King Kong

Donkey/King Kong - the miniature monstrosity.

There's a tradition (read: possibly a fib) in my mother's family that Fay Wray is a great aunt or cousin many times removed. My grandmother used to tell me, "That's where you get your blonde hair", a theory that flies in the face of logic and genetics, not least because Fay wasn't even blonde. Regardless, there's a certain mythology about this film which is a bit difficult to understand from a modern perspective. It's a significant stretch to link my blondeness to Fay Wray's through the tenuous connection of a shared family name, but clearly someone in the Australian Wrays was enamoured enough with the film, and with Fay, to insist that there was one. It might not be productive to interrogate King Kong's position as a 'classic' of the classical Hollywood tradition, but the reasons for the film's continuing appeal are an interesting entrance into its style and themes.

I've read other blog entries saying their automatic response watching King Kong was laughter, and I can definitely understand that. Parts of it are so clunky, the dialogue and narrative arcs so contrived, that it's hard to take it seriously. How much this is due to the passage of time and how much to actual flaws in the film is difficult to tell, although I think when watching the Peter Jackson version I rolled my eyes a fair bit as well. The notion of the love-struck beast carrying off the frail maiden just doesn't appeal anymore, and outside of maybe a James Bond I can't think of a recent movie revolving around the kidnapping by ruthless thugs of a dainty lass. Perhaps the St. George and the dragon mythology persists, but we're too cynical these days to accept a simple rescue scenario. If a lass is kidnapped, the most likely explanation will be that she was double-crossing the hero all along. I may be getting sidetracked with modern comparisons but the premise of the film certainly seems to have suffered over time.

The enduring appeal, I believe, lies in the idea of the primitive - not the coconut-bra wearing, grass-skirted, running and screaming 'natives' of the 1933 film, but the lasting sense of pathos and innocence inherent in our (perhaps patronising) notions of pre-modern or untouched civilisations. When Kong crashes through the walls of his enclosure it becomes clear that the structure didn't necessarily serve to keep him in, its best function was keeping the outside world out. Like my Donkey Kong, proudly smashing through the glass walls of his terrarium, intent on spreading terror and regaining his property, he is unaware that he's just a miniature in a world of skyscraping overabundance. Modernity has no respect for the natural, the untouched, but only for spectacle. Even our sense of pathos for Kong's death must be viewed through the lens of cinema, as Denham continues to force his story into the camera's frame by insisting, "It was Beauty that killed the Beast", when clearly Kong has been destroyed by a modern society impatient for spectacle.