A Silent Scream: An Approach to 'King Kong' and the Evolution of the Contemporary American Imaginary

The four main versions of King Kong dramatize the fear of the Other: women, people of colour, nature, history, and atavistic religiosity. The American imaginary is observed in the King Kong film series. The four King Kong films link American modernity with the different crises: 1929, oil, the twin towers and the military.

This book describes the main characteristics that define the emotion of fear , its dimensions, functions, types, and social and individual meanings. It also shows that fear represents a desire to eliminate the Other and that horror films have their origin precisely in crisis and fear, which gives it a fundamentally xenophobic nature. This is demonstrated in the book through the analysis of the four most important versions of the King Kong myth: 1933, 1976, 2005 and 2017. These versions are the result of the fear of the Other that was generated by particular crises in US society: the stock market crash of 1929, the 1970s energy crisis, 9/11 and the military intervention in Iraq in 2003 and its consequences. These conflicts also led to psychological and sociological effects that created a desire for escape that King Kong's films manifest.

Autorentext

Juan Antonio Roche Cárcel is Professor of Sociology of Culture and the Arts at the University of Alicante (Spain). He is currently President of the Committee for the Sociology of Emotions of the Spanish Federation of Sociology. His research focuses on culture, emotions, visual sociology, arts, cinema, theater and skyscraper architecture, creativity.

Inhalt

STARTING HYPOTHESIS, OBJECTIVES, THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS, FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK - CRISIS, FEAR, AND XENOPHOBIA IN HORROR CINEMA - CRISIS AND FEAR IN KING KONG - NOSTALGIA FOR THE ORIGIN - KING KONG AND THE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL FEAR OF THE OTHER - FEAR OF THE BLACK RACE - MALE FEAR OF WOMEN - CRISIS, OR WHERE WE COME FROM AND WHERE WE ARE GOING - BIBLIOGRAPHY .