These are crazy times. On one TV channel, mobs are destroying cities in England. On another channel, mobs are destroying San Francisco. The first is presented as news, and I’m supposed to be shocked by it. The second is presented as entertainment, and I’m supposed to enjoy it.
Is this sick or what?
Obviously the makers of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Planet der Affen: Prevolution) didn’t anticipate this coincidence, but they should have. Rise is an unnecessary remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes from 1972. And Conquest itself is based on a true story — just one without apes in it.
On August 11, 1965, a white police officer stopped a 21-year-old black man, Marquette Frye, who was driving drunk in Watts, a poor neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. An argument with Frye and members of his family turned into a struggle that ended when more police arrived and hit the Fryes with their batons.
Hundreds of people began to gather around. The crowd turned angry and threw stones at the police cars as they drove away. Part of the crowd then began to attack white people who were walking or driving by. The next evening, as many as 10,000 African-Americans were looting businesses and setting them on fire. Gun battles ensued. Only the arrival of 13,900 soldiers from the National Guard, and the arrest of 4,000 people, made it possible to restore order several days later. By the time the violence ended, 600 buildings, worth $40 million, had been destroyed.
The Watts riots were, at the time, every bit as shocking as 9/11 was in 2001. America needed to understand and come to terms with this painful time in history. That’s where allegory can help. Paul Dehn, screenwriter of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, based his story on the African-American experience of slavery and, later, the Watts riots.
In the film, simians from Borneo are brought to Los Angeles in the far future (1983) and are forced to do menial labor by people in fascist uniforms. The apes constantly screw up because they’re, well, apes, and they’re often punished by humans who carry police batons and cattle prods.
After several years of this, a capable leader (played just as capably by Roddy McDowall) finally gives the apes an opportunity to stand up to their oppressors. Instead of taking “no” for an answer, the police hit the apes with their batons, so the apes shoot a few of them and organize a mob that starts throwing Molotov cocktails. Minutes later, Los Angeles is on fire.
Both the riot that followed the Rodney King incident in 1992 (again in Los Angeles) and this month’s riots in Britain were set off by racial tension and the perceived use of excessive force by police. Since society didn’t learn from the original Conquest, it would actually be time to do a remake.
But alas, in a time when controversy and deep thought are not desired in entertainment, Rise has chosen not to follow the premise of Conquest. It won’t teach us very much. It’s simply a violent movie about animals that escape from a laboratory.
Without an allegory to learn from, I guess we’ll just have to live with the real thing.
