The Cambridge History of Africa, Research Paper Example

Introduction

King Kong 1933 and king Kong 2005

The King Kong character was developed by a United States filmmaker Merian C. Cooper.Kong was the name assigned to, people living in the Pacific Ocean in a territory known as Skull Island. In this vicinity Kong lived with other members of this renowned community. They were huge animals like p plesiosaur, pterosaurs, and dinosaurs.Carl Denham, headed an American film crew which captured Kong and escorts him to New York City where is cited as the eighth wonder of the world. However, even with diligent security measures Kong escapes by climbing through the Empire states Building, which was formerly the World trade center of 1976. As he climbs the building with a purpose only to protect a beauty who was offered to him as a sacrifice (Vaz, 2005).

Her name was Ann Darrow, an actress by profession. When the film was redone this 1976 character was renamed Dwan. Also, Kong received a scientific name in the 2005 rendition of the film. The new name was Megaprimatus Kong. Speculations are that perhaps the name was derived from Gigantopithecus species. Further, film adaptions were not identical to the original Much of the political moral was tarnished and the s

satirical context altered (Vaz, 2005).

An Image of Africa Peter Jackson’s King Kong

In this textJackson took advantage of satire in explaining through animals how humansfunction within contemporary societies.  There were themes the author highlighted as being contributory factors to new world relationships and polices. Colonialism was cited as one such factors. In this discussion an analysis ofPeter Jackson’s King Kong will be embraced along with personal articulations regarding diverse contemporary issues in Africa

Synthesis

The situation of colonialism in Africa

As in many parts of the world whereby colonization took the form of invasion of territories and plundering the worth of its inhabitants, King Kong depicts a situation whereby the inhabitants are considered uncivilized even though their potential to excellence is evident. For example, Jackson relates that skull island philosophy which was not the original idea established by Cooper in 1933. Skull Island for Jackson signifies the reversion of African culture from the original King Kong to his remake in 2005. Essentially the impact of colonization is huge on economic development, social identity and relations among tribes. Economic development through colonization has placed Africa at risk of being the poorest nations in the world(Fage, 2009).

The continent of Africa with exception of South Africa which practice apartheid for many years is a very underdeveloped plat of land in the world. Currently, the continent is the second most populated in the world with some 30.2 million inhabitants. However, greatdisparities exists among countries’’ economic growth. For exampleBotswana, which is South Africa’s closest neighbor was festered in poverty when South Africans were enjoying enormous prosperity under the apartheid regime (Fage, 2009).

Cooper explains these features of Africa under the modernity model whereby he accounted for his childhood being raised on a plantation in JacksonvilleFlorida.At the time this was his interpretation of African being raised a slave in the new world and white planters your masters. Essentially, they established themselves as the King Kong of their time. Cooper was fascinated, he outlined, about Africa’s modern features in the post-colonial era. From the perspective of an inhabitant of a the renamed Peter Jackson’s skull islandhisperceptionsof the self and community in which he was raised changed, but could be really cindered change for the better. This a significant element in the tow movies viewers to trance and examine for validity in accountingfor modernity in Jackson/s point of view of a 2005 society(Jackson, 2014).

More importantly, as the modern African diaspora is scrutinize elating to development from 1933 to 2005, African nations have the poorest social services in world. This relates to health care and education and research funding agencies are reluctant to invest in finding cures for diseases that affect African. Classic examples are sickle cell disease and Ebola. The Center for Disease control acknowledged that the Ebola virus is not new to the world, but now that an African man came to the country infected, died and infected two nurses concerns about finding a cure is being raised(Jackson, 2014)..

This is the skull island philosophy Peter Jackson highlights in his 2005 Image of Africa King Kong renaming venture. Even with Nelson Mandela’s forgiveness pleas and social justice movements, Africa remains a country with most potentials and still cannot become developed. These nations are either developing or underdeveloped. Imperialism emerging from colonization has raped Africa of its resources and left it barren. For example, Botswana is rich in mineral resources, which are not utilized for developing the nation’seconomically. Currently, the imperialist rule has no interest in exploiting these resources for their benefit.As such,Africa continues to be pooreconomically, in the post-colonial era (Jackson, 2014).

In reality this how imperialism functioned during colonialism and after decolonization was over nations such as Great Britain. Spain, and European nations felt that colonies were obligated to them financially. Many systems developed ensuring compliance with imperialists’ standards. They included, trade embargos. Even after post colonialism countries were not opento free trade. Trade was confined to the imperialist block. Consequently, prices of goods and services were help hostage by the dictates of these systems. Consequently, Africa today experinces the type of economic degradation it mowexperinces.Thesefeatures are summarized in Jackson’s skull island account of the savage versus civilized theme reflexivity. Essentially, these are the elements engaging African Modernity/le not clearly depicted in Jackson’s skull island Hollywood film (Jackson, 2014).

Modernity/colonialism and African culture

History offers remnants of African culture depicting it as savagein comparison to a civilized world. The burning question from the film as well as the present culture experienced by Africans across the world is what really civilization is. Importantly, the civilized world views Africa as containing no virtues and their folklore and religion of no value. However, when investigating the impact of voodoo on slavery in Haiti Europeans were forced to explore the power of the religion in slaves’noncompliance with laws imposed on them. As part of the African diaspora multination, practicing of voodoo was denounced in Haiti as being evil.  Europeans even tried become involved in the rituals and found that ethnically they were a misfit not being African descendants (Roland, & Atmore, 2004).

Consequently, they were advised to become civilized and practice Christianity instead which was understood by whites and through which whites could dominate their spirituality. Today African in Haiti and across the diaspora have become ashamed of their indigenous religious culture and have surrendered to Eurocentric philosophies. This has been the situation in African as well when missionaries plundered the land killed many Africans. They had to run for rescue. Then they returned telling them that they need to be civilized by committing to Christianity. Here tis the paradox Jackson highlights in the activities occurring in Skull Island(Roland, & Atmore, 2004).

Hence, what civilization means to Africa/Africans? Certainly, not the same as the Eurocentric ideas. If Africa did not have any worthy cultural heritage why destroying what they had and force them to submit to a civilization inconsistent with their values. Currently, those who have made a mockery of African civilizations are asking why Africa is so underdeveloped he they have contributed to the era of African’s lives. If they wanted to bring Africans could of a savage culture why not stop slavery in the country? Child labor and slavery continue among Africans in many parts of the country. During the slave trade Europeans allowed slave chiefs to sell their people for gun powder and some insignificant exchanges such as handkerchiefs. If the Eurocentric works is so concerned about development in Africa why was it so difficult to stop the slave trade? These are some of the burning issues, which still face the African diaspora (Roland, & Atmore, 2004).

Sadly, these elements perpetuated concerning Africans’ existence and Africa as a continent has ruined its prosperity image. For example, the first African American president ever in United States of America was greatly criticized along with his innocent parents for being biracial in a segregated community. His Father was an educated African who attended Harvard Law School and his mother an anthropologist since the image of Africa is so disrespected in the world even some African began disrespecting the president’s white mother for making him with a black father. The culture of everything bad is black and must be destroyed still exist in modernity societies. What the African diaspora has to do in eliminating this image was not addressed in that film. Jackson simply glimpsed over these issue focusing more on the filming techniques rather that situation facing Africans in an unfair world (Roland, & Atmore, 2004).

Just take a look at the AIDS epidemic and how it has destroyed populations in Africa. Analysts contend that Africans are promiscuous and leaders did not believe that the virus did exist until a huge section of the population was already infected. Well that sounds like a very great excuse for people who are considered savage according to Jackson. Well, there have been drugs to treat the virus and many people have access them. They have been still. However the other excuse for treating infected Africans relate to their country’s poverty and inability to pay for the expensive treatment. Again Africa is placed on the side line because they are savage (Roland, & Atmore, 2004).

Conclusion

The foregoing discussion embraced a brief analysis of the original king Kong film but Cooper and modifications made by Jackson’s reflection images of African in a modern society. This author elaborated on significant aspects of modern Africa development impacted by colonialism. It was discovered theta while decolonization has occurred Africa is still a marginalized continent except for Eurocentric South Africa.

References

Fage, J. (2009).The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press

Jackson, P. (2014). An Image of Africa, uploaded chapters.

Roland, O., & Atmore, A. (2004)), Africa since 1800, Cambridge University Press

Vaz, M. (2005). Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper, Creator of King Kong. Villard