Colonialism and Chaos: The Jungle Book

Helena Iara had her Jungle Book phase about 4 months ago, but over the last couple of days she has been talking about it again, wanting to play at Baloo and Mowgli.  She sings the Bear Necessities, and sometimes asks to see the monkey scene.  As she watched it last night, I began to think about the story symbolically.  Here is the Louie King of the Jungle song, in case you don't remember it:

 

Before anything else, I think we need to do some symbolic unpacking.  The song is New Orleans Jazz, and the voice sounds like Louie Armstrong. It is actually Louis Prima who sings; Disney first wanted Armstrong to sing, but then was concerned about a black man voicing an ape.  The expedient of changing the race of the singer doesn't really resolve the problem, however, when we see that the movie isn't really abut American racism, but about colonialism.  Rudyard Kipling, who wrote the book upon which the Disney film was based, was the great apologist for the British Empire in India, and the movie actually nods rather honestly in that direction: the elephants, for instance, parody British military virtues.

Let's look at the basic message of the song:

"Now I'm the king of the swingers

Oh, the jungle VIP

I've reached the top and had to stop

And that's what botherin' me

I wanna be a man, mancub

And stroll right into town

And be just like the other men

I'm tired of monkeyin' around!

Oh, oobee doo

I wanna be like you

I wanna walk like you

Talk like you, too

You'll see it's true

An ape like me

Can learn to be human too..."

Here is the basic conceit of colonialism, especially in the "White Man's Burden" form defended by Kipling: the poor, black, deprived "other" in the non-European world wants to be like Europeans.  London is the culmination and apex of what it means to be human, so any way that the Europeans can help these poor deprived people become like Europeans -- even if it means stealing their resources, running their lives, destroying their culture, and even killing them -- is completely right and justified.  Perhaps some jungle kings did want to "walk like [Kipling], talk like [Kipling]," but the truth is that most people would prefer to be in charge of their own lives and make their own decisions.

I should also point out that if the ape wants to be like Kipling, then Kipling (and other beneficiaries of Empire) don't have to think so hard about whether their life is really all that good.  If they want it, well then I'm happy to have it.  (This, by the way, is the essence of the French Feminist Critique of Freud's idea of penis envy, but that's a story for another essay)

Helena, her friend Luc, and her cousin Gabriela.

At first, then, the song looks like an apology for colonialism, white words put into the mouth of the ape/primitive.  As it continues, however, it becomes a much more interesting story.  After all of the dancing and singing, Louie and the apes become aware that Baloo is really a bear, and they try to chase him out of their city.  As they run around and fight with the great bear, they destroy their entire city.  As Baloo and Mowgli flee at the end of the scene, the entire beautiful place falls in on itself, culture turned to rubble.

And what happened with colonialism?  Europeans, unable to see the wealth and depth of African, American, and Asian cultures, didn't care in the least what they destroyed.  Sometimes the destruction was architectural, like in The Jungle Book: think of Cortés in Tenochtitlan or Pizarro in Cuzco.  Other times, it was cultural, as with the British and French in Africa.  But in the end, colonialism knocks it all down.

Even worse, it appears that the apes themselves have destroyed their own city: their act of resistance is what brings the stones down on their own head.  Those who have lived through wars of independence know this situation perfectly: fe years before the Jungle Book was released on screen, we saw the same thing happening in Algeria, as the French blamed the Algerians for destroying their own cities.  

Is the Jungle Book an anti-colonialist screed?  Probably not.  But if we look at it carefully, it does tell the truth -- if in a coded way -- about a nasty episode in world history.