In response to yesterday’s post on Peter Jackson’s remake of “King Kong” (see “King Kong–My Kind of Guy,” Dec. 29), reader Mary Beth sends a link to Don Feder’s wonderful essay on the movie for Front Page:
“Most reviewers have gotten stuck in the time-warp, missing the film’s themes – feminine virtue, masculine heroism and romantic love.
“Naomi Watts is perfect in the Fay Wray-role. As Ann Darrow, she projects a waif-like vulnerability and innocence, combined with gritty determination and a sweet empathy with the 50-foot title character….
“In a way, all men are King Kong: powerful, brooding, potentially destructive creatures waiting for a woman to touch our hearts and tame us.
“And all women are Ann Darrow, simultaneously fragile and compelling, possessor of the magic to transform primitive males (monsters-in-waiting) into protectors and the builders of families and civilizations.”
Yes! At the center of “King Kong” is a politically incorrect but dead-on accurate picture of relations between the sexes. Too bad the radical feminists, at once predatory and pathetically desperate as they throw themselves at the opposite sex, can’t be required to go see “King Kong.” Despite the film’s numerous and obvious flaws, it’s a magnificent portrait of man as protector and woman as creature who needs and yearns for her man’s protection but at the same time isn’t afraid to stand up to him and bring him around to the standards she believes in.