I saw this over at a blog I love, "The Assault on Black Folk's Sanity". It took a subject that some have talked about, whether "Planet Of The Apes" had a subliminal racist message, and deepened it considerably. I would like to hear your thoughts in the comments section. All I could say was "wow".
Planet Of The Apes
Most of you know the story. An astronaut crash lands on earth and discovers that apes and humans have switched roles. He is captured, escapes and tries to get back to "safety." I tried to avoid reviewing this film but I couldn't resist because the entire genre of "Planet of the Apes" is a classic. Why? Because any movie that represents White peoples worst nightmare is gonna be a classic. And thats what this movie is. White peoples worst nightmare. An astronaut gets up and goes to work one day and he comes home to find the planet taken over by apes (non white people) with the humans being treated like niggers.
Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is an astronaut on a space station where monkeys are being trained to fly into space storms, these monkeys have been genetically engineered to be "smarter." Leo's monkey "Pericles" is lost in the space storm on one of these missions and Leo takes off to rescue "his monkey." The storm swallows Leo and takes him through time to a planet where he crash lands right in the middle of an ape slaving expedition. He gets captured along with several other humans and is taken to ape city where he is sold to a slave trader.(I think he's supposed to be "Jewish" but thats another story)
On this planet instead of White Supremacy, you have Ape Supremacy; the good thing about this movie is all the humans are treated like niggers, both Black and White. The bad thing is that even here, the light colored apes are superior to the darker ones (so much for getting around White Supremacy). The movie tries to portray what Black people deal with concerning racism and slavery, but it does a poor job of both. For starts, I would have shown Humans selling other humans to the apes for liquor and guns, the white female having sex with the male apes in exchange for better treatment, the darker humans being used as "house humans" to create conflict and confusion...All the strategies of "divide and conquer" should have been demonstrated so we could finally put an end to White people blaming Black people for their mistreatment under White Supremacy.
Anyway, Leo escapes with the help of a few "House Apes," rallies the humans and sets the stage for a climactic battle between the rag tag humans and the ape stormtroopers. Interspersed between all of this are silly scenes of ape hygiene and ape sex play that could have been left out. In one ridiculous scene, an ape says a prayer and at the end of it says "amen" instead of "a-ape." Maybe this was put in to demonstrate what I have termed the "White Jesus Factor." Thats the "oppressor as God" phenomenon that is the last obstacle to mental emancipation. When my Mom died last year The funeral was at the same church I was baptized in. And wouldn't you know it, that same White Jesus was still up there, all the White people have left the neighborhood but the White Jesus is still there. No wonder my Mom didn't want to live anymore. (Please pardon my digression)
So the final battle commences, hand to hand combat, apes against humans. Neither side seems to have the upper hand when all of the sudden there's a flash in the sky. A space ship lands and all the fighting stops. The hatch opens and we see Pericles, the chimp Leo had been training. Now according to the ape bible, all apes trace their linage back to the "first ape"; an ape prophet who came from the sky long, long ago and according to prophecy would return one day to initiate peace and justice. When the apes see Pericles, they think he's the prophet and all bow down to him in reverence. It appears that all is well now. Apes and humans will live in peace and justice. No one will be mistreated.
Leo gets on the space ship and blasts off. On the way out he runs into the same storm he hit on the way in. He comes through it and crash lands on earth at the Lincoln memorial in Washington, DC. He gets out of the capsule and the first thing he sees is the statue of Abraham Lincoln, but he has simian features-he looks like a monkey! At the same time DC police, FBI, SWAT... all show up and they are gorillas too!
And thats how it ends. A lone White man surrounded by apes...With guns and helicopters!
I told you it was White peoples worst nightmare. Leo was invited to stay with the apes and humans and work to create a "Just society" but he had to get back to White Supremacy. His landing in the capitol of the "United States of Apes" was a "White wake up call" designed to remind White people not to ever leave White Supremacy to "chance," because if you do, it might just get replaced by something worse, not better. It might get replaced with "Black Supremacy" and not Justice.
Many people say this movie was not as good as the original, thats true, but it didn't hafta be. The message to White people was what worked. And that message was: If White Supremacy ever ends, your future will end with it.
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