stropnicky
(Guest)
(Guest)
10/24/2008
The 1933 first film, you mean. The real original was a King Kong book published in 1932, one year earlier. I'm sorry if that seems anal-retentive, but it's true and often forgotten. Anyway, this article was written in December 2005, the month when the newest version was released. I had assumed, even being about the 1933 version, that it was motivated by that timing.
Perhaps, but I wouldn't waste my time writing a critical analysis of Peter Jackson's remake. This article is specific to the 1933 original.
William Stropnicky
(Guest)
(Guest)
08/17/2007
True, the women whom Kong had eaten were all Black. I, however, am not so sure of the remark that Kong did not want to eat a White woman immediately. In the 2005 film, there is a frame within 5 minutes (In the story, not actual length of footage) of Ann Darrow's sacrifice. It's a single frame, not a whole scene, so you have to watch carefully and pause. The image makes it very clear that he is about to eat her. She quickly avoided his mouth (and therefore his stomach) by stabbing his hand with the sacrificial necklace, causing him to drop her.
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