Is 'King Kong' a Racist Movie???

^^^......as well as calling us monkeys; Because some black people have wider noses and whatnot, which some racists refer to as "ape like" features.

No, I wouldn't look past the "undertones" in any Hollywood movie made nowadays. I mean, I'm not one to look for the negatives in everything, but at the same time, I'll always consider something. Before he even made this thread, I sorta had the idea in my head anyways.

Other than that, I don't really care if it's true or not. Cause either way, there's nothing I can do about it. People that have the money to put together whatever kind of film they enjoy, whether it has racists undertones or not, is going to be produced regardless.

 

think comparing black people to apes and monkey's shows more about our own insecurities about as a race and place in society, than it does about the message the movie is portraying

sometimes, you just gotta learn to look at things for what they are, and not dwelve too deep, since not everything has racial undertones, nor are about the differences in how white people see black people in America, or how black people see white people in America...

i mean, i don't think Peter Jackson, when finding a King Kong, decided to model him after a black man....King Kong was modelled after the gorilla, an animal with black fur

maybe the original had racial undertones, but look at the time the movie is being played out in....1930's or something, so there might be racism, but its not a reflection on the people who made it or those who watch it, but rather, a display of the times, for more realism..
to me this movie is more about man interfering with nature.


now, i haven't seen the movie, but im going to see it this weekend, i just think alot of whats done nowadays is over scrutinised for racism.

 

I have not seen this movie and had the intention of seeing it until i read some of the posts on this site. Now i've changed my mind. I have no interest in seeing it anymore. Reasons are personal.

 

Hollywood has been infamous for remakes ever since there has been popular culture or mainstream media embracing certain interests from the childhood of many as a new fad. The brain power behind a lot of these films isn't exactly Mensa material, or even Hooked on Phonics material for that matter.

The overtones are pretty obvious too, and Mosiah already said it best, however, even overtones can be a coincidence, but keep in mind how subliminal overtones can be.

Pretty much everything that symbolizes what is dark/wicked in religions is associated with the color black, but why should I consider myself something other than black if I am? Makes no sense to do that because of racism...

and, I think I've seen Dub-ya eat a banana or two once, that is, when he wasn't choking on a pretzel or something while watching a Disney movie or whatever. Bananas probably go down easier in him.

I thought it was interesting when I saw the previews, but, overall, the movie doesn't really have a plot or seems worth watching, so I'll pass on it.

 

actually we are not talking about a specific version of king kong or the movie that just came out or peter jackson, we are talking about the concept of King Kong and the portrayal of its human like behavior for the white woman.

i think people read in alot too, but not racially, i think people read into what others are saying but havent read what was actually said.

we are talking about the concept for the original idea for a king kong--big black and after white women, why white women? it seems he could have just destroyed and killed lots of people. why would he fixate on a woman and a blonde beautiful woman?

we have to start thinking critical, thats what university was for

 

Yes, I understand what you were talking about. I was responding to the conversation in my own way, that's all. I am all for critical thinking, as you may already know, bro. :wink:

 

oh i wasnt talking about you, i was talking to everyone in general

 

dude having seen king kong, i completely get where your coming from, but its still a staggeringly brilliant piece of cinema and i recommend to all

 

Well, it wasn't a very good film but then Peter Jackson isn't a very terrific director. It was mostly predictable as hell - I had to go out for 5 minutes during the middle and when I returned to my seat the film was in exactly the place in the plot which I had predicted!! He makes fairly good action movies and does great stuff with special effects, but why do they all have to be so bloody long?!

'King Kong' himself might have been racist in the original version but Jackson has definitely turned the film into looking at Kong as a foreign 'beast', he's not supposed to be human in any way. Especially, I'd say this since people have become so interested this century in looking at gorillas and examining their communication abilities, they are really fascinating creatures. Even Kong's reaction to men with guns is similar to that of gorillas encountered in the wild, and all part of his natural instincts: it's sad that things had to end the way they did, but it is all showing how men have to encounter other animals in a hostile way.

The bit with the tribe at the start though is racist and naive in the extreme for Jackson to shoot it that way - I was pretty angry watching that, because the film makes repeated reference to Joseph Conrad and other colonialist 'boys' writers' but without any sense of the fact that views in these type of books, and views about tribes around the world have progressed so far, and it's just not acceptable to paint a contrast in that way in 2005, when the cinema world itself is dominated by images of the developed world and very little representation of 'anywhere else'. That is certainly what the critics would have taken issue with, and it is important.

As for the Jungle Book point, sorry but the critic of that was also probably right: Kipling himself was a white imperialist writer and the period in which the original film was made was suffused with subconscious racial assumptions deriving from America, so all of the stuff about Baloo as a 'black man' is spot on, from the book and the movie.