Both a figure of terror and joy, the great apes, along with other primates, holds a position in popular culture closely akin to clowns. They are the not quite humans that, depending on the story or context, can make you laugh with 'monkey business' or tear out your throat when you least expects it. Apes can be real or people in costumes, but either way they are not to be trusted. They are 'almost' humans, or masked humans, and like clowns, they are unpredictable in nature. It's no coincidence that from time to time clowns, chimpanzees, as well as monkeys, are often portrayed together. They are agents of chaos that amuse by their disregard for convention and mimicry of the human condition. The violent action of a clown towards another is funny, the same action towards a normal person could be injurious. The 'aping' of human behaviour by a monkey or small chimpanzee can be amusing, though when carried out by a gorilla, who decides to 'go ape', it can be lethal.
Out side of the realms of biological science, monkeys and apes are generally seen by most cultures to be one and the same. Chimps, orang-utans and gorillas are just big tailless monkeys. In some cultures apes were believed to be men that had been cursed by the god's to be less than human. The Indonesians thought that the orang-utans were the descendants of people who had left human society and had walked of into the forest. Greek mythology mentions two forest creatures, the Ceropes, who were famous for their mischief making in the ancient world. Some legends tell how Zeus turned them into monkeys others describe how Hercules tied them to a pole by their feet and carried them hanging upside down after they stole his weapons. It was only when they couldn't stop laughing at his posterior that he joined in the mirth and let them go. India and China also have their own monkey deities, Hanuman and Sun Wukong, both known to have been mischief makers and who various times required a level of forced restraint to be placed upon them in their journey towards spiritual maturity. Both were also described as being formidable warriors.
The concept of the ape as a figure of fear can be traced back to
the Edgar Allan Poe's 1841 story, Murders
in the Rue Morgue. It
tells the story of two women who are found murderer inside their home by an
unknown, unseen killer. Having seen nothing, all the witnesses claim to have
heard someone speaking in a strange language that none of them understand.
Assuming the killer to have been a foreigner, it comes as a surprise when the
perpetrator turns out to be an escaped orang-utan with a cut throat razor that
has killed the women. Climbing in through the window of the women's apartment, it has tried to mimics
it's owners daily shaving routine, slit one woman's throat and strangled the
other in the excitement. Here it is the ape as the 'almost human' that has lead
to a lethal out come. The ape that can innocently 'ape' human behaviour can
also lose control and become a super strong, savage killer when threatened.
Coming face to face with a Gorilla, a name often used generically for any large
ape regardless of species, could be a meeting of two like beings or a
confrontation with a manlike monster that could snap your spine like a
pretzel.
The phenomenon of the orang-utan being mistaken as a foreigner
also resonates with the common use of ape or monkey being used as a racial
slur. From the myth that apes and monkeys were men who had been cursed to the
evolutionary ideas that culminate in Charles Darwin's 'On the Origins of
Species (1859),' the ape was seen as something less than a
civilised human. If modern man had evolved from apes then perhaps there were
people who were further down the evolutionary path. Such people would be ripe for oppression and someone to be feared due to their primitive passions. In the eyes of white
supremacists at the turn of last century, and possibly many who considered
themselves to be fair minded and moderate, it was no mistake that both
African slaves and gorillas hailed from the same continent. Both were products
of the jungle and thus had a connection with each other that wasn't shared with
other 'more advanced and civilised races'. It stood to reason that the African
was closer to the beast and needed to be tamed, less he 'go ape', cause havoc
and run off with the nearest white women. Thus the ape became a cipher, consciously or
unconsciously, for the white man's fear of the foreigner in his midst,
especially the enslaved men of Africa that threaten to
unleash the wild passion of the jungle on polite white society. A prime example
of this can be seen in the first screen adaptation of 'Tarzan of the Apes
(1918) where Jane is stolen by a native tribesman instead of a great ape, as in
the original novel. It may have been changed for very practical reasons but the
choice of replacement is telling. Whether it is an ape or an African native,
the film makers saw them as interchangeable; both represented the
primal savagery of the jungle that wanted nothing more than to steal the
beautiful white woman away from her people. In this way the ape comes to
signify the 'other', the things that lurk outside the respectable centre of
society and are feared by those with in that centre, It stands to reason that the ape would take its place in the growing pantheon of horror icons, vampires, werewolves and Frankenstein monster among them.
As the 20th century began to unfold, the gorilla emerged front and
centre in the parade of scary things that were being rolled out by the popular
culture of the time to thrill a populace trying to recover from a terrible
world war. Whether at the cinema, the circus or in comic books, the ape had
climbed into a position were it had taken its place as king.
To be continued
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