NEPRIJATNI NAJBLIŽI ROĐAK: NAUČNE I POKRETNE SLIKE MAJMUNA
UNPLEASENT CLOSEST COUSIN: SCIENTIFIC AND MOSION PICTURES OF APES

Summary/Abstract: This paper outlines the performance of monkeys in the film and, more broadly, in western cultural tradition. The pattern of ambivalent reception of that liveform is detected: recognizing the closest relatives uncomfortable resemblance to a common origin. In principle, movie used to augment ape and make him irresistibly threatening (King Kong); to personalize and with paternalistic sentimentalism assimilate him to human (Tarzan’s Cheeta), to distort the whole relation of humans and apes and signalize political consequences of species domination (Planet of the Apes), and finally, to resolve an uncomfortable closeness – with complete approximation of humans and monkeys in common catastrophic accidents (12 Monkeys, Congo, Gorillas in the Mist). It is demonstrated that, in whatever version, it is more interesting now to reverse the famous Marx’s formulation –„the anatomy of man is the key to the anatomy of the ape“– and think it not only methodologically any more.

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