What I found fascinating about the reading and screening of King Kong was the way that it appeared to be an artificial myth, created explicitly to show the horrors of imperialism and the manner in which American society was guilty of treating blacks like animals. The film was of course rife with allusions to this, to the point of redundancy. The text on the film pointed out many of the mythological elements to the story (king kong being displayed similarly to a slave at an auction, the racist portrayal of the natives), but in addition to this I found the appearance of King Kong to actually resemble one of the stereotypical cartoon portrayals of African Americans at the time.
Taken in this context, the film would appear to be clearly against racism. However, since it was made in a racist time period, it seems that it is either inadvertently using this imagery, or at just intending to create a racist piece of propaganda. Applying this example to the concept of myth, it seems that without the historical context of the civil rights movement, the myth is instead based on racist preconceptions, and serves to subconsciously reinforce them. Had the same film been made in modern times, the myth would be quite the opposite, making a mockery of previously held notions.
Perhaps the movie was actually intended to further the status of Blacks, to make America realize its own fallacy, but I am inclined to think that it just seems that way from a contemporary viewpoint.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment