Memepark

The studio is pushing Peter Jackson's upcoming "King Kong" movie hard in New York: they've got advertising tie-ins with the lottery, posters all over the subways, and God only knows what kind of crap on TV. And I can't for the life of me figure out what Jackson's going to do with project that won't label him as a shallow, socially clueless film-history geek for the rest of his career.

I've always really liked Jackson's stuff. I remember laughing and groaning with my brothers and my friend Karl after renting "Bad Taste" in grade school; I remember being equally amused and revolted at a screening of "Meet the Feebles" at the Biograph in high school; and I remember being pulled in once again by his grotesque blend of kitsch and scatology in "Heavenly Creatures" in college. After that, I went out and watched "Dead Alive" (loved it), "Forgotten Silver" (was impressed with its cleverness), and "The Frighteners" (wow... Michael J. Fox, huh?). I know that Jackson has had a hard-on forever about remaking King Kong, which he (rightly) credits with revolutionizing filmmaking and special effects, and now that "Lord of the Rings" has given him pull in Hollywood, he's doing it.

But is he really so incapable of separating the social content of a film from its technical achievements? Does he really think the Kong story - a pretty straightforward American morality tale about black-white relations that more or less matches the Klansmen scene from "Birth of a Nation" - deserves to be remade in this day and age? I mean, my take on the story has always been the standard racial-deconstructionist one: A big African gorilla is brought in chains to America, where he leads an uneasy existence entertaining civilized audiences with his stage antics. But if he's dumb enough to introduce a white woman to his Empire State Building (she even feels some misplaced affection for him, the poor naive darling, not understanding his natural savagery), he must be destroyed by the white man's superior mastery of warfare and technology. And his epitaph shall read, "Here lies Kong, the big dumb ape, who tried to ascend to the same heights as the white man and was punished for his hubris."

I don't think it's a far-fetched reading. Here are some choice quotes from the film (courtesy of IMDB):

We'll give him more than chains. He's always been king of his world, but we'll teach him fear.

He was a king and a god in the world he knew, but now he comes to civilization merely a captive - a show to gratify your curiosity.

[Carl Denham wants to capture Kong]
Jack Driscoll: Why, you're crazy. Besides that, he's on a cliff where a whole army couldn't get at him.
Carl Denham: Yeah, if he stays there.
[Looking at Ann Darrow]
Carl Denham: But we've got something he wants.

[Captain translates Native Chief's comments on Ann Darrow]
Captain Englehorn: He says, "Look at the golden woman."
Carl Denham: Yeah, blondes are scarce around here.

Theater Patron 1: Hey, what's this show about, anyway?
Theatre Patron 2: I don't know - they say it's some big gorilla.
Theatre Patron 1: Oh, geez - ain't we got enough of them in New York?

This is a film that celebrates lynching. It revels in the same old Mandingo field-darky-meets-southern-belle taboo sexual fantasy that has fueled so much of America's relationship to race, sex, and violence, and it ends with the same old image of the black brute getting his comeuppance from the knightly defenders of blonde, white female virtue. Regardless of its technical achievements, the cultural subtext is so obvious to a modern viewer that it's hard to watch. I don't think that post-9/11 America needs a new film about white supremacy and the danger of bringing uncivilized non-whites into our cities that culminates in fighter jets being scrambled to defend the tallest building in Manhattan against attack by the swarthy beast. Call me crazy. But then again, maybe that's exactly why it's being hyped so much.

Update: I saw the movie when it was in theaters and posted about it on danah's blog. I was pleasantly surprised.