Is 'King Kong' Racist?

[papibear]

http://thelionsdenblog.blogspot.com/...ng-racist.html

Now, before you go grumbling "oh, man, there goes Papi on another nutball rant about racism", I didn't think this up, but I did mention it on my blog (which you all should be subscribed to). Matt Drudge points out that Newsday's Jim Pinkerton asks that question, and others chime in with similar sentiments, and I have to admit, it's something that I also would have snorted at in derision had it not been examined so intelligently. I don't think there are really any easy answers one way or the other.

[Notoriousaurus]

King Kong digs the white chicks.

[Wirehed]

Originally Posted by Notoriousaurus

King Kong digs the white chicks.

Actually, in the new movie...

Spoiler (Highlight or Triple Click to Read):

she was going to end up dead like the other sacrifices, you can see their bones scattered around the ground. It was her comedy performance from her vaudaville act that entranced Kong and saved her.

I don't get the racism connection. It feels really forced. They go to a hidden/lost island, find a tribe of people beaten down from the monsterous forces of the island, find a giant ape, try to film an adventure movie, but ultimately bring the giant creature back becuase of greed and the pursuit of fame.

If they had decided to bring back some of the natives to put on display, that could have been a different story, but in this case the primative culture could have been any color and it wouldn't have made any difference to the story. They were not primative because of their "race" they were primative because all their resorces went to keeping they wall up and placating Kong... and presumably the other dangers of the island.

[Damian]

Finding racism in movies is like finding different shapes in the clouds. If you look hard enough you can see whatever your mind thinks it sees.
Hell in Star Wars the most evil person in the universe wears an all black suit so that must mean the movies are racist because it's implying that blacks are all evil.

[cherno]

Originally Posted by Damian

Hell in Star Wars the most evil person in the universe wears an all black suit so that must mean the movies are racist because it's implying that blacks are all evil.

Except he is a honky underneath it all.

[Damian]

Originally Posted by cherno

Except he is a honky underneath it all.

Absolutly (Well sorta..he was burned pretty black )
And Kong is a friggin' APE so I was just comparing Kong to something just as ridiculous as Darth Vader (as far as racism goes)

[Pirate]

There weren’t any minorities in the Fellowship either. GASP!

-PH

[papibear]

Originally Posted by Damian

Finding racism in movies is like finding different shapes in the clouds. If you look hard enough you can see whatever your mind thinks it sees.
Hell in Star Wars the most evil person in the universe wears an all black suit so that must mean the movies are racist because it's implying that blacks are all evil.

Hm. White guy from Mississippi says "there's no racism going on". Where have we heard that one before?

I kid.

It's always interesting to see the kinds of responses such questions bring.

[papibear]

Originally Posted by piratehunter

There weren’t any minorities in the Fellowship either. GASP!

-PH

Nice. Avoid discussing the issue by talking about another film altogether.

By the way, define "minority".

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by papibear

Nice. Avoid discussing the issue by talking about another film altogether.

By the way, define "minority".

That was a joke. I don't think either film was racist.

-PH

[Pirate]

I remember reading something about “Night of the Living Dead” being about the Civil Rights movement. Romero has said that he was just making a Zombie picture, but people insist that that’s what it’s about. Cooper’s 1933 King Kong was just about a giant ape IMO. He was an adventurer and I can see him having this idea. It’s possible that Cooper was a Racist and Romero is just concealing the fact that “Dead’ is about civil rights, but I don’t think so.

-PH

[Astrakan]

Mreh. I'd use the rolling eye smiley if it wasn't so contentious.

Just to illustrate how goofy I think the claim that King Kong is racist is, allow me to quote an amusing blog entry by one of my favourite bloggers:

Originally Posted by Scott the Reader

King Kong as a Metaphor For Marriage

(With apologies to my wife.)

You're just hanging out with the guys, living a satisfying life, when suddenly she arrives. She's attractive, she's scantily-clad, she's available.

You let her turn your head, and your life falls apart. Suddenly you're squabbling with the guys -- sure, T-Rex turns out to be something of a cock-blocker, but you never had any problems until she showed up.

Before long it's all sunsets, and saving her butt, and no more time for your old friends.

And then it's all about giving up your place, and moving to where she wants to live. Where you feel like an outsider; you don't know anyone, and people treat you like you're a different species. You constantly feel like you're on stage.

Sex? Forget it. Suddenly it's all "I have a headache" or "Your penis is too big".

You think she's putting you on a pedestal, but it turns out to be a really tall building. And there are planes. Lots of planes, and they are shooting at you.

Personally? I think he jumped.

Beauty killed the beast indeed.

KM

[tomdkat]

Too funny!

Peace...

[SeanL]

The REAL hidden message of Kong has just been brought to light.


For the record, I think that "racism" in KK is a joke. I know they say that "art imitates life", but people make WAY too many similarities between film and reality. If a film's antagonist is an employee at Wal Mart, then Wal Mart employees around the nation speak out against the film...as if the filmmakers were really implying that ALL Wal Mart employees were that way.

Lighten up people. They're just movies!

[Wirehed]

That's awesome.

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by Seamonkey

I don't get the racism connection. It feels really forced. They go to a hidden/lost island, find a tribe of people beaten down from the monsterous forces of the island, find a giant ape, try to film an adventure movie, but ultimately bring the giant creature back becuase of greed and the pursuit of fame.

If they had decided to bring back some of the natives to put on display, that could have been a different story, but in this case the primative culture could have been any color and it wouldn't have made any difference to the story. They were not primative because of their "race" they were primative because all their resorces went to keeping they wall up and placating Kong... and presumably the other dangers of the island.

I think your view is off, which is why the racism link doesn't make much sense to you.

Basically, white people thought of black people as animals, beasts, monkeys, apes, you name it. Black people were "savage" and not cultured, etc., at least as viewed by those looking for slave labor way back when. King Kong represents "the black man" because he's large in stature, dark in color, and basically a beast. He's not educated or sophisticated like the white men who are able to capture him. The fact the white men are able to even capture him sort of proves how intelligent the white man is since he was able to capture a beast who could easily tear him apart.

With that being said, I personally don't view King Kong as being racist but I can certainly see how some could view it that way.

Peace...

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by SeanL

Lighten up people. They're just movies!

I agree 100%!

Peace...

[SeanL]

Originally Posted by tomdkat

I agree 100%!

Peace...

Tom's agreeing with me?!?! My God in heaven! The world as we know it is about to end.

[papibear]

I'm just curious. Did anyone actually read the Jim Pinkerton article that I linked to, to see what he said?

[Iguana Man]

I dunno Tom, maybe you miss being called an 'animal' and a 'beast'?

I know I'm called that rather frequently, and I'm white!



Edited: Papi, no I'll admit I didn't read it, but it's because my Spybot keeps blocking the Avenue A thing so the page wont load.

[papibear]

Originally Posted by Iguana Man

Edited: Papi, no I'll admit I didn't read it, but it's because my Spybot keeps blocking the Avenue A thing so the page wont load.

I don't know what Avenue A is, but I'll reprint the article here for anyone who can't access the page.

In its darkness, 'Kong' shows the human heart
James P. Pinkerton

December 15, 2005

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. Indeed, since the film is entertaining - like the similarly themed, much honored and extremely popular "Rings" movies of a few years back - one might as well go see this one, too.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

[SeanL]

I did read it, and I stand by my original statement...people read WAY too much into movies.

[Wirehed]

Yes, I read it.


And Tom, I understand how you can imprint the idea of racism over the top of the film, I just don't think it was intended that way, not even subconsciencely.

It's a rather simple film, I really don't think it has any racially motivated metaphors.

[reapersaurus]

FACT:
It is patently impossible to "race-proof" a story.

There are simply too many ways that people can "imprint" a race template over any story that includes black people in any way (even by reference).

So the only possible way to avoid these kinds of race charges is to write and direct movies that have ZERO minority presence or references of any kind (and even then the abscence of them could be considered racist).

I doubt if that's what you'd want, papi.

So why don't people who see race in everything they observe give everyone else a break and just enoy an adventure movie?

[reapersaurus]

Originally Posted by SeanL

For the record, I think that "racism" in KK is a joke.

[sarcasm] Dude - KK is 2/3'rds of the way towards the KKK.

Proof positive.
[/sarcasm]

[tomdkat]

Originally Posted by reapersaurus

[sarcasm] Dude - KK is 2/3'rds of the way towards the KKK.

Proof positive.
[/sarcasm]

See, even reaper "gets it"!

Great evidence, man....

EDIT: I read Drudge's page.

Peace....