On Dec 15, 2005, at 1:29 PM, Jacob Gelles wrote: > <http://drudgereport.com/flash6.htm>http://drudgereport.com/flash6.htm > > > COLUMN: IS 'KING KONG' RACIST? > Thu Dec 15 2005 08:59:16 ET > > Is KING KONG racist? asks Jim Pinkerton in his Thursday NEWSDAY > column. > > "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?" > > Pinkerton writes: 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, 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.
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