Two False Ape Kings in Monkey Movie May
An Examination of Demagoguery Through Simian Autocrats in Franchise Blockbusters
Images Credit: Villains Wiki
There was something that stood out to me when viewing Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, the latest installment in the Apesiverse begun in 1968 by a much more simply named movie: its fellow summer franchise movie / anti-brevity companion piece, Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire, also featured a petty, ghoulish, mocking ape king as its primary antagonist. Though the idea of a monkey leading the realm into the dirt is at least as old as C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, in which a chimp sets up some sort of protection racket with the help of a donkey and thus brings about the final Judgement Day for all of Narnia’s many sinners, the idea is probably much older. The first human who 1) followed a leader and 2) saw one larger monkey leading around a bunch of smaller ones was likely able to make the witty comparison. That said, the specifics of the two kings in question (and they are specific) brings into focus a unique feature of the American mainstream, an anxiety about demagoguery and a wish for justice that speaks to the national mood.
In the annals of Godzilla’s many film appearances, Godzilla x Kong: A New Empire does not stand out as a particularly great or particularly strange entry, save that the radioactive lizard shares the screen with America’s iconic antihero giant simian. The villain of the film, however, is among the more excellent of Godzilla’s foes, to say nothing of Kong’s: the Skar King, a megalomaniacal ape described as the “false king” of a tribe of Kongs residing in the subterranean layer below the hollow earth. Skar King presides over his many lesser apes (not gibbons, serfs) with an iron, autocratic fist, as shown through his signature weapon being a bone whip and his generally bad attitude.
Gif Credit: The_Stranger on Tenor
Despite having no dialogue, the Skar King visibly mocks Kong, including—in a bizarre moment—making the soyjack face as he points at Kong’s fake tooth as though to say “he is not a real giant ape, he has a fake tooth”. Eventually, Kong overthrows this dark king, bringing a (presumably) more just rulership to the embattled giant monkey populace who were formerly under the Skar King’s spell and thus banished from Hollow Earth.
The greatest distinction between the Skar King and Proximus Caesar from Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is that Proximus Caesar, like all the apes in the movie, can talk. In general, KotPotA could be accused of being a little didactic. The apes talk about many things, though their points are often not very well thought out, however that seems roughly what would be expected when engaging a post-apocalyptic simian on ideas about progress, who deserves to own the world, and the legacy of other great historical apes. Proximus Caesar, like his kaiju counterpart, rules over potentially hundreds of serf apes, using their forced labor to attempt to achieve his maniacal dream of acquiring human technology. Like Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan inviting holy men to their court, Proximus Caesar keeps smart people (humans, in this case) around to teach him about the mysteries of life.
More importantly, Proximus Caesar obviously self-aggrandizes (often to a shallowly farcical level). He makes rambling speeches comparing himself to the great ape conqueror Caesar, he reinforces his ideology and his rule through the logic of conquest and something like divine right, he repeats his catchphrase (“what a wonderful day”) a few too many times. Eventually, like the Skar King, he is cast down so that another, more just ape can take his place and lead his subjects to peace.
Image Credit: Disney Wiki
As previously alluded to, the idea of a demagogic ape king attempting to make his jungle great again is hardly new. King Louie, the secondary ape villain of Disney’s The Jungle Book (all filmed versions), bears strong resemblance to both characters previously mentioned: orange like the Skar King, envious of the accomplishments of man like Proximus. The further back one goes with the comparison, however, the stickier historical territory one is likely to wade into: a certain conception of petty, grasping non-European leaders arising out of the racialized colonialist brew of late 19th century Western culture would be my guess as to the origin of this archetype, though that accusation is without hard evidence and perhaps deserves its own post with deeper research attached. In short, though, there is something strangely universal about such a character, as though nearly all monkeys who rule would naturally fall into our most base, unenlightened conception of what a king might be.
Why now, though? While I would accept blockbuster plagiarism/creative cross-contamination as a potential answer, it seems more likely to me that something about the cultural moment encourages an examination of dark rulership and demagoguery. To be frank, an ape-like, small-minded, power hungry, orange, criminal ruler is on the minds of Americans right now, and these are Hollywood productions. That aside, though, we are living in an age where it feels increasingly easy for charismatic figures to gain total control. If civilization were to suffer some sort of apocalypse, ape-virus related or otherwise, who is to say that some of us might not end up under the rule of a Proximus Caesar type? The Mad Max franchise would certainly contend it is so; in general, our understanding of post- or pre-humanity systems of power is predicated upon the most naked kinds of exploitation. Perhaps, then, our two false ape kings are not a commentary on the politics of 2024 at all—instead, they are a warning about the politics in the wastelands c. 2034. Proximus Caesar is already not too far off, and I’ve heard the Skar King really stands for family values, beneath the stage persona bluster.
But more fundamentally, our national discourse is bending towards a wish for justice. The key to the story of these two monkey kings is they are overthrown, revealed to be foolish and arbitrary, and are then replaced by a “rightful” ape ruler. Reality is often more complicated. The yearning for a sense of global justice and comeupance is understandable in turbulent times, but perhaps deserves a peremptory warning: it’s a nice fantasy, but there is simply no such thing. There is no rightful king who will come out from hiding and set the world right, because no individual can ever embody the totality of what is just. Therefore, justice can only come in flawed pieces, with all of us evolved apes struggling to set things right as they fall apart around us. Apes stronger together, and strongest when we know what the alternative could be: fractured one-man rule, our hairy knuckles dragging through the dirt and the sweat at the behest of some orangutan’s ambitions, fighting each other for reasons we can not explain.