However, thankfully kids don’t give a fuck about those things. When I was small, “King Kong” was cool because he could beat up dinosaurs, climb the tallest building in the world, AND be nice to a beautiful girl. All the race/class stuff filled my head later on, and I’m aware of the existence of such beliefs.

My niece was only 3 when we were flipping channels and settled on the original b/w version of “Kong” on cable. She was glued to that TV like we were watching Spongebob or something like that. I doubt she saw the allegorical messages– she was hypnotized by Ray Harryhausen’s special effects.

And, if she grows up and tells me one day that “King Kong” is racist, well… I’ll be just as impressed as that day whe I saw her surrender to the magic of classic cinema.

btw: I love Peter Jackson’s remake. I saw it over the weekend. I highly recommend it.

If any of you want to explore them deeper, don’t get put off by the 404 they have on the links to the questions and concepts. If you click on the “download” link you’ll get an 87 page pdf that fleshes out the idea. It’s intended for k-12 teachers, so it’s got some pretty awful pedagogue-speak, but if you can get past it there are a lot of useful ways of raising these questions.

Oh, and I hate film theory.

Yeah I agree. There’s a part of me that really thinks its important for people to sit up and really look at what they’re being immersed in culturally. But there’s another part of me that is really starting to not give a shit anymore myself. Analyzed/interpreted meaning for me is becoming kind of a mindfuck thats too easy to get lost in - another trap for your mind possibly as dangerous as whatever they originally intended it to mean, maybe even moreso. I don’t know.

I think that’s essentially the point of that reading of the story. Namely, that the power of the black male, no matter how great, is ultimately “contained” in the end.

But see, here’s the deal. If you end a story so that the protagonist or the forces of good or whoever we identify with end up dying unjustly, you create a cognitive dissonance which might impel action on the audience. Now, that’s not the be-all and end-all, many other considerations exist, but I think in isolation, if you “read” the film in a contrarian way and cheer for the guy who gets killed, you’ll leave a little disturbed–which is good. Walk out of a theatre upset, and suddenly, the once-familar light of the starbucks sign looks like the sign of opression.

E.g., FX (a Fox channel!) had a made-for-TV movie where some Muslim terrorists hijack a nuclear plant. The SWAT team rushes in, all but one gets killed, he plays First-Person-Shooter/Sneaker drama for a while, then gets pinned down by a terrorist who goes turncoat and helps him defuse the bombs, get out safely, etc. By the end, you’re cheering for the Lone Cop and his “Not Gonna Decimate Anything Today” Humanitarian Muslim buddy… but then the backup shows up. Our Lone Cop then takes the turncoat “hostage” in order to protect him and avoid “hero” status–then a police sniper kills the turncoat while he’s being led at gunpoint. It’s very jarring, to say the least, and it was very clear that the director intended that effect and operated from that theory.

Oh, and I hate film theory. I can only watch B-movies & horror movies anymore, really, just because they’re easier to see through. Less engrossing & less psychically taxing.

If you want to read Kong as some kind of metaphor for black people, he could also be read as a symbol of black empowerment (albeit one ultimately brought down by The Man)

I think that’s essentially the point of that reading of the story. Namely, that the power of the black male, no matter how great, is ultimately “contained” in the end.

It fits in with my view that, in a certain sense, time is cyclical and the Atlantis myths are a remembrance of a common past and future (and now present, i.e. an immense global technological empire that consumes itself).

http://ranprieur.com/essays/JRRT.html

It’s not a bloody black thing.

The point is, if you were black and an American, you might think otherwise. Whether or not any of our viewpoints are 100% right or exclusive to the truth, I think its important to recognize that other people view the same piece very differently and with good reason. And part of the power than any truly relevant story has culturally is that its able to fill the fantasies and fears of any number of groups at once.

to me it`s never an accident that a coke bottle is in the fridge in a movie or a specific new car is driven by the hero or that a specific point of view is taken by a character.

Well, that’s not just you. There are agencies whose sole business is to read through movie and tv scripts and find opportunities for product placement.