As a boy King Kong was my favorite movie. As an adult I have been told that it was a racist attack on African Americans, which I have always found odd, as I identified with the black Indonesian ‘natives’ in the film more closely than the New Yorkers [particularly the unsympathetically portrayed press], and I never equated apes with blacks. I do think it is time we make a white King Kong movie, perhaps with a Jennifer Hudson held in his pale clutches as he scales a skyscraper in Singapore…
The most fascinating item, which I do not recall from my childhood viewings or from the two sequels, is the following Arab Proverb that is presented on a scroll before the movie:
And the Prophet said:
And lo, the Beast looked upon the face of Beauty, and it stayed its hand from killing, and from that day, it was as one dead.”
On the surface King Kong is a big budget version of the period’s obsession with lost world themes and frightening monsters. Kong’s improbable life is one of constant battle as he fights every prehistoric reptile a model could be made of. I do like that the nonwhites in the movie were portrayed as brave, intelligent, and not as stupid as the whites. My favorite character was Charlie the Chinaman, the cook who had the best supporting actor line, “Crazy black man been here!”
The subtext is of real interest, and is enduring, beyond the romantic ‘beauty and beast’ theme. The exchange between the captain and the film director Carl Denham, who is portrayed as a conniving, capitalist pig who is only redeemed by his physical bravery—is the core of the subtext, and is permitted to emerge in a heavy handed but classic fashion. As they stand over King Kong, fallen victim to their high tech weapons on the beach of his island realm discussing his transport and exploitation, they give voice to lines that might have been spoken a decade later by Stalin and Roosevelt at Yalta in regards to the world of mankind that lay prostrate at their feet.
Captain: “No chains will hold that.”
Denham: “We’ll give him more than chains. We’ll teach him fear!”
And what was the means by which the manipulative Denham brought low the last primal beast to walk a fanciful earth?
“The Golden Woman.”
If you have not viewed the original King Kong since childhood, you ought to give it a try.
