King Kong as Modern Ruin: Blackness, Romance and Post-9/11

After being doubted and dismissed by Universal despite months of leading the King Kong project, Peter Jackson, renowned for his legendary Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-3), returned to King Kong with advanced expertise in special effects and digital technologies. While Jackson’s version featured great developments in visual style and thematic depth, the storyline, settings, and characters of the original 1933 film have remained. The story is very much like that of any typical adventure yarn: an obsessive leader takes his crews to an uncharted and savage island unaware of the potential risks, where they encounter and battle with terrifying creatures of inconceivable dimensions. Ultimately, the group manages to escape with desired treasures or something of equivalent value. Yet, Jackson's King Kong transcends being purely an adventure film. The protagonist ape has become a cultural icon and metaphor similar to Frankenstein, Santa Claus, and Sherlock Holmes. Some post-9/11 imagery even depicted Kong atop the Empire State Building, swatting at planes, reading, “Where was King Kong when we needed him?”

It is not unusual that Jackson's King Kong was considered the allegory of 9/11, but Kong himself is far from a "hero", especially after Kong breaks off the chain and storms onto the streets. It changes slightly when Kong finds Ann (played by Naomi Watts) and "dances" with her in Central Park, only to be interrupted by soldiers and officers in World War I uniforms. Another scene in the director’s cut (released in 2006) strengthens the political hostility further: an army officer delivers a bellicose speech in the truck that Kong is an outsider intruding upon sacred American ground and needs to be dismembered. Kong, in this sense, is a noteworthy instance of "the coded black" -- with the carrier of blackness being an ape instead of a human, where the metaphorical bridge can easily cross. In the historical context of the wartime period the film was set in, the 1920s saw a massive influx of blacks into urban areas, intensifying racial friction. Blacks were not only seen as powerful intruders of white normality, with the protection of white women becoming a major part of saving human civilization, but also the major sacrifice of the Depression, stereotyped as good-natured, fearful, stupid, lazy characters providing entertainment for white audiences, much like the captured and chained Kong on Broadway stage. The original King Kong premiered a few days before Roosevelt’s inauguration in March 1933, during the high point of the Depression when the capitalists feared most the possibility of a revolution. With Kong breaking free from the chains on screen, the blacks were generally viewed as chaotic and destructive anarchs, which kept haunting the capitalist world since the end of the war.

Compared with earlier versions that stress Kong's body at the expense of the face and details, Jackson's use of digital techniques is rather meticulous, especially concerning Kong's facial expressions. Andy Serkis, who played Kong on the motion capture stage after having studied gorillas in different settings, commented that the key to conveying emotion lies in the eyes, which gorillas typically avoid making direct contact with. The nuanced portrayal transforms Kong from a sex-obsessed ape in earlier adaptations to a melancholy hero with "humanness", and also makes the scene of Kong knocking Ann into a deadfall hilarious and the eye contact on top of the Empire State Building extremely touching.

Although Jackson's King Kong touches on political issues, its political leanings are not explicitly stated. These undertones are subtly woven into the narrative of the "love plot". From the moment Ann dances in front of Kong, the camera takes a rather tender gaze at their interactions: the perils of Skull Island are easily forgotten until Driscoll (played by Adrien Brody) shows up and disrupts the peace under moonlight; they are also allowed to take a nostalgic look at modern Manhattan from the top. When Kong is shot down and falls into the streets, Denham (played by Jack Black) dismisses the gossip that Kong is killed by the air attacks with a decisive tone, "It was beauty killed the beast." Amid such a startling and mournful climax, the whites cease to be condemned in a way as the film comes to an end. The process of 201 minutes works as also an adventure story for them, turning dilemmas around and glorifying the tales of the "necessary" sacrifices. As such, Jackson's version transforms the original story, embedding contemporary political commentary and accusations beneath a veneer of romance and nostalgia.

Moreover, the romance between Ann and Kong peaks at the cliff of Skull Island and the observation deck of the Empire State Building, where the large-scale invocation of the Twin Towers cannot be more obvious. The producer once stated, "There’s a distinct correlation between Kong’s lair, which overlooks much of Skull Island, and the view from the Empire State Building down to Lower Manhattan... Also, the big towers of broken rock on Skull Island suggest the canyon-like streets and huge buildings of New York." Actually, underneath Kong's home on Skull Island lie not just broken rocks but also bones of human brides and Kong's ancestors, suggesting that Kong has been leading a mourning life for a long time. Serkis even interpreted that Kong's impulse to kill brides stems from the attempt to conquer inner sorrow. From atop the Empire State Building, Kong's view then includes a revolutionary perspective on the country as a bullying global entity at a stage of the late empire.

Therefore, Kong, the witness to the splendor of Americanness and the death of romance, is destined to fall. The giant corpse lying on the street not only assembles prehistorical and modern cultures but bridges the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers. In this respect, Kong himself becomes a "modern ruin" in Benjamin's terms. As a product of earlier conception of the modern metropolis, Benjamin considered modern ruins the result of capitalism and historical forces, destroying the past on which such progress is founded; in another sense, cities, as sites of consumption and obsolescence, become havens for the forgotten and discarded remnants of that culture. The moment journalists swarm over Kong's body and press the shutter button frantically, everyday experiences become a key to a unique and inhabitable space between the past and present, where one can see the suspended time and ancient objects quietly awaiting weathering and disintegration, and even lost forgotten beliefs, so that the remnants of the past can be saved from oblivion. Jackson's portrayal of Kong through "ruined" and "shattered" transformations allows for the revelation of deeper truths in such ruins of historical catastrophe, offering insights and connections that might otherwise remain hidden.