Love And Monsters.

I'm not sure if the comic is big enough to be read. If not, here's the link.

Beware: English Nerd Moments Galore in this Rant. And spoilers, I suppose. Supposing that you know nothing of King Kong.

Recommended Reading: Rose and the Beast, by Francesca Lia Block.

First of all, I didn't know Kong died at the end. I actually kinda did think that he climbed back down or something. True Love prevails and all that. Maybe Ann Darrow stays with Kong. Before I read this comic, that is. It's one of my favourites, nonetheless.

I just watched Kong. The new one, that is. And while I haven't seen any of the others, I am not such a shelled being as to not know the story. Besides, my favourite movie in the world is the Rocky Horror Picture Show. So I've always known it, as most people have, as the ultimate tale of male/female, innocent/violent, ultimate delicate beauty versus ultimate primal strength. Man is the real monster, etc etc.

If you read my blog regularly, you'd know that I have a fascination and abhorrence for taboo. If you knew me, you'd know that I have a fantasy kick. I adore fantasy novels, and the more recent movies. If you really knew me, you'd know that I have a monster kick. Not the same way Becca likes superheroes, but true monsters. Not the human kind. I mean Michael at the end of Underworld kind of a thing. Now, if you really, really knew me, you'd know that all of these combine together to form a fascination and attraction to that which is wholly, purely inhuman.

What makes a monster?

What constitutes love?

Whenever you hear about King Kong, you hear about Fay Wray/Anne Darrow as a representation of the sacred feminine. You hear about Kong's love for her, and possibly her talent of screaming dramatically. Since I was little, I always wondered about more than that. Did she love Kong back? Did she scream because she wanted to escape him? Certainly she must have been afraid. But was she afraid for her fate at the hands of King Kong, or did she fear the machine guns? Did she fear for herself, or for him?

Like I said, I haven't seen any of the other Kong movies. But this one was marvelous. They didn't just turn her into a screaming lady for him to capture and carry around and such. She wasn't a hostage. She went to him, again and again, even when they (all of the large succession of theys) were shooting. She stood in front of him.

The purest of emotions is love. I believe that with all my heart, and the words resonate as an Absolute Truth. Sure, love is the passionate makeout, the risking-your-life-to-save-hers, the winning of the fair maiden's love. But it's also being held safe in the arms of someone stronger (be it man or woman) and being held in return. It may be pure, but it's never simple. Between humans, there's always doubt that creeps in eventually. Little hurts and bitternesses, the occasional fight, and the ability to hurt another person as deeply as one can be hurt.

This is what it means to be human.

But the simplest passions... Not animal lust, but animal love. Beauty and the Beast. I used to stop the Disney version before the end, you know that? Why? Because I couldn't bear to watch the Beast turn back into a Prince. It's the same as watching Anne Darrow go to Jack Driscoll at the end of Kong. He also climbed the Empire State for her, I admit. It was from the inside, through the elevator, breaking through police tape and such. Another symbol. The movie was loaded and loaded with them. He went through human boundaries, the boundaries on the inside, to get to her. Kong forgoed all of that by just doing it the animal way. He grabbed her and climbed. It's too blunt for humanity's subtle poison. They shot him down. The bullets never even went near Driscoll, inside the heart of the building.

I'm not saying that Driscoll's love was less true. Nor were his methods less valid. He used the means available to him. To quote my favourite line in A Man For All Seasons, by Robert Bolt: "God made the angels to show him splendor... animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man he made to serve him wittily in the tangle of his mind." And so we do. And we outwit ourselves. Perhaps that's why 'monsters' fascinate me so much. Beings that are not necessairily animals, but that contain no 'humanity', as we call it. Why do we deem humanity to be one of the most important traits a being can have? One could say that humanity is a definite motif in King Kong. In fact, one could even state that it's the theme; whether man, in attempting to destroy 'monsters' (i.e. those possessing no humanity) has indeed lost its own humanity and become the true monster.

I say: fuck humanity.

Kong's actions and feelings weren't touching because they were almost human. To call it humanity would be selfish, implying that the ability to love, to feel, are solely human. Are we the center of the universe? Heck no! We're but one more part of a delicate structure, a balance of life. Just because Kong was big, didn't mean that he had to be vicious, incapable of thought or delicate feeling. We often make the mistake of assuming that being capable of building civilisations and destroying other cultures means that we are superior. Capable of intricacies of thought that 'animals' are not.

But that's a completely different essay altogether. Back to the topic.

The simplest moments, in the midst of turmoil and fighting and confusion, are those that create the tangible love between Darrow and Kong. Curled up against one another, absorbing the beauty of the jungle. Sliding around the ice. Even the parallel moment atop the Empire State, where they look out at the concrete jungle below and see the same beauty in it. There's Beauty in the Madness. There's Beauty in the Beast. There's Beast in the Beauty. Don't believe me? Imagine your own people ripping apart the one that saved your life and loved you with all his heart, that you loved in return, and tell me that bitch wasn't angry as all hell.

But in the end, the anger melted away to a pure understanding of the intrinsic nature of not only her own kind, but of animal feelings, 'monster' feelings, as well. Did Kong know that he was going to die, cornered atop the Empire State Building? I believe so. That's what was one of the meanings of the Beauty motif in the story.

"And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty, and beauty stayed his hand. And from that day forward, he was as one dead."

I admit that I don't quite 'get' this quote. Perhaps he was dead by human standards, or at least severely weakened by that which we call Love. But was it not a death of the clinging to superficialities? Because once he finds Love, all else fades. He becomes alive on the most basic level. For all intents and purposes, he has found the meaning of life. For what good is life without Love? That's why he climbs the frigging building. To gain those last moments of peace. Of love. Of pure feeling, before the machine guns and complications and basic reality of humanity sets in.

Nevermind. I do indeed 'get' the quote.

And thus, the last line of the film:

"It wasn't the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast. "

This line pissed my mother off to no end. "Of course it was the [frigging] airplanes!" she yelled at me and the screen. And usually, I would agree, and yell right along with her. But I could understand, a little, that motivation. Kong did not go gentle into that good night, but he was, after all, a creature of instincts. That's what Dylan Thomas was telling us to do when he wrote that marvelous bit of poetry; he was telling them to follow their instincts, to grab onto life with two hands and to not let go.

For all Kong may have known that he would die at that moment, he would not sit and let Death take him. If not for himself, then for Love: it was a last hurrah against those who threatened him and his beloved. But ultimately, he would never have been able to keep Ann Darrow. Not once he had been brought to America; that action was the seal of Doom on their love. Or maybe it was sealed from the moment she chose to go to him of her own free will, back on Skull Island.

I suppose that in a way, the Beast killed Beauty too, because I can guarantee you that whether or not she ended up with Jack whatsisface at the end of the day, there would be times when she was alone, staring out over the sea and seeing a jungle, remembering a monster.

And wishing she had never been rescued.

Lah.