"In a recent meditation on King Kong and Tarzan of the Apes,
I wrote the following: “We want Kong to grow big and approach the blonde maiden
with blood-shot, lustful eyes”. There are several interesting problems here.
For example, Fay Wray, the blonde maiden, who is to say she is a maiden?
(Actually, she is not even blonde). When found by the impresario Carl Denham
and taken to a waterfront café, she is alone and starving. She is down on her
luck. She has come upon bad times. Denham clearly wants someone with nothing
more to lose, and when he sees her there is a flash, or burst, of recognition.
The cards, we can say, are pretty heavily stacked against maidenhood. Yet,
surprisingly, Fay Way is a
maiden, which gives this adventure much of its fairy-tale quality.
We know this
from a scene that is not (and could not be) in the movie but which obviously
had to take place. For years the island savages have been giving maidens to
Kong. They are not going to break with tradition simply because Fay Wray is
white. The whiteness is merely an added spice, or sauce. She must be maiden and
white. The scene not included in the movie is that wherein the chief, the
elders, and the midwives of the tribe examine a naked Fay Wray gynecologically.
As all those black fingers probe and poke Fay Wray, she must be thinking that
nothing can be worse than this, just as in the waterfront café she had thought
she could sink no lower. How rong she was and is. This limit to her imagination
makes Kong´s initial appearance all the more devastating. Kong is literally beyond
her wildest imaginings. It is worth noting that Fay´s first vision of Kong is
an (arch) typical bride´s first night fantasy of her husband. When Kong
appears, Fay Wray is severed forever from the civilization that bred her. The
unspeakable has become life.
(…)
A second interesting point in the quotation is the oblique
reference to Kong´s penis in the phrase “to grow big”. Exactly how big is
Kong´s penis? It is a matter of monumental cultural and psychological interest.
And a great mystery: for Kong´s penis is never shown; he is no common monkey in
the zoo (Its abscence, of course, is the reason why it is dreamed about so
much). It is quite possible that Denham, before he leaves the island with Kong,
emasculates him (in another unfilmed episode) to assure his docility later on
(An interesting question here is, if this is so, what did the savages do with
it or them? There is quite possibly an interesting totemic myth buried here).
That might well explain Kong´s interest in the Empire
State building later on.
Realizing
that he is without his penis or its generative power (…), and that there is
something he cannot do with Fay Wray without it, he seeks to attach another
penis to himself. Here his ape brain reveals itself (Question: Does Fay Wray
have any inkling og what Kong intends? Probably, though only an inkling. Kong
constantly shatters the limits of her nightmares. He plunges her from one
insanity into another –but who is to say that heaven itself is not awaiting her
within that final, absolute, insanity?) It this is so, we might well accuse
Kong of certain immodesty. A penis (even erect) the size of the Empire
State Building?
But we cannot be sure, for we have never seen it. There is, however, some
slight indirect evidence of size. When Kong storms the walls that separate him
from the savages, seeking his stolen maiden, with what does he batter them? It
is definitely a possibility. But still, not Empire
State dimension, not even the upper
dome. We can only put that gesture down to a rage beyond all reason.
Which still leaves us with the problem of Kong´s penis. There
is, of course, the peculiar behavior of Kong from the beginning. He obviously
does not ravish Fay Wray immediately. He is not even sexually curious about
her. How are we to explain his earl playfulness with her and his later
libidinous determination? (he has not chosen the Empire
State idly). The answer, I think,
is to be found in his age (…) During his voyage to America
he arrives at puberty (…). But now there is no penis or penis power witht which
to effect his end (assuming Denham´s butchery, which we need not) is that he
very likely has little recollection of his penis and what its varying aspects
were (question: Did Kong ever masturbate?).
(…)
But we need not be equally at sea. A simple scientific
approach will give us at least a reasonable working hypothesis. (…) Kong must
be about 24 feet tall. Further, we can usually count on a six-foot man having a
three-inch inert and six-inch erect penis. Assuming the validity of comparative
anatomy, we can say therefore that Kong´s penis would be twelve inches inert
and twenty-four inches, or two feet, erect. And this is a startling fact.
Because it really doesn´t seem so very big. (…) Possibly it is some horrendous
blue or purple, or pointed, or wickedly curved –but even these would have
limited shock value. A more experienced woman than Fay might even, momentarily and
in spite of herself, entertain the thought of what it would be like. So we are
left with this fact: that the penis Kong ought to have is insufficient to cause
the terror and anxiety he inspires. Therefore the penis Kong has is the one he
ought not to have.
(…)
The entire drama of Kong is not built around his general
size or destructiveness but around his relationship with Fay Wray. And the
entire point of this relationship is that it is male and female, and that it
aspires to the condition of consummation! The only question –and it harbors an
anxiety that reaches into the very depth of our civilization- is When? When
will Kong´s twenty-four-inch erect penis penetrate the white and virgin (and quivering) body of Fay Wray? And there, of course, we have the solution. It is
easily conceivable that in these circumstances some people, perhaps many,
would say, “Who cares?” Precisely. Twenty-four inches is not that awe-inspiring.
But people say no such thing. It is obvious that Kong must exceed the
estimates of comparative anatomy to inspire the universal dread that he does.
Kong´s penis, therefore, is at least six feet inert and
twelve feet erect. In a state of sexual excitement it very likely rises over
his head. That would certainly explain the battering at the savages´wall and it
certainly explains the terror in New York City´s streets (…). And so, in the
end, when Kong, haf-crazed by the bullets and frustration s he has experienced,
identifies sexually with the Empire State
Building, he is not, after all,
being inmodest. He has sought only what all true lovers seek, in the only way
that he could. He has brought his love to the threshold of his love and
valiantly persevered to his last desperate breath. Dazed beyond recall, so near
and yet so far, he loosens his grip, his fingers slip. No longer can he guide
his newfound power into her. Kong cannot live erect in the New World.”
Kenneth Bernard
"King Kong: A Meditation"
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