The Myth of King Kong and the Religious Background That Nests in the Human Soul

Abstract

The four most important King Kong films (1933, 1976, 2005, and 2017) contain religious sentiments that are related to the numinous and mysterious fear of Nature and death that gives meaning to life, and to the institutionalization of society. In this way, as observed in the films, the Society originated by religion is a construction against Nature and Death. Based on these hypotheses, the objective of this work is to (a) show that the social structure of the tribal society that lives on Skull Island is reinforced by the religious feelings that they profess towards the Kong divinity, and (b) reveal the impact that the observation of the generalized alterity that characterizes the isolated tribal society of the island produces on Western visitors—and therefore, on film viewers. The article concludes that the return to New York, after the trip, brings an unexpected guest: the barbarism that is installed in the heart of civilization; that the existing order is reinforced and the society in crisis is renovated; and that the rationality subject to commercial purposes that characterizes modernity has not been able to escape from the religiosity that nests in the depths of the human soul.