In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Preface To The second Edition I n the decade since this book first appeared, King Kong’s visibility in both academic and popular culture has increased considerably. New readings of the original King Kong (Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack, 1933), such as those by Susan Buck-Morss and Merrill Schleier, reflect the growing interest in modernism that has characterized film and media studies, as well as other sectors of the humanities, in recent years.1 Scholarship on King Kong has also benefited from a greater emphasis on revisionist approaches to 1930s film history, as practiced by such historians as Donald Crafton, Robert Spadoni, and Martin Rubin.2 Outside of academe, Peter Jackson has obviously played a pivotal role in reviving interest in both the original King Kong and its popular protagonist. When Jackson’s remake of King Kong was released in late 2005, initial critical and fan responses were mixed, and did not seem to offer the makings of an illuminating reception study. This is why I opted for a close textual analysis of the remake for this revised edition (see chapter 5) rather than an audienceoriented study. Now, three years later, I have some regrets about this decision, because provocative fan responses to both Jackson’s remake and the original Kong have since emerged at various websites. In this preface, I sketch out some of the current discourses that define the King Kong fandom, emphasizing Jackson’s efforts to address fans during the remake’s promotional campaign, as well as fan discussions of King Kong on the Internet. When I wrote this book in the mid-1990s, I was somewhat skeptical about the value of fan studies for an examination of the King Kong phenomenon. I now believe that fan discussions reveal virtually as much as academic analyses about the stakes of reading and interpreting King Kong today.| ix x | Preface When the first remake of King Kong (John Guillermin) was released in 1976, the producers distanced themselves from the achievements of Merian Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack, and Willis O’Brien. Jackson took a different tack: he used interviews and public appearances to define himself as a serious King Kong fan whose remake would constitute an homage to the original film. Over and over again, Jackson related the story of how, as a nine-year-old boy in Pukerua Bay, New Zealand, he had first fallen in love with Kong after seeing the original film on television. Four years later, he tried to make his own version of King Kong, using a Super-8 camera.3 To some extent, Jackson’s identification of himself as a Kong fan was probably strategic: he apparently wished to recruit the gigantic Lord of the Rings fandom for King Kong, while putting a personal imprint on his remake’s promotional campaign that would work against the perceptions of extreme commercialism that had dogged Guillermin’s remake. But it is noteworthy that Jackson spent a great deal of time trying to educate spectators about the original King Kong, both because of his passion for the film and to establish a relationshipbetweenitandhisownremake.Thiseducationalcampaign,which emphasized fan responses, was most apparent in the flurry of Kong-related DVDs released in late 2005, just prior to the remake’s dual world premieres in Wellington, New Zealand (Jackson’s home), and New York City. SomeoftheseDVDs,suchasthe1976remakeofKingKongandthedirector’s cut of Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996), were obliquely related to the remake, yetapparentlydesignedtoplayintoitsbuild-upcampaign.Moreimportantwas the DVD release of King Kong: Peter Jackson’s Production Diaries, a collection of video-blog entries from the set of the remake that received a great deal of its own press coverage.4 Jackson had commissioned Michael Pellerin to produce these video blogs, which had first been shown on www.kongisking. net, the independent fan website approved by Jackson. Fans were thus treated as the first and primary audience for the Production Diaries, which were later released on DVD to the general public. In addition, the content of many of the blogs was aimed at fans: in one entry, Jackson urged fans to send in their questions about filmmaking (by posting them to the kongisking web site); in another, he brought out items from his own personal King Kong collection, such as a brontosaurus armature used in the original film (reinforcing his own status as a Kong fan). Also important to the remake’s build-up campaign was the release of the original King Kong on DVD. A number of...

Share