Transcription
All right, peace. Now, this is a series that I'm going to start called Chronicles at the Movies. All right, it's going to be predicated on certain movies that I feel like, uh, are worth delving into in regards to imagery or symbolism. Other films, I might break down. I might go through the entire film, and certain films, I want to go through key scenes.
This film is, uh, the, uh, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Uh, Planet of the Apes is a, is a very powerful series, particularly if you know and understand this, the, uh, the scriptures. But just on a base level, uh, the, the apes in the film have always been used as, as being analogous to people of color, men of color, particularly the men. And they're going to show you in this scene that, uh, they're going to show you very, very clearly that the apes are representative of the men because they're going to make an allusion to the so-called Underground Railroad. You know, where the, uh, with the, the convention where the, the liberal Caucasians of that, of that time allegedly helped so-called blacks that were in slavery escape towards the North or towards freedom, right? Or towards, or towards the tower.
I just want you to listen to some of the dialogue and and watch the imagery. How they convey how this man assists the apes. And watch the allusion to the so-called Underground Railroad, proving that the apes represent the so-called black man. They need to get to the Tower without being seen. I'm going to take him through the subway. Let go.
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No.
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You.
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Okay. See now, now they're getting fired upon as he's trying to help them towards so-called freedom. All right, for those who don't know the background of the film, it's basically about the apes trying to establish their own civilization. The humans are trying to reestablish their own civilization after it fell due to a plague. Uh, right now, this ape Caesar, with the name Caesar meaning King, he has befriended one of the humans who now hopes to lead him into the city to assist, to, uh, help Caesar overthrow an incumbent ape who took over the ape colony after he, he deemed Caesar to be too weak. All right.
But as you can see, these, uh, Caucasian man, he's assisting the apes getting through the subway or getting through the Underground Railroad. Now they're getting fired upon by humans who are, who are fearful of the apes taking over civilization. "Who's there? If you're human, you better say so." "It's me." "It's." Now, the voice said, "If you're human," the voice said, "Who's there?" That was the voice. "Who fired the gun?" He said, "If you're human," meaning if you're, uh, non-black, you better say so. "It's Malcolm. Don't shoot. Stairs. Take the stairs. They'll bring you out and up under the tree." Okay, go.
You see how they have them looking like how they would depict a lot of the, uh, the scared slaves? If you ever watch any of those slavery movies when they show the, uh, the Caucasian man helping, helping them through the Underground Railroad or helping them get to the North to, to quote unquote, freedom. You see how they have their, their them all huddled together, uh, with a fearful look on their face.
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Trust. They, they coming out. Don't [Music] shoot. They even showed them going through the turnstile. They want you to get the image subconsciously that that was the Underground [Music] Railroad.
"Hey, look who I found. I didn't know if you'd made it out." "See, don't worry. We're going to turn our this around." "What do you mean? Going up? The apes, they're all over the tower." "I lost the dropped out. Keep trying." "Look at this C4. This is San Francisco. Fight block. Anyone. We just started selling. They're going to take down the whole tower. Last them all. Once we could use your help."
That character with the glasses, played by Gary Oldman, uh, who often plays that type of character, he understands. He has a great fear of the apes because he understands that their takeover is inevitable. And if he doesn't do something to stop it, they will take over all of civilization. All right. This character here, played by, I believe his real name is Jason Clark, he plays the so-called liberal white. He plays the guilt-ridden, angst-ridden liberal white, uh, who's overcome with guilt in regards to how they treated these so-called, quote unquote, apes. He sees great nobility in the apes, and that's why he is assisting them. Even though subconsciously, I think even he knows that allowing or assisting the apes means his own demise. But that's, that's what's called subconscious [Music] guilt.
I'm going to cut it off here. Um, you guys can see the movie for yourself if you haven't seen it already. I'm sure most of you have. It was, it did great at the box office. It's called Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and it is an allusion to, which all the Planet of the Apes films have always been an allusion to, a so-called black rulership of the planet and a fear of the so-called black rulership of the planet. All right. But I just wanted to highlight that scene because it was, it was rather transparent, even though it was subliminal, that they were alluding to the so-called Underground Railroad. All right, peace.