The Myth of Kong
I’m totally grossed out by the King Kong story. This’ll sound like a feminist tirade even though I don’t identify myself as a feminist (much to my best friend’s dismay). I’m a bit irked by Hollywood’s insistence that
1) women are open to falling in love with non-humans, and
2) abducted women are likely to fall in love with their captors
You may argue that Ann Darrow (the character Naomi Watts portrays in Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of the film) doesn’t fall in love with the giant ape, but I think one could make a good case that she at least loves him if she's not in love with him. (Yuck.)
True, Darrow doesn’t ever make an admission of love and she, obviously, doesn’t attempt anything sexual, but come on, the way she looks into Kong’s eyes and coos over him is suspect, and icky. The pair has been sexualized in popular culture (as you can see from the image posted above that I found on web).
Now for some generalizations -- and I’m just thinking aloud here so run with me. Since men are writing stories like King Kong is seems to me these authors are working out a male fantasy: that a woman can fall under the charms of even the ugliest, meanest, most inconsiderate -- and, yes, even non-human -- “guys.” I think men like this idea; it certainly works out in their favor.
Here we get into the old cultural anthropological debate about the functions of marriage. In exchange for providing financial and physical protection for a wife and children, a husband gets sexual access and a helpmate in his wife. The wife, in exchange for being a sex partner and helpmate gets protection and some financial security. This is the gist of the unspoken marriage contract in western societies.
Despite what literature and Hollywood tell us, however, the vast majority of us women are not swept off our feet by anyone who or anything that protects us. Shocking as this may be, we (mentally healthy) women aren’t wooed by being abducted, held against our wills, and made to live in frightening and unstable circumstances, no matter how much protection a guy or ape provides for us or how sweet he can sometimes be.
I know Kong’s story is all just fiction, but it definitely reflects some of our culture’s gender assumptions.
posted by MW at Wednesday, December 28, 2005
2 Comments:
LOL! As a romance writer I HATE it when the story line involves abductions, or worse something like, "Oh no, I'm in love with the pirate who raped me." It's in poor taste and gives the entire genre, (and women for that matter), a bad name.
You have a great blog, BTW!!
One of the big problems with the whole concept of Kong is that we are to bond with the idea of the Alpha male.
Which makes one wonder, if we are supposed to have evolved, and be as intellectual as possible, why should it be that the chest pounding Alpha gets the most screen time, and the wordy Jack Driscoll gets the least, and we keep trying to give him a gun and a rescue mission?
We like to slavering monkey because it is the lowest common denominator, but we root for Driscoll because we know the monkey can't stay around forever.
Of course me, I like to land somewhere in the middle and cut Ann Darrow out entirely and go with Jack Denham, smart, and ape-like. As for sexualizing the concept, you can't stop people from putting sex into anything...yet again the lowest common denominator.
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