Does the King Kong movie have racist overtones? (page 6)

stillAwitness

Dear enlighten,

I'm black myself and what's funny is I was at another forum (for african americans) and this guy had posted a topic just like yours about the King King movie having racial undertones in it. I laughed at the thought thinking it was just another 'angry black man" trying to blame "the system" Ya'll know how ya'll do sometimes.

Anyway now I think I am gonna have to see the movie myself and see what all the fuss is about.

And hey! Who spoiled the ending letting us know he died at the end?? NO FAIR!

G Money

Ok White America, just admit it. You are the reason the black man has been kept down. You put racist stuff hidden in movies.

I know why you did it, you were sad that you and the CIA's selling of crack to the inner city didn't destroy the black man. Then you financed 50 cent and the rappers and their gangland style. Still the black man survived. Now you resort to the thinly veiled racism in King Kong? Shame on you white people. We know you were behind the MLK assasination as well as Biggie and Tupac.

Come clean now for your sins. Go to the elders and say you've been guilty of being "the man." It is you that have kept them down. If it wasn't for you, White America, the black man would be ruling the world right now and White America would be smoking crack and listening to Vanilla Ice in the hood whilst drinking a cool 40 ounze bottle of King Cobra.

mkr32208

http://www.primates.com/chimps/chimpanzee-info.html

Chimp link...

mrsjones5

Wow that was a good read. I just looooooove it when non blacks talk about us ~~poor~~ black folks (lol yeah right). Makes me feel loved.

Josie ~ watching the fray behind the safety of my computer in the mostly white suburbs of Indianapolis

funkyderek

mrsjones5:

Wow that was a good read. I just looooooove it when non blacks talk about us ~~poor~~ black folks (lol yeah right). Makes me feel loved

Hmm, Spectrum objects to almost any portrayal of black people on film. It sounds like you object to even being talked about. Could you expand on your above statement please.

mrsjones5

Expand what? I meant exactly what I said. I dont really object but I do find it funny.

Josie

VM44

King Kong Based on True Story (Sort of) http://www.ufodigest.com/kingkong.html The idea for all the movies about King Kong are based loosely on the exploits of William Douglas Burden, a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History. He went searching for and brought back several Komodo dragons. It was his search and capture and the eventual fate of these creatures that inspired the story of King Kong! Dirk

King Kong Based on True Story (sort of)

by Dirk Vander Ploeg

Ann (Naomi Watts) is caught between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and Kong (performed by Andy Serkis) in Universal Pictures' King Kong - 2005

"Elements of the 1933 Kong movie are based on the 1926 real-life expedition of William Douglas Burden, a trustee of the American Museum of Natural History," says Gregg Mitman, a professor of the history of science and medical history at UW-Madison and an expert on how animals are portrayed in popular culture.

I don't know if he was a real adventurer or not, but he did what no one had done before. Captured a mythical creature thought only to exist in superstition and fairy tales.

"Burden traveled to Indonesia to film and capture the Komodo dragon, which he thought was the closest living relative of dinosaurs," he says. "When Burden brought back two live Komodo specimens and housed them in captivity in the Bronx Zoo, they died. Meridan Cooper, producer of the 1933 film version of Kong, wrote at the time, 'I immediately thought of doing the same thing with a giant gorilla.'"

Correspondence indicated that Burden attributed the Komodo dragon's death to modern civilization. "This is why Cooper chose the Empire State Building and modern airplanes to kill off Kong. They were fitting symbols of civilization and the machine age that many feared were destroying nature," stated Mitman.

The film's enduring appeal could be based on our endless hope for happiness, which in this case is the opportunity for love between the beauty and the beast. It is this unrequited love that makes the story believable and so very human. The tale begins on an island paradise - unspoiled by modern man. The current movie builds on the 1976 version and the 1933 classic original. Kong is reminiscent of the restorative properties of nature in all its glory.

Watch the trailer of

King Kong 2005.

"The explorers believed that through hunting, with the camera or the gun in remote regions of the earth, following in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, that their own manhood, threatened by material comfort and moral complacency, could be restored," Mitman adds. "In the wilds of nature, the trappings of civilization might be shed, one's character laid bare and a more authentic self found."

William Douglas Burden described his first encounter with the Komodo Dragon like this: Behold the Living Dragon, the Komodo Dragon. Living on a tiny island called Komodo, the ancestors of these giant lizards were walking the earth in prehistoric times as long as 40 - 60 million years ago. While they can not fly or breathe fire, Komodo Dragons can grow up to ten feet long and weigh as much as four hundred pounds. Armed with razor sharp teeth, the real-life dragon is capable of swallowing up to 80% of its own body weight in one meal. Read on to learn more about the Komodo Dragon.

"[He] approached step by step, the great bulk of his body held clear of the ground...the black beady eyes flashing in their deep sockets... A hoary customer, black as dead lava... Occasionally, he stopped and raised himself on those iron forelegs to look around. ...

Nearer he came and nearer... with grim head swinging heavily from side to side. I remembered all the fantastic stories I had heard of these creatures attacking both men and horses, and was in no way reassured. Now listening to the short hissing that came like a gust of evil wind, and observing the action of that darting, snake-like tongue, that seemed to sense the very fear that held me, I was affected in a manner not easy to relate. ...

The creature was now less than five yards away, and its subtle reptilian smell was in my nostrils. Too late to leap from hiding-if I did, he would surely spring upon me, rendering me and devouring my remains as he had devoured the dead deer. Better to take my chances where I lay, so I closed my eyes and waited."

William Burden definately was not a coward and reminds me of those daring explorers and adverturers such as H. Rider Haggard’s hero Allan Quartermain of King Solomon's Mines.

Source material based in part on articles found at wisc.edu and madison.com.

Lo-ru-hamah

I didn't get to see the entire film but being a white female I didn't really get any racial overtones in the film. But as I said I am white and it is difficult to understand what other races have to see and how they are treated. I just have to say, though, that I thought that the first mate, the black actor was absolutley gorgeous. In fact he was the best looking person in the entire film.

Loruhamah

Omar S.

I have to say this.... Why do blacks NOW complain about racism. They call racism when a white person offends a black person, but when a black person offends another race, it's just "funny". I know everybody has their own experiences with different races, here is my experience with black people.

First of all, I'm Mexican. I went to a dominant black high school. The first day I just told myself I would just mind my own business. The first day wasn't so good since I got "jumped" by five of my fellow black students. I sucked it up and had patience for two years till I graduated. In that time I heard so many racist slurs coming from the black students towards me. I just wondered that was ironic. The last people I thought I would face racism, since their people have been there. They always complained about how the white people were racist and that they tried to keep them down, and here they were treating me as lower than them, I swear it was the same students that were stereotyping me. I remember that in English class they spent the whole class talking about how stupid white people were. I wanted to say something but I wouln't have survived the rest of the year.

Now, I don't have any problems with people stereotyping me because those people don't know me, I choose the people that show my true self to. In fact, yes it's a fact, most of the steretypes are true, not in all the people but most of it, there's a reason why it's a stereotype.

The point is that there are a majority of (black) people that crie "racist!" but they are racist themselves as well.

I do not hold a grudge againts black people, I did make three real good black friends that were not part of the stereotype that was in that school.

STEREOTYPES EXIST FOR A REASON. The key is to know not everybody fits a stereotype, and BE TOLERANT.

jula71

Racist?? IT'S A MOVIE!! People like to complain and point fingers. If King Kong was a blond monkey and the woman was black, the same people would say the ape is harassing a minority woman, another example of the "man" keeping her down. Sometimes you can't make anybody happy...... Can't we all just get along?!?!?!

Does the King Kong movie have racist overtones?

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