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Stories for you to savor over Shabbat and Sunday GET THE LATEST AT FORWARD.COM Culture Who should Jews root for — Godzilla or King Kong? By PJ Grisar Entering April, we’re set for a long-awaited showdown impression.” It seems that Babel, likely the “unnamed between household names. Folks starved for sporting English-speaking Bolshevik” mentioned in an spectacle studied their brackets all through March. Associated Press story about Cooper’s near death by Now, as we await the final battle, the world wonders Cossack cavalry, saved his life — and thus, Kong’s. who will come out on top: King Kong or the King of All Godzilla’s origins have shifted over the years since Monsters. Toho Studios introduced him in 1954. But it’s Oh, also, apparently there’s some college basketball undeniable that the monster’s rise is linked to the 1945 going on. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the fight between the Giant Ape from Skull Island Sadly, Jews had a part in this massive loss of civilian and Godzilla, the Pacific-born lizard birthed from life. J. Robert Oppenheimer was instrumental in the nuclear angst, we in fact have a rematch. While it Manhattan Project. Einstein’s discoveries played a would appear that a semi-aquatic T-Rex would have pivotal role in Oppenheimer’s work, and the German- the clear advantage, Kong appeared to best him in Jewish physicist signed a letter encouraging FDR to their last bout (1962’s “King Kong vs. Godzilla”) when support research into chain reaction, fearing the he used heretofore unknown lightning powers on his Germans would succeed in developing the atomic scaly foe. bomb. Both men had regrets — Oppenheimer for how the U.S. failed to explain the true power of the bomb to But let’s not waste too much time on who will win Japan in their ultimatum, Einstein for the carnage he here. Forget the over/under; who should be first in our helped inspire. We’ll follow their example. hearts? Here’s what Jews should consider when “Godzilla vs. King Kong” hits theaters and HBO Max Advantage: Kong March 31. Character Origins King Kong is a hirsute beast with an affinity for uber- Aryan women. He plays into some ugly and King Kong first appeared in 1933 in his eponymous recognizable stereotypes when a Jewish lens is film as an imposing simian who favors blondes and applied. It doesn’t help that he had a stint on the Great swatting at biplanes. Kong was the creation of Edgar White Way. While we’re often likened more to rats and Wallace and Merian C. Cooper, neither of whom was other vermin, there are instances of Jews being Jewish. antisemitically compared to apes. It could be Yet Cooper, who co-directed “King Kong” with Ernest hazardous to identify too strongly with him. P. Schoedsack, had a 1920 encounter with Russian- Godzilla is a mammoth lizard of variable scale and skill Jewish author Isaac Babel in a Soviet POW camp. sets. He’s a fantastic swimmer who is alternately a Author Elif Batuman discovered that in his diaries, savior or a wanton force of destruction. Sometimes he Babel wrote a record of his interrogation of a “shot- is a loving father and sometimes a mother. On other down American pilot” named Frank Mosher, who, it occasions, he’s a wrathful leviathan awakened from a turns out, was an alias of Cooper. “Mosher” and Babel deep sea slumber. Godzilla’s fungible character traits had an “endless conversation” where the Yankee pilot make him hard to pin down, but it’s because his kept asking “frantically what Bolshevism is.” associations are so slippery that he may be the Babel was apparently quite taken with Mosher, writing monster to back — if only because King Kong brings to that he left him with a “sad, heartwarming mind some less than welcome baggage. At the risk of Who should Jews root for — Godzilla or King Kong? 2 GET THE LATEST AT FORWARD.COM being labelled Lizard People, root for the G-man. his appearance at U.C. Berkeley to a Godzillian rampage. All in all, not the best optics, especially when Advantage: Godzilla we consider how the fearsome lizard disrupted the Likely outcome Knicks’ ‘98 season by laying eggs at Madison Square Garden. Godzilla is the favorite when it comes to all the stats, perhaps having one major setback: his ability to move King Kong is often framed as a misunderstood through a metropolis without being impeded by a creature who learns something of humanity through a skyline. Which is a pretty major gripe, come to think of flaxen-haired damsel. His story has had fewer it. Let’s stick to a town both brawlers paid a visit to. opportunities to grace the screen than his opponent’s, When Godzilla visited New York in 1998 it ended poorly but the results have been more consistent in quality for the city, whereas Kong’s method of swinging and (forgetting the one from the 1970s). scaling is far more measured in its destruction of 2005’s Peter Jackson remake was a wondrous, if property. In fact, one could argue that even Kong’s bloated, re-visitation helped along by performances by fatal plummet in Midtown helped cement the then Adrien Brody as a nebbish screenwriter and Jack Black newly-erected Empire State Building’s status as an as a manic film director. “Kong: Skull Island,” directed icon, drawing tourists to this day. by Jewish auteur Jordan Vogt-Roberts, brought some If Godzilla wins, he should be stuck with the bill. Kong much-needed levity to the MonsterVerse, which began at least tries to minimize the havoc and for that, he with the dour 2014 “Godzilla.” Kong also has extensive should be commended. musical connections to the People of the Book. Craig Lucas and Michael Mitnick penned the early lyrics for King Kong may have won the last round, but that was “King Kong” the musical. Max Steiner composed music a long time ago, and it seems unlikely that his electric for the first film and James Newton Howard did the powers — which make little sense given his fatal affair score for Jackson’s remake which, itself, spawned this with a lightning rod — will come back to save him from Jack Black song about napping in his trailer on the set becoming scorched bushmeat. Even overlooking of said film. Godzilla’s radioactive breath, Kong is in another height and weight class than his competitor. Godzilla’s a good Things appear to be copacetic between the oversized 56 feet taller; the precise difference in tonnage is gorilla and the Jews, from his incidental affiliation with unknown but we can bet that this Godzilla, thicc as he a Russian-Jewish luminary up to his most recent is, has the scales tipping in his favor. Kong can be revivals. But there is one giant caveat we must attend nimble and has wits to outsmart the hulking irradiated to in the way of a problematic fan. iguana gunning for him, but will it be enough? Depending on your source “King Kong” was either Kong appears to be the David in this fight, and Jews Adolf Hitler’s favorite film or one he very much always stan an underdog. enjoyed. Yet, great art can have troubling admirers and vice versa. (I mean, the original film — and many of Advantage: Kong its successors — is incredibly racist when it comes to Skull Island’s inhabitants; one could see why Hitler Reputation and Outreach might dig it.) And the author of a book on Hitler’s Godzilla has worked closely with Members of the cinematic proclivities says there’s no hard proof that Tribe, most notably in what may be his worst the Führer ever even watched it. appearance in over 60 years of films, 1998’s “Godzilla.” Looking at the score card, we have a clear winner in The titular kaiju split billing with Matthew Broderick, our hearts — even if he’s probably marked for a character actor Michael Lerner and a good chunk of horrible death. the voice cast of “The Simpsons,” notably Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer. Advantage: Kong While there weren’t many reports of the monster being – difficult to work with, the end product doesn’t speak PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture reporter. He can be reached well for this collaboration. Ben Shapiro once likened at [email protected]. Who should Jews root for — Godzilla or King Kong? 3 GET THE LATEST AT FORWARD.COM Opinion When it comes to race, American Jews must do a better job pursuing justice By Tamar Manasseh Last month, the House of Representatives passed the driving we stayed in the neighborhoods we knew. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a law There may have been shootings and violence where designed to transform the way law enforcement we lived, but we still felt safer there than in the interacts with Black communities nationwide. modern sundown towns of the greater Chicago area. Especially as the trial of George Floyd’s killer, Derek I always learned that the bad guys were supposed to Chauvin, gets underway this week, it’s an important be punished for the crimes they committed. But in step to ending police abuses of Black people, and reality, the only people I saw being punished looked disregard for Black lives. And there’s no doubt that the like the people in my family and in my community. Like widespread protests of last summer following the me. killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor and too many others Yet I knew that we weren’t the bad guys, even if we brought about the passage of this act.