Review of King Kong (1933) by Jake C — 23 Jan 2019

Undeniably an historically important and viscerally entertaining jungle adventure flick, the special effects that make KING KONG the beast of a blockbuster that it is still impress today, and once the movie gives the King the reins, and so gives up on the paltry human stories and stiff performances, the cinematic thrills never let up. Audiences at the time, of course, had never seen anything quite like Kong before, and no doubt the exoticness of the film---from its bleeding edge special effects to its depiction of unfamiliar creatures and peoples---is one reason the film so resonated with viewers, exciting and terrifying in equal measure. Yet despite the archetypal simplicity of the story and shallowness of its characters that make it such undemanding popcorn fair, Kong is in truth a rather complicated figure, an amalgamation of alterity and metonym for the foreign---no doubt one reason audiences then and now still are enthralled by the movie.

From something of a Lacanian perspective, Kong is a legion of Others. On the level of the Imaginary, a brutish monster uncannily (and so nightmarishly) similar to us. In terms of the Symbolic, a deeply racist allegory for wanton African savages invading modern society and threatening white matrimony. As a matter of the Real, an achievement of and synecdoche for modern technology, like a furry Frankenstein's monster. Even beyond Kong, otherness throughout is treated as a horrifying thing deserving of disciplinary violence, from the alien islanders to the film's abject misogyny, which simultaneously places (the wonderful) Fay Wray in peril, only to blame her for her own victimhood. Like BIRTH OF A NATION before it, I can't help but think that one reason for this movie's enormous success was its fundamental intolerance; yet unlike the former film, one reason for KONG's lasting impact is that the film, thanks to its special effects, learned how to hide its seams and themes, sublimating its bigotry so that audiences enjoy the rush without the guilt.