The Meaning of King Kong

king of the monsters was a deep

heideggerian

deep ecology film to me but in that

movie

godzilla represents the kind of hyper

object

of ecology that's described by the

speculative realism people

he represents basically like this kind

of not

gaia but he just represents like the

um the ecological being of the earth

right of earth specifically of ecology

so to an extent there is a contradiction

between earth and humanity right

but since we live on earth godzilla

protected humanity against ghidorah who

represented a foreign alien intruder

you can maybe see ghidorah as like the

alien invasion of modernity

right that's like crushing the earth

um so that's how i saw that

but now we're seeing king kong vs

godzilla let me guys explain to you what

king kong meant

originally so everyone knew that in the

initial film

let me show you this scene of from peter

jackson's

king kong 2005. i'll show you what king

kong represents

king kong 2005 city when he escapes the

city

um i want you to think about this scene

and think about what it means

let me get to the chat godzilla rant

stream yeah it's interesting where shit

leads us but you learned some stuff from

this

um big monkey i'm i'm on godzilla i'm on

king kong's side if you need to know who

i'm on the side of

godzilla uh

could gorilla rin against the komodo

dragon

yes it could a gorilla could just grab

it and rip it apart

guys gorillas can bench like how much

can they bench like 2 000 easily

i'm sorry they're very strong comrade

kong

true it's very true jake english i'm

gonna explain it to you big monkey and

big loser punch each other okay i'm

gonna explain what this means

watch the scene watch this scene

look at this what is this what is this

really showing you

emotionally right look at all these

pipes all these

signs

[Music]

[Applause]

this is the quintessential encounter

between

the proletarianized subject and

the modern world sometimes when i went

to chicago i felt like this

you know

[Music]

it kind of does break it up but this is

like the encounter between

primordial humanity the proletariat the

worker

and this wild ruthless alien

unnatural sick world that we live in

of industrial modernity that's what king

kong is about

king kong is about the the christ-like

martyrdom and sacrifice

of the most primordial representative of

humanity

being just shot down by planes

everyone's attacking him he's confused

he doesn't know what's going on

the whole world is coming after him and

they and when they

trying to kill kong it's representative

of the fact that

uh capitalism or modernity is trying to

kill humanity itself

there's also slavery imagery right like

um

like they go in there and then he's

personally

the colonialism interpretation is the sa

it's exactly up the same alley there's

two main basic interpretations of king

kong

the colonialism one which is basically

the encounter between

colonized people and modernity and

basically the fact that the

colonial humanity represents humanity at

its most fundamental

um and there's the proletarian

interpretation which is that

godzilla sorry king kong represents the

proletariat and how the proletariat is

living in an alien world you know it's

like treated as a beast of burden

basically and i think they're actually

one in the same interpretation so i

unite both of those interpretations

so that's kind of what king kong

represents king kong is

comrade kong king kong represents the

proletariat in a way

represents humanity

our our unalienated humanity is what

king kong is

[Music]

see king kong who wants this woman and

she's a white woman

so that's also symbolic whatever imagery

or whatever

because um the white woman means a

certain thing and you know

within the imagination of america and so

on but it basically represents

that this unalienated humanity is

looking for a kernel

of goodness in this

bad wicked world and you know it's kind

of like we live in a white supremacist

society so it's going to be represented

as a blonde haired

white woman right kong is the oppressed

yeah exactly

[Music]

so i don't want to take up too much of

the time with this so

that's what godzilla versus kong means i

think i think kong represents humanity

and godzilla represents the earth

ecology

right that's what the real battle is

going on about here

so who do i side with 100 kong but i

also like godzilla too

but i gotta side with kong you know you

guys take your picks godzilla represents

the alien

but also the consistent

whole blind uh ecological earth

and it's deep terrestrial you know he's

underground in the vents

you know swimming around in the vents so

also the conflict between humanity and

like lizards

i'm not a reptilian conspiracy guy but

that is a thing in history right

lizards kind of represent our cold

mechanical animal self they represent

nature right

and then you know godzilla he represents

sorry king kong represents warmth and

humanity

so that's kind of the difference that's

going on it's geology plate tectonics

versus it's the anthropocene you know

i'm saying not to be a sued

damn king kong has more theory than all

bred tube for real

it is it's all this stuff is very deep

guys it's all very deep