King Kong: The Savior of Teenage Boys

I was originally going to write my review of the newest movie from Peter Jackson, of “Lord of the Rings” fame, from the perspective of a single scene in the movie and its effect on the packed-house audience I viewed it with. With my wife by my side and surrounded by other couples of varying age, the scene showed our band of heros, trapped on Skull Island and in pursuit of Kong, falling into a dark ravine. As they try to regroup ominous clicking sounds come from all sides, thanks to the digital surround sound of the theater. We begin to see small tendrils and legs emerge from the darker corners of the rocks. The squeals began almost immediately across the crowd and even my own adult wife began squirming and clinging to my arm, burying her face against my shoulder even as she kept one horrified eye on the screen. The heros were under attack by hundreds of enlarged insects, of various species. They fight bravely, of course, but it is soon apparent they are going to be over-run and the cliched bug phobias of every woman and girl in the room was brought to the fore as the battle unfolded. No one likes bugs on their faces, especially cockroach-looking things with giant feeler antenna. Even as I was engrossed in the scene, I couldn’t help noticing the reaction of the females in the audience, especially the younger ones who were there with their young dates. Thinking back to my own teenage years, nervously sitting next to my own gal and wondering at the best approach to holding hands or even stealing a kiss, I read the minds of the young men who bravely held their quivering beauties to shield them against the creepy-crawly nightmares of the big screen. Like the monster movies of his own youth, Jackson’s current triumph had the singular, if overlooked, effect of giving every young man attending a movie with a girlfriend what was on his mind the most. Even after the scene played out and the battle shifted against the bugs and we moved on to the next chapter of the movie, it was far easier for the young men to hold on to their still trembling girls, standing in for the heros onscreen in their hearts. Across the room, I picked up a single resounding thought from the young XY chromosome set: “Thank you Peter Jackson!”