Kong

I went to see King Kong with my partner Friday, and although I knew there would be more meat to it than she expected, I was surprised of how deep it took me.

For one, I experienced it as very emotionally engaging. In spite of knowing the story, and knowing that the creatures were all computer animated, I found myself deeply emotionally engaged - opening up into Big Heart towards the end.

And I also realized that this had to do with triggered things that went far beyond this particular story and movie.

Some things that came up for me...

The brutality of civilization towards anyone touched by it. The obvious brutality is towards those who fall outside in one way or another, including non-human species and nature, but there is an equal brutality towards those who are on the inside of civilization.

There is a brutality towards non-human species and nature. Towards the humans outside of civilization (other ethnic and/or national groups, through slavery and sweatshops and more). Towards humans within the same civilization, especially those at the bottom or lower on the hierarchy. And the brutality towards those who seem to be the agents of this brutality, towards their own human nature (the need to ignore their own compassion and so on).

I was also touched by the blind suffering of Kong, which mirrors the suffering of any animal who does not understand why or where it comes from. And it mirrors the suffering of us human beings as well, because we too find ourselves in the same bewilderment when it comes to suffering. We may have all sorts of ideas and analysis of it, but when it comes down to it - we don't understand it any more than any other species.

It was interesting to see how the primary shadow projection of the movie was towards the primitives and a large primate, which seemed a little outdated. Those were more typical projection objects when the initial movie was made. Today, it seems the be muslims - and to some extent robots, machines and/or aliens - which are the projection objects of favor in the west.

The secondary shadow projection objects may indeed be modern civilization and it's inherent brutality. We are all part of it, we all daily engage in activities which promote this brutality - no matter how much we try to get outside of it. We pump fossil fuel into the atmosphere, we buy sweat-shop produced articles, we each consume more than the Earth can replenish, we pay taxes which goes to wars of oppression, we willify our opponents as they willify us, and much more. And we don't like to admit to it. This seems to be an important part of our current shadow, especially for those at Spiral Dynamics green level, and I thought the movie did a good job bringing this out.

On the topic of projections, I also noticed how interested Kong, the primitives and the dinosaurs were in Ann Darrow. I definitely understand the interest in her among men, and probably many women as well wanting to have some of her qualities. The primitives may have had a similar response. And Kong may have found a connection with someone who was not (only) scared of him. But it is difficult to understand why the dinosaurs would be so interested in her. She did not have much meat on her bones, and there were plenty of larger dinners walking around there, so their obsessive with her seemed a little misplaced. One dinosaur even left a larger and already dead piece of meat in favor of pursuing her.

All in all, I thought it was a surprisingly modern movie, bringing up a great deal of important contemporary issues - at least for me. And it was beautifully made as well.