Letters to the Editor
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King Kong, LOTR, racism, Pynchon
Much as I love Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's version of it, we must also admit that it can be read as an equally anxious tale about the overrun of Western whiteness by those frightening easterners and monstrous "darkies." Part of the pervading melancholy and loss of the book (and movie) stems of course from Tolkein's sadness at the loss of tradition-based communities and the enchanted natural world to modern industry, but equally so it seems to be fear about the coming impurity of the "higher man."
Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow deals repeatedly with the themes of European colonialism and its fear of natives and darkness. He has more than one funny rant about the first King Kong and the way it reproduces the colonialist's fears and myths. Jackson's Screenwriting team is geeky and well-read; I wonder if they know about this angle on the film.
Whether they do or don't, it does all make you wonder about what deep and possibly unconscious motives are driving his choice of material.
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And Sometimes, A Cigar is Just a Cigar
A tendency to read vast and sweeping symbolism into the most innocent of plot devices is a most unfortunate byproduct of the pomo deconstructionsist movement. Like most academic exercises, it is a tempest in a teapot (TEAPOT!!--omigoddess! A bubbling, frothing dark interior, obviously a symbol of seething Africa, replete with a phallic nozzle disgorging its steaming fecundity into the welcoming recesses of the "teacup").
Granted, the original "King Kong" is a product of its racial period; however, I am curious about ABB's take on Jackson's remake: has she viewed a print of the film? If not, she seems to ask us to take quite a bit on faith. Having had a look at the trailers, the Skull Island folk seem to be a racially mixed lot. If Mr. Jackson does present us with a racially insensitive portrayal of evil, dark natives lusting after blonde, white flesh, he should be called on it. But do you see Peter Jackson doing something as willfully stupid and ignorant as that?
Why don't we wait to see what's on the screen?
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Kong
Perhaps ABB is CFOS. As in, completely full of ...
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WOW, Talk about 'off the deep end'
gee, average guys with legitimate gripes about their [utter lack of] reproductive choice are labeled hateful and are marginalized, but some Angry Black Chick is allowed to spout off completely off-the-wall dribble that does not impact anyone in a meaningful manner and is borderline insane.
no wonder feminism feels so irrelevant to me lately.
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Scary Black Bitch
This is why no one really takes black people seriously --- they have giant chips on their shoulders and like to read racism into everything made by a white artist that doesn't blatantly bend over backwards with white guilt.
Most white people, including ultra-liberals, will patronizingly never challenge a black person on ANYTHING. Why? Because they know they won't get a rational response, but instead a furious attack involving yelling, screaming, swearing, and head-wagging. No one wants to deal with people like that, and condemning a movie before even seeing it is the epitome of irrationality.
And in case no one noticed, the various races in LOTR were non-human . . . and therefore do not represent "darkies." Get a life.
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Why don't you...
Come back when you've actually seen the movie.
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King Kong
This recalls, to me, the racially-charged anti-Star Wars rant from "Chasing Amy" and it's just about as ridiculous. Wasn't the theme of King Kong that "man," the natives and the white invaders alike, were the "real" monsters?
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Hm. I take black people seriously.
It isn't that difficult. Trust me.
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Heck, she's right.
Please, I remember my GRANDMOTHER talking about the "not so subliminal" racist subtext of "King Kong" years ago. From Shakespeare's "Othello" to Usher's "The Mix," Western civilization has always had a morbid fear/fascination with black male sexuality. I think we can add fear of black sexuality PERIOD after reviewing the hysteria surrounding Janet Jackson's exposed breast as opposed to the lack of concern shown Madonna's sapphic kiss with Britney Spears. Racial and sexual double standards are par for the course when exercising the politics of outrage and the benefits of white privilege.
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But what is her point?
It seems ABB's really just upset that a "black man" is falling hard for a white blonde girl. Is she saying that such relationships should never be depicted -- even in a symbollic context? Even if the the white invaders are likely to be made out to be the true villains of this movie, while King Kong is likely to wind up getting the most sympathy.
If she is right, and this is the depiction of an interracial romance, then the film ultimately is a condemnation of the way in which society lashes out against such romances. It is about how people are not able to just let two people fall in love with each other and must instead berate the two people involved.
In this context, ABB is playing the part of one of those fighter planes circling the Empire State Building trying to kill King Kong so that he is not able to enjoy and pursue the object of his affection.
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Peter Jackson is half a world away from Hollywood...
... and King Kong is the movie that inspired him to become a filmmaker.
I don't know if seven-year-old Peter was ever aware of the racial undercurrents of the original. Then and now he just loves monsters. The more tragic and emotional and monsterous they are the more he loves them, and to him Kong is the top of the heap.
I'm not sure that it's useful to tell a filmmaker not to do what he loves to do.
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Sorry to be so low-brow, but
I just want to see a giant gorilla beat the crap out of a dinosaur.
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Yes and no
The original King Kong is fair game. Because of the tropical jungle setting, and the events in the story - Kong goes for the white female sacrifice, but not the nubians - there is enough evidence in the movie to justify symbolic interpretation of racial and racist elements, even ones that go as far as to identify Kong with black male sexuality, and how it scares both survivalist and city-folk whiteys.
But Jackson's KK is not fair game for the same criticism. You see. He's making a movie that has never been made before, even though it has already been made. This is his chance as an artist and a dreamer to have freeplay reign over King Kong's widespread cultural significance. And get effin rich in the meanwhile. It is safe to assume that he is aware of the exotic colonial portrait of savage brown people and a huge ape, each from the same strange universe, versus the whites in their urban carinval.
And I didn't get this one: ABB mentioned "society's notion that black men are obsessed with white women and are driven into uncontrollable frenzies by them."
Is there really a notion out there like that? Maybe there wasn't before, but now, since you mentioned, and put that thought in my head, there is.
I've spent the better balance of my days in the South, with many poor blacks and poor whites on the outskirts and inskirts everywhere, yuppy blacks and yuppy whites in the office and on campus, and I've never encountered this perception. It takes going to the ivory tower to encounter percpetions like that.
That a white guy feels more threatened if his woman cheats on him with, or is propositioned by, a black guy, and therefore might be more afraid or vengeful as a consequence of his racism, now that one I can verify from anecdotal experience and the common stereotype. And two sobering words: Emmitt Till.