• BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    King Kong was about the evils of colonialism

    I've never heard this interpretation of King Kong, can you elaborate?

    • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Kong represents the slave trade, and is exploited by the white people and revolts. He's the hero of the film and the people who kidnap and abuse him are the bad guys.

      It's not super coherent, but it's definitely at least marginally anti-colonial.

        • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          4 years ago

          Kong is the hero, and Kong is meant to represent slavery and breaking free of the chains of colonial oppression. The trade itself would be the white guys who put him in a cage and brought him to New York.

          It's not a perfect analogy, but the film is definitely sympathetic to Kong and his struggle with being imprisoned and shipped across an ocean by white people.

          It's not like 1:1, but the movie gets people to feel bad about Kong being chained up and get them mad at the people who did it. The idea is that you leave the theater and think "why the fuck am I concerned about a clay monkey being chained and not the 13 million people that actually were chained".

            • invalidusernamelol [he/him]
              ·
              4 years ago

              I added an edit that tries to clear it up, but basically yeah. It gets you to sympathize with slavery by subverting it and not letting you get your defenses up first. The absurdity is that people would be upset about a claymation monkey being chained then go out and be racist to people who's ancestors actually were.