Revisiting King Kong

My wife and I saw King Kong this evening, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The cinematography is outstanding, and Jackson's re-telling of the classic story is touching and powerful. One cannot help but leave the theatre wondering who the film's real monster is. It's well worth seeing.

"Coffee Grounds," a blog I follow, recently discussed an article written by James Pinkerton that asked, "Is King Kong Racist?" Pinkerton wrote:

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.com, 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."

The article is worth reading, though I suspect Pinkerton may have seen more than is actually there. At the end of his post, the writer of "Coffee Grounds" noted:

I know, I know, the ape-black man connection, but I saw a large ape and thought that's meant to be a large ape. A little exploring with Google found very little discussion of racism and King Kong from New Zealand, suggesting perhaps that this is a peculiarly American view of the film, and maybe also that the racial politics you see in King Kong reflect the racial politics you bring to it.

I agree with the latter observation whole-heartedly. We cannot help but see a text (in this case a film) through the filters our personal (and cultural) experiences have forged for us. Though not peculiar to America, racism is an issue Americans are destined to bring with them to the film.