Our Hairy Cousin

 

 

Well, I shouldn't be surprised if gorillas made some thought-provoking comments about humans that we don't get because we were misled as to how they live and what they are. Originally, we only saw a very strong and muscular hoodlum-like animal, where in reality gorillas are the opposite of that popular, but misleading KingKong-characteristics. Also, the male gorillas don't long for blonde women whom they want to abduct and rape. All of that is projections of human fantasies: KingKong is strong, he beats his chest so he must be showing off his masculinity and his capacity of fighting, right? Naahh, wrong!

Gorillas are peaceful and social creatures, as well as intelligent and, as humans close to them report, even thoughtful. The days of these magnificent animals are not being spent fighting, but foraging for vegetation, and if the nights of some of the males bring dreams of lovely ladies it will be someone like this beauty.

This gorilla mother with her baby reminds me of one of the most famous gorilla ladies, namely Koko, who lived in a zoo for most of her life. She didn't have any offspring, but at one point she was gifted a kitten, which she took to at once. However, when she herself had ruined a sink in the zoo, she tried to blame it on the kitten. So very human, right, as that is what many criminals have tried to do when caught.

When two celebrities, Koko and Robin Williams, met, they seemed to bond at once. I don't know if the story of Koko's grief at Robin William's death is true, but I shouldn't wonder if that's the case

The muscular strength and the chest beating - the latter in reality being a sign of stress and nervousness - became some kind of signifiers of valid, human, masculine characteristics. The fictive movie-character, KingKong,  became one of the animals portraying human maleness, but it's Koko, who is the most accurate image of the gorilla in its true form. She may have been more or less frustrated, living in a zoo, and not having any gorilla babies, but she was treated well - or as well as was possible - and she made a staying impression on the people who got to know her.

Koko and her adopted "baby"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koko_(gorilla)

 

https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/species/gorilla 

 

Wikipedia

 

Britannicus