Opinion: King Kong, Racism, and Twitter drama.

During the past 3 days, something on Twitter has caught the attention of many, the analysis of King Kong (1933) where people have stated that the movie could have certain connotations, specifically about the connection between the movie and the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

There have been countless interpretations of this movie made over 90 years, made by scholars, film historians, fans, or even casual movie watchers.

This now being the center of attention of hundreds of people can give us an insight into what people are thinking and the way they are approaching this subject, which, for me, most people come off as ignorant, too sensitive, or trying to provoke a reaction.

We will discuss this situation in this article where the 280 characters of Twitter and the multiple threads are not a problem.

Origin

The whole situation stems from a post made on October 2nd by the user HMBohemond, who on a Tweet stated that he would not listen to a YouTuber who had previously stated that King Kong could be an allegory for black slavery. Then in the comments, the user AlephandZahir shared a video clip from a video talking about Kaijus made by Overly Sarcastic Productions.

This ignited the whole conversation and currently has 4.7M views.

Image of the Tweet made by AlephandZahir

With this Tweet, the entire internet began to comment on this topic.

Twitter Drama

It is no secret that Twitter is the perfect place to cause drama and anonymity, their ToS and the entire structure of the platform allow this to happen. In the case of the topic at hand, this only started to show certain patterns that will be discussed shortly.

Culture War

One principal aspect of the people who don’t agree with the argument is that it shows a certain political bias. The people I’ve interacted with present certain right-wing views, -not saying that’s wrong or that you’re a bigot for being a Republican- what this creates is a predisposition to defend old media, to protect it from liberals who try to cancel these pieces of art and history for the sake of “improving society.”

I will not argue that protecting media from censuring is a bad thing, I’ve discussed this many times on Twitter and the conversations about “sex scenes are not needed and if they censor them it’s good” come from people with left-leaning views. Still, there’s a difference between trying to protect King Kong (1933) from being censored and removed from streaming sites -like what happened with Gone With The Wind- and protecting the movie from any criticism that could be pointed out.

Refusal to accept

This protection that people give the movie starts to show more as a refusal to accept media in the past could have been influenced by external factors, some of which are sometimes not intended.

This is the main problem with this specific discourse, refusing to listen and label everyone who thinks or makes this theory racist. This issue I’ve now accepted can’t be changed from the minds of certain individuals. Even when you give them the benefit of the doubt they will try and attempt to put words in your mouth.

Me: “I think King Kong could have an unintended racial connotation about slavery but I agree that Cooper never intended this to happen”

Twitter User: “Oh you’re racist and try to impose your views to us, why can’t you enjoy a movie without thinking beyond what’s presented”

It feels like they have already accepted a point of view and the fact that one could present a new idea or point of view is a direct attack on their person, this leads us to a weird dilemma about film analysis.

Analysis dilemma

The thing that is causing the most problems among the people who read my Twitter (X) thread is how they approach the analysis of art and movies.

Interpretations

Let’s take a look at different interpretations of the movie.

• Man vs. Nature: This is the simplest and most textual reading of the movie and aligns with what Merian C. Cooper had intended, to be an adventure movie with nothing else to think about.
• Anti-Colonialism: This is perhaps the most popular, where it implies the movie indicates a rejection of the idea of colonizing parts of the world by Western countries. This is tied to the depictions of the natives and the “exploitation of their resources for the benefit of Americans”
• Exotic Animals Protection: A reading closely related to the previous one is the protection of exotic animals, this is tied to the Komodo story of William Douglas Burden which brought these animals to The Bronx Zoo and died due to their bad living conditions.
• Slavery parallels: Now this is the reading most accepted by scholars, when hearing this theory -if you're acting in bad faith and have already set your mind- one could think “Oh so you’re saying King Kong, the giant ape is a black person” but no, the species of the animal is not necessary to make this parallel although it could give it a deeper meaning too, what this implies is that the fact that “someone was taken from the place they were born and lived, put on chains and a boat, taken to America and displayed as property and entertainment” has parallels to the America Slave Trade.

Now, these theories exist at the same time and they are all valid readings of this movie. How these can’t be valid? If you think that the only one that matters is the one intended by the creator.

Death of The Author

A thing that has been present since the late '60s and early '70s is the theory of Death of The Author, it argues that the meaning of a text is not determined by the author’s intention, but rather by the reader’s interpretation. Now many people on this topic were quick to mention that this is “the same as the red scare” or “It is communism,” there are also people who believe subtext does not mean anything and only what the author said and stated is the final word. This view is shared by users like HMBohemond, I can understand their views -even if they can’t understand mine or even acknowledge that they exist- but I am not here to talk or convince stubborn people.

Refusing to accept any other perspective, just what the author has stated is a logical fallacy, both Intentional and Authority fallacy, and is not made to argue what the text said but what the AUTHORITY has stated as truth.

Now it’s not hard to think of examples where this is not only false but can lead to weird cases.

• A person saying a slur and then defending themselves as “I never meant it in this way”
• Sarcasm not being a thing because it depends on the context and previous ideas not present in the text but by how they are presented.
• A person could be lying, does that even count as a real intent?
• An author changing their views on their material, is the work always stuck to where it was first released?

I for one believe things do not end with the creator’s words and I am not trying to say “If you think the author is all that matters then you’re stupid,” I understand people have different views and I try to incorporate them in my overall perspective of things, but that doesn’t mean you are correct and I’m not and vice versa.

In the case of movies, where nothing is original a director, writer, producer, etc. could have external influences, are we not allowed to discover these by ourselves? Artists are influenced by everything that surrounds us, our background, our relationships, the situation of the country we are in, or the world. Is it bad to imply that War of The Worlds (2005) is about the 9/11 terrorist attacks even when -as far as I know- Steven Spielberg has never accepted this in public?

King Kong influences

Now one of the influences that the movie had during its production was the movie Ingagi, the success of this movie made RKO develop the King Kong project. I doubt the directors ever saw this movie and could be influenced by it in a certain way.

This movie is more racist than King Kong, like egregiously so, and it does have some similar plot details that are related to that movie. “The film claims to show a ritual in which African women are given over to gorillas as sex slaves”

As previously stated this all may have been a coincidence but movies are group effort between hundreds of people so, is it that far-fetched to imply someone could've been influenced by it but never disclosed it?

Examples of things that were not intended as racist but are perceived as such.

Before we finish I will add a couple of advertisement pieces where the intention and the perception or subtext are different.

I for one do not believe people in the advertisement departments of each one of these companies tried to claim racial superiority but more of an ignorance about what they were doing. Perhaps due to not hiring non-white people in these positions or being members of the board this became too ignorant about these problems and overlooked it, it happens sometimes.

This is an important aspect of why hiring a diverse group of people could benefit an area and avoid these mistakes.

Conclusion

To conclude with this essay, I want to add that I for one accept people’s opinions about the movie, no matter how beyond my perception they could be, and I have the right to think people are ignorant when they make no effort on trying to understand this topic.

Fortunately, not everyone is like this and many have understood my point, respectfully disagreed, and even became Twitter mutuals due to this situation. I hope people can understand that not everyone is against them and sometimes, one can disagree or say a movie is racist and still enjoy it, there’s no harm in accepting all truths especially when one does not try to impose their PoV on others.

Medium link: King Kong, racism, and Twitter drama.