Tale Not So Old As Time
In the 1933 film King Kong, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack create a fantastical horror rendition of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. Ann Darrow, a beautiful but poor woman, gets noticed by a movie director and travels to a mysterious island where she gets captured by a giant gorilla who falls in love with her. However, Ann does not warrant these advances, and in a final chase through New York City, King Kong falls from the Empire State Building. This leads Carl Denham, the movie director, to exclaim, “It was Beauty that killed the Beast!” Beyond the obvious surface references to Ann Darrow being a beautiful woman and King Kong being a menace and monster on the island, the film employs cinematic techniques to present Ann Darrow and King Kong as foils to one another. However, their role as foils not only emphasizes their differences, but also their similarities. After King Kong captures Ann, the filmmakers try to hunt him down to rescue their movie star. In a pursuit across the mysterious island, King Kong drops Ann in the crook of a tree and leaves to fend off the filmmakers on a cliff. As Ann hides from a dinosaur and King Kong defends himself from the …show more content…
Beyond the overt racial stereotypes portrayed through the tribe and even King Kong, the parallelism between King Kong and Ann Darrow provides a negative commentary on King Kong’s mistreatment and enslavement. However, this can be overlooked in Carl Denham’s ultimate overpowering of King Kong as the “Beast” and Ann Darrow’s role as the damsel in distress or the “Beauty.” Because the characters of King Kong and the tribe play to offensive exaggerations and stereotypes, Ann and Carl must also be looked at through that lens in a parallel, illustrating their role in creating and perpetuating these false
In the 1933 film King Kong, directors Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack create a fantastical horror rendition of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale. Ann Darrow, a beautiful but poor woman, gets noticed by a movie director and travels to a mysterious island where she gets captured by a giant gorilla who falls in love with her. However, Ann does not warrant these advances, and in a final chase through New York City, King Kong falls from the Empire State Building. This leads Carl Denham, the movie director, to exclaim, “It was Beauty that killed the Beast!” Beyond the obvious surface references to Ann Darrow being a beautiful woman and King Kong being a menace and monster on the island, the film employs cinematic techniques to present Ann Darrow and King Kong as foils to one another. However, their role as foils not only emphasizes their differences, but also their similarities. After King Kong captures Ann, the filmmakers try to hunt him down to rescue their movie star. In a pursuit across the mysterious island, King Kong drops Ann in the crook of a tree and leaves to fend off the filmmakers on a cliff. As Ann hides from a dinosaur and King Kong defends himself from the …show more content…
Beyond the overt racial stereotypes portrayed through the tribe and even King Kong, the parallelism between King Kong and Ann Darrow provides a negative commentary on King Kong’s mistreatment and enslavement. However, this can be overlooked in Carl Denham’s ultimate overpowering of King Kong as the “Beast” and Ann Darrow’s role as the damsel in distress or the “Beauty.” Because the characters of King Kong and the tribe play to offensive exaggerations and stereotypes, Ann and Carl must also be looked at through that lens in a parallel, illustrating their role in creating and perpetuating these false