Dude, you need a breath mint!
This is so ridiculous, I just had to blog about it. As if I don’t have enough to do. 
Why somebody felt the need to remake King Kong is…strange, but the reviews are even stranger. Everyone reading this knows the story of King Kong, right? No background needed. On with the monkey show. Read these:
- “[Director Peter] Jackson doesn’t deal with 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. But the director has supplied a fatherly black man (Evan Parke) on the crew to look after a teenage misfit (Jamie Bell): See, blacks aren’t all out of place in civilization! Some even take care of whites!” — Slate
- “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.)” — Newsday
- “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. Thus the natives of Skull Island are still ‘primitive’ and debauched, the death count is casually high, the tracer bullets that miss Kong atop the sky needle apparently sail on to pick off members of the Algonquin Round Table quipping over their martinis in the bar and nobody gives a damn or even thinks about it.” — Washington Post
Update (12/16): Kwame McKenzie:
The story feeds into all the colonial hysteria about black hyper-sexuality. This imagery has a long history and is difficult to shift…The story also touches the raw nerve of the Darwin-based association between black men and apes. Though the monkey noises and the discussion about whether Africans are the missing link between apes and humans may be out of the classroom, it still has to be endured by black footballers when they travel to away games.
No comment. Draw your own conclusions.
(Image by Weta Digital Ltd./Universal Studios/Handout/Reuters)
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All I know is I’m as giddy as a little boy. I’m off to see this flick in about 45 minutes! I may have a review on my site tomorrow. That is, if laziness doesn’t continue over my worthless soul!
Well, the Jeff Bridges version was on the other night and the natives did offer 5 black women for one skinny white woman…
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha…
Sometimes an idiotic movie released in 1933 is just that; come up with a new script or add ETs and UFOs to the remake! (By the way, how come King Kong couldn’t climb over a wall on Skull Island, but could climb to the top of the then tallest building in the world?)
I’m sorry, what? King Kong? Racism? What are the people crying racism saying about black people and gorillas? I never even thought about it like that. Jeez! WTG La Shawn for calling them out.
I always understood the story as a narrative of the eternal conflict between the natural world and humankind. I guess interpretations of this film, like reviews of most anything, tell us more about the mindset if the critic than the creator.
La Shawn:
This is truly entertaining stuff - how hysterical some people can be over NOTHING.
But even as a child, seeing the original King Kong movie, I knew they didn’t steal King Kong from some far off land and bring him to the USA like a “slave”.
In fact, the “Natives” of the island were obviously (even to my inexperienced eyes) BLACK AMERICANS.
The reviewers need to chill out, and watch lots of “Family Guy”.
I just don’t like the fact that he always dies in the end. It’s too sad.
He dies?
The movie was amazing. I don’t understand the anger in the critics. I once heard a quote from a psychologist that I fell in love it. I use it fregquently. Here it is:
Sometimes a tree is just a tree.
So sometimes an ape is just an ape and not a metaphor for every bad thing that has ever happened to repressed peoples. These people need to see the movie Crash. It will teach them something about their prejudice. La Shawn, you rock!
The critics are all wrong, what black guy wants a skinny little white girl? Besides OJ?
Anything to make news. Shows me how many people are desperate to make everything racist. Shows how much they depend on such stuff to survive.
Not to play the devil’s advocate or anything, but it really is easy to draw certain parallels from the movie. I can’t completely fault these people for what they think, just for expressing it the way they did.
Do I think that King Kong was written to purposely express these parallels? No. Can I say it definitely wasn’t? No, I can’t. However, I can watch and enjoy the movie by choosing to do so, and not looking for a demon behind every bush. When you look for problems, they’re easy to find.
Come on, La Shawn. I’m as bored with racial hysteria as the next person. But you’ve got to be living in another dimension not to see that the critics are onto something here. The racial subtext of King Kong was certainly considered obvious at the time it was released, back in the vastly more racist climate of the 1930s. To pretend that this wasn’t on the minds of the original filmmakers is to live in a ludicrous state of denial.
Where did I deny anything? What’s ludicrous is people commenting on posts they don’t bother to read. - Admin
Oh, and by the way, I have no interest whatever in seeing the bloody thing. Though my (black) kids will probably drag me to it…
I suspect the critics who see racism and sexism have dirty minds. Their loss and failure of vision.
Well I want to see this movie sink like a brick for no other reason than because I am irked by the continuance of Hollywood pumping out these ginned up remakes in lieu of original material.
Totally tired of the remakes, man.
I am with you most of the time American Zealot.
BUT Kong is different. What Jackson was trying to do is not so much remake the film as Make the film the original people were trying to make. The technology just was’t there to do the movie right. They did a great job with what they had but the tech just wasn’t there. Today it is.
Kong is different than other remakes in that it is trying to reach the same goal as the original. Most remakes are &*(**^$% There is nothing new or different the remake adds NOTHING.
But Kong is different. Because the main character is finally realized. Is finally believable. Peter Jackson is doing homage to the original not trying to replace it. Or update the story for younger generation.
Besides Hollywood didn’t do this. Peter did because he WANTED to and had the money to. Not like the Hollywood remake dombs(*^^$*& at all.
Here’s your opening comment on the thread:
“This is so ridiculous, I just had to blog about it. ”
You you think it’s “ridiculous” to discuss the role of race in King Kong. To my mind it’s not ridiculous at all. Race is an obvious subtext in the original film. Do you not agree? If so, what’s ridiculous about the reviews you cite?
I could not help but laugh at this and shake my head in disgust at my fellow liberals are learn verrry far to the left. If this is true, then I guess King Kong represents majority of the black pro-athletes. Why isn’t anyone writing on the “Coke†Commercial with the polar bears and the penguins? Why does the Polar bear have to be “white†and the penguins have to be “blackâ€? It is steaming with racial overtones! Let’s see, you have the “black” penguins aka black people dancing and singing at the bottom of the hill aka the ghetto and then you have the “white” polar bears aka “white people” stumble upon them from the suburbs and then the music stops which means there is about to be a racial war. Then you have the “black†baby penguin aka black kid offer the “white†polar bear aka white kid a coke. Then everybody starts to party. See, all it takes is a coke and a smile!
Anybody got a dollar?
No no no! We’re all missing it.
This movie represents how the Left (represented by the island natives) are truly in touch with, and understand the “needs” of the blacks (represented by Kong), until Conservatives (the rich white men, because we all know Conservatives are rich, white, and evil, don’t forget evil) come along and “steal” the Black Man’s identity and enslave him!
If only Michael Moore had been available to direct! Well, better to see this beacon of truth than that horrible, conservative Christian propaganda piece about “Narnia”. (/sarcasm off)
@ #21
Sorry dude, I dont buy it.
Get some new material Hollywood, because I won’t pay to see another rehashing.
I am doing my part and writing some stuff of my own but I don’t have the resources yet to make anything on my own accord, so complaining will have to be my contribution for now.
Waiting for the next “Matrix”, ya dig?
So if Kong were a Great White Ape and the love interest turned out to be Halle Berry, would she be “black” enough?
Racism is s-o-o-o-o-o boring when you have to look under rocks to find it.
Okay. So he fell for her. She was fine. Get over it.
I’m just waiting for the day when we look back on today’s typical black entertainers much as we do Steppin’ Fetchit, Amos n Andy etc with disdain. Selling their dignity for a few pieces of silver…
In my eyes, the old-timers were comically funny, there’s nothing funny about Ho’s, Pimpin’ etc as nuthin but sex, slap or smackdown objects
Ciao
Andy
I saw it & I was offended. The clear implication is that the cracker dude lacks the right equipment so the blondeshell has to turn to a big jungle gorilla for satisfaction. Well I’m NOT underequipped & anyone who says so is a damn liar!!
I guess you have to know a bit about Jackson. He’s always liked things that are a bit weird, fantasy type things. (I won’t even tell you about his early pre-LOR movies and I won’t watch them either). He made it simply because he has liked the story since he was a kid. I know that’s hard to believe - but it’s the same sort of reason he made LOR - he was personally really into the book.
Moving right along…
Jackson lives on an island (same one as me but alas he has not invited me round as yet). And er… I did hear crashing and rumbling sounds in the back garden yesterday. Movies are really true sometimes.
the tracer bullets that miss Kong atop the sky needle apparently sail on to pick off members of the Algonquin Round Table quipping over their martinis in the bar and nobody gives a damn or even thinks about it.
I know for a fact that Dorothy Parker was not killed by tracer bullets. And there isn’t any football in King Kong.
(Have to meet these kind of arguments in a robust and equally intelligent manner).
KING KONG vs BIRDZLLA i will bomb him just like the pigeons in central park do SQUARK SQUARK
Hard to deny the racial implications in the original movie.
As for this new version, which I really look forward to seeing, if Peter Jackson cast a black female in the role, would it have mattered? Or a brunette?
What some of the critics seem to forget is that the character most people identify with is King Kong. Leaving race out of it, this is about an impossible love that leads to a bad ending. That’s pretty universal.
I think a lot of people are missing the point here.
Finding a racial subtext in Kong isn’t about being liberal or conservative. It’s not about looking for problems either.
Film has arguably become the most important instrument of artistic expression in the world today. If a film wasn’t full of implicit cultural meaning why would anyone relate to it?
Yeah, King Kong has no racism, Narnia isn’t a Christian allegory, and The Exorcist isn’t about child molestation…..right. I agree that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. But a lot of times it’s a big fat metaphor.
Geez! These comments are a flippin’ freak show themselves!
Duh! Every film contains metaphors representing ideas about “reality”. If there was no connection with reality, you wouldn’t have any frame of reference to understand it. But to see the racism in “King Kong”, you don’t need to imagine Kong as a metaphor. Is it so hard to recognize the grotesque stereotypes of “primitive” blacks, sacrificing a lily white blonde, while beating frenzied jungle rhythms?
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