by Kevin Candela
The defining fiction of my childhood, perhaps my whole life, is the Godzilla series. When I was a kid, other kids would rip on me because I dug Godzilla and not so much "American" King Kong. They thought Godzilla was silly and Kong "respectable". They're both tragedies, of course, but the tragedy of Kong is about human/American desire to "grab the unknown and stick it somewhere where one's own species can gawk at it at their leisure". And since we're "hunting Bigfoot", we're still doing it. In fact we almost HAVE to "bring in a body" in this age of digital deception. Yes, this is an aspect of human nature. And it's an important one to scrutinize--hence Kong, despite the ridiculous "I'm in love with a nearly hairless little kewpie doll" aspects--is necessary and critical to our culture. That's why it was iconic even in the early Sixties.
