"World of Science Fiction" 2006 03 Issue Classic Sci-Fi Interpretation (10): The white shadow of the black "King Kong"
plus some notes of my own. Please ignore the paragraphs in "()".
The 1933 horror/disaster film "King Kong" caused a sensation in the world. It was not only a milestone in film history, but was listed as one of the 50 greatest films by the American Film Institute. Although it is not the first monster movie, it is the grandfather of all monster movies. (Lecture focuses on the cultural implication behind the film and the film production technology of the time.)
People of different ages have different interpretations of the elements in the film. Psychologists believe that people's preference for horror/disaster movies stems from the original human fear and social anxiety. In 1933, "King Kong" was a huge success. Many people thought it was a huge interest in people's "escape from reality" mentality during the Great Depression. Facing the behemoth that oppresses the city, the city people would rather exchange a ticket for a kind of imagination of city destruction and be fortunate that they are at least alive in the world, so "King Kong" in 1933 provided is A thrilling escape game that releases survival anxiety. However, the later the film came, the less the audience felt that King Kong was scary. At the end of the climax scene King Kong fell from the Empire State Building, many people cried sympathetically; the dead King Kong is no longer a scary monster, but a pitiful one. Something out. This is a bit beyond the general horror/disaster film pattern, making "King Kong" something other than romance films or literary films.
King Kong cannot escape death. It is generally believed that the human greed represented by Durham actually led to King Kong's tragic death. The curious producer failed to make an adventure film, so he subdued King Kong with gas bombs from unknown sources and transported it back to New York City during the Great Depression for a live exhibition to realize the dream of a millionaire, because King Kong was "Things worth more than all the movies in the world combined." Without Durham's crazy greed, King Kong would not be caught in New York. It was human will that killed King Kong.
Another argument is that the city killed King Kong, and civilization killed King Kong. (Modernist primitivism) As Durham said in his pretentious opening remarks when he exhibited King Kong on Broadway, “In his world he is a king, but in the civilized world he is just a prisoner, a grand performance that satisfies our curiosity.” Jungle The king no longer has the power of a king, and can only wait for the inevitable end of civilization's shooting and falling into the abyss of the city. The movie here can be said to show the conquest of "modern" over "primitive" and "civilized" over "barbaric". In today's environmentalist vocabulary, the death of "King Kong" means the conquest and unbridled destruction of nature by mankind.
Director Durham and a group of white crew members came to Skull Island and saw the indigenous blacks performing a ceremony. They showed the excitement and greed of finding prey. They showed no respect for the indigenous people. They secretly turned the camera to take pictures of "My God." What a spectacular show". For these white people, the sacred rituals, worship, and celebrations in any other culture are nothing more than a Broadway song and dance show. The degree of sacredness is only measured by the box office. What's more, these indigenous people are nothing more than superstitious witchcraft offerings. Sacrifice rituals, these things are completely despised by Western science and orthodox religions! They came to a remote Skull Island to secretly shoot a movie, and when they were discovered by the natives, they claimed that they came to "make friends"; what did they bring to make friends? Camera, rifle, gas bomb. When he had to retreat from the natives, Durham's crooked hat, trouser pockets, and whistling rogue appearances were really a fascinating portrayal of colonists and predators. What is the reason why Director Durham asked the captain to go ashore with him? "Go talk to those birds". "What if they don't like you to take pictures of them?" "Then you understand why I brought a few boxes of bombs?" They know that the power of guns and bombs can solve the problems that indigenous people can't solve with superstition and strong gates. . They have reason to despise indigenous peoples as barbaric, ignorant and backward.
From the discovery of geography to the end of the 1930s, every reachable place in the world was covered by the footprints of Western explorers, and the footprints of colonists followed. If they are only exploring the boundaries of knowledge, looking for only adventurous experiences, and only bringing back strange souvenirs and images of all kinds of weird primitive lifestyles, that's all. I even brought home only spice ivory, gold and silver, jewels and diamonds, (Dunhuang frescoes, Western Zhou bronzes)... that's all. Or what white people despise is just a handful of natives on a small equatorial island in the distance. But they sold black slaves from Africa to Europe and the United States. So we suddenly talked about white racism, talked about a sensitive nerve of Americans. (Racism)
The racism in "King Kong" cannot tolerate King Kong. In the United States, it is not an explosive new statement that blacks feel the signals of racial discrimination from "King Kong". The fact is that after the release of "King Kong" in 1933, black people rallied to protest against the consciousness of racism lurking in the film. The black indigenous chief wanted to exchange six of his own women for the blond heroine Ann, but the business failed, and finally took the risk of kidnapping her; that is to say, in the eyes of the indigenous black, white blonde women are more than six black women. Value, will please King Kong. It is not surprising that King Kong was very interested in this blond and blue-eyed bride who was dedicated to him, carefully regarded as a treasure, and sacrificed his life to protect and possess. Because white is good.
White American racists have consistently portrayed black people as inferior races or animals such as apes and orangutans. The notion that blacks and gorillas are close relatives of the jungle has long existed in Europe. Europeans display blacks as strange animals. There is also a history of the incident, which is not much different from the Broadway exhibition King Kong. Popular comics that have been popular in the United States so far depict black people as apes are still quite marketable. "King Kong" is rather the best example of this image. Therefore, the process of King Kong's arrival in the United States can be regarded as the section of the United States trafficking in slaves. Metaphor of dark history. At the end of the movie, when the Durham gang finally put the tied King Kong on the Broadway stage, and people were whispering about the eighth wonder of the world that they were about to see, a woman heard that she was going to see a gorilla, and she said disdainfully , "Oh, aren't there enough gorillas in New York?" This of course refers to the large number of blacks in New York. At the beginning of the film, Durham was rejected by all agents in order to find a beautiful actress to go on an adventure with him, because people don’t know what danger this adventure means to an actress. Durham replied: “In this city , I don’t know how many women will be in greater danger tonight.” This sentence, we may hear today only refer to the chaotic public order in New York during the Great Depression. But for American audiences in 1933, this sentence reminded the nationwide sensation of the "Scottsboro Boys" case. Nine black youths were accused of gang-raping two white women. This line of Durham was used by white Americans. The fear association stimulated in the collective consciousness will undoubtedly quickly transfer and lurking under the dark skin of King Kong. As Dereham declared, the purpose of filming on this expedition was to find out this "monster that white people have never seen, not humans or beasts." Can you say that the King Kong inside and outside the painting is exclusively for white people. What about? Since southern blacks flooded into northern factories to sell their blood and sweat, since the Great Depression caused many whites to lose their jobs, and since the city was made so insecure by niggas, they had to carry out the "Washington Hunger March" (December 1931) ), then it is probably not an exaggeration to let the black king gorilla who robbed us of our blond, blue-eyed and thin beauties be shot by a machine gun, and to be crushed to pieces in a magnificent, high ground, and magnificent manner, ha ha. Ha ha. Therefore, the Black King Kong of Skull Island must die on Manhattan Island.
If we add a correction to say that this white racism that killed King Kong is based on the imagination and fear of the strong sexual desire of blacks as its specific content, some people will probably say that it is an over-interpretation. However, this is the core of the whole movie. There is a scene in the film that was cut after the film censorship system was implemented, and was restored in the 1980s. After King Kong fell to the death of the large snake-like lizard in his cave, he walked to the height of the cave, facing the sea and the sea. At the sunset, he thumped his chest like a declaration, and then walked towards the beauty. At this time, the beauty Ann Delu, who had been screaming, fainted with fright. King Kong sat down, grabbed the fainted Ann with one hand, and gently tore off her thin sand dress with the other hand, one by one, looking at the beauty's face and body, while curiously looking at the torn piece of cloth. At this moment, An Su woke up and began to struggle and scream again. King Kong fiddled with her body with thick and thick black fingers, and put her fingers in front of her nose to smell it. The wings of her nose were flapped one by one. Film historian Robert Bullock commented on this segment and said, “Even if Freud never existed, it was necessary to invent him because of "King Kong"." Just imagine that the weak woman An did not face the horror of monsters and death. She passed out, but after King Kong declared to the world that she had absolute ownership of beautiful women, she passed out: What could be more terrifying to her than death? The movie didn't say it, but it stimulated the audience's imagination. (The hand in the hairy paw)
At the beginning of the film, director Durham wanted to find an actress as a "love point of interest" in order to "get double the box office", even if he had to marry her for this, he had to find the actress. When the first officer Jack found out about Ann, he said impatiently, "Women can only cause trouble on the boat." When Durham found out that he liked Ann, he warned him that "no romance scandal on the boat is enough trouble." A powerful beast will immediately soften when it encounters a beautiful face." These scenes undoubtedly predicted the direction of another, more powerful beast slumped in front of a beautiful face. In fact, the role of Ann in "King Kong" can be said to kill two birds with one stone. It is both a criticism and a use of Hollywood's pornographic strategy. It is more than just a "love point of interest". Her endless twists in King Kong's hands are not so much. Acting horror is worse than showing sexy. King Kong, as a non-carnivore gorilla, developed a fetish-like stubborn possessiveness towards a blonde beauty, and he did not hesitate to fight hard with many carnivorous beasts that rob her of beauty. （The value of the woman(Ann) is in order to draw the gaze of the active male(not only on Kong, but also on the Romantic male). She is there as spectacle within the narrative as the erotic object for the male gaze and spectator. Woman use to complicate the male, makes them look heroic.)
From Freud's point of view, it is civilized society that suppresses people, and natural desires are chained and bound; when this natural desire breaks through the suppression of social norms, it will become a powerful force that destroys civilization. The King Kong bombed by a gas bomb undoubtedly symbolizes the low-level and animal instincts of people suppressed by civilization; King Kong, who crawls outside the window of the building and peers into the white women in his sleep, is the image of this natural instinct in the nightmare; but The flash of the camera stimulated King Kong, thinking it was a bomb attacking his beloved baby, so the nightmare became a reality and King Kong broke free from the strong chains. The violent King Kong looked everywhere for peace, which is exactly what the American whites feared and imagined for blacks: strong, cruel, stupid, and sometimes gentle, but the lust for white women is unstoppable. The huge destructive power of primitive "evil" in human nature was transferred to the blacks through the gorilla, King Kong. This is why they had to double the death of King Kong. What King Kong destroys is not the abstract civilization of human society, but the concrete civilization of the white American society. Black film critics pointed out very early that King Kong movies played an absolute role in promoting the "sexual demonization" of black men.
When studying the historical-social-economic factors that stimulate this imagination, scholars believe that in addition to the historical reasons that Christian tradition equates black with moral depravity and evil, and white with purity and nobility, whites feel that blacks are in employment. The competition on the Internet threatened their status as the guarantors of family economic security, prompting the whites to defend the "dignity of men" and confront the imaginary "cruel niggers" as white female protectors. Protecting white women from being violated by blacks was once one of the main tasks of white racism to save "white civilization". It is also the source of hysteria that white women fear blacks and feel humiliated even if they are looked at. A large number of false accusations of sexual assault against blacks have come from this. This coding method that converts economic threats into sexual threats is the basic mechanism of film racism. Therefore, the fear of the Great Depression reflected in the scenes of crazy destruction of a blond woman like a chicken in the streets of Manhattan. It should be said that it is the fear of white people in the mainstream world. They feel that their status as a protector of women is shaky in front of a large number of black immigrants from the south. Killing King Kong can enable white men to regain male confidence; white civilization not only conquered a nigger, but more importantly, won back the blond woman who belonged to him. In the movie, when the broadcaster said King Kong had climbed the Empire State Building, the always confident and arrogant adventurer Karl Delemu shook his head discouragedly for the first time and said, "We can't do anything." At this time, it was Jack-a beautiful woman. Ann's legal (=white) fiance, came up with a strategy of attacking with a plane (another male symbol!), and finally rescued this "love point of interest" again. In other words, the whites finally defeated the blacks. No wonder the title of "King Kong" was changed to "King Kong and the White Woman" in Germany.
The scene of King Kong climbing and falling from the Empire State Building may be the only scene in the film where King Kong no longer looks huge; not only is it not big, but against the backdrop of the "majestic and solemn" Empire State Building, the dark shadow of King Kong looks so much. Small and insignificant, it is reminiscent of idioms such as "An worm shakes a tree" and "Many arm blocks a car". This is exactly the semantics that King Kong wanted to convey in the scene of King Kong climbing the Empire State Building. It can be said that the movie "King Kong", like the Empire State Building itself, is a fable about the indestructibility of the American Empire.
But after all, the old "King Kong" is a fascinating story. The narrative is simple and smooth, the special effects are subtle and realistic, and the narrative attitude without clear praise and criticism makes this clever movie widely accepted with seemingly simple truths. Regarding the popularity and enduring charm of "King Kong", the late famous film critic Pauline Kyle of "The New Yorker" once wrote: "White people sometimes say that King Kong carries racial shame, but my black friends do I have always liked King Kong, and imagined it as a gorilla-guerrilla in their own urban jungle: ruled in their own territory, was brought to the United States with a chain, but was powerful and could be sent to the sky at the highest point of the city. The roar of resistance splashed a glorious place where it fell."
(Popular in foreign markets because strongly visual, universal storytelling & the emotional "winner" was the monster who violently challenges the intensions of the arrogant American explorer/entrepreneur)
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