Beasts are bestial.

A buddy of mine took his family to the city to see the Broadway musical King Kong. It came as a surprise to me that there even was a musical based on the classic 1933 film. That almost sounds like an old MAD magazine parody of the current vogue for adapting dopey movies into Broadway shows (Legally Blonde, Elf, Hairspray, School of Rock, Rocky, Mean Girls, and so on).

The songs would seem to write themselves: "Skull Island Girl," "Gorilla My Dreams, It's You," "Oe'r the Rampage We Watched," "Take the El Train," "Shock the Huge Monkey," "There's a Broken Bone for Every Light on Broadway," "I'm on an Empire State of Building," and so on.

But sadly, they seem to have taken the idea seriously, with musical numbers like "Kong's Capture" and "Broadway Nightmare" (the latter of which sounds like me having to pay for show tickets).

To be fair, my buddy and his family enjoyed the show, calling it brisk and exciting, with amazing puppet work and other special effects to bring the big hairy title star to life. Hey, spectacle sells, which is kind of the whole point of the original movie -- bringing back the world's most amazing mammal to show him off to the New York crowds.

However, I take issue with the way the play sells itself in its PR materials:

"To her surprise, Ann finds an unexpected kindred spirit in this magnificent, untameable creature. But when Carl hatches a plan to capture Kong and display him to the New York masses, she’s faced with a terrible choice. Will Ann follow the call of her own ambition? Or can she find the strength to stand up for what’s right? Roaring with heart-pounding action, KING KONG is a gripping and spectacular story of unlikely friendship, unshakable courage, and breaking free from the cages others put us in."

So a monstrous, gigantic monkey with poor anger management skills is exactly the same as some guy whose dad wanted him to join the accounting firm or some teen girl whose mom didn't want her to get nose ring.

Kong, having broken free from the cages other put him in.

I know it wasn't Kong's fault that he was brought to the city; unlike Godzilla, he didn't up and decide to go to town one day. But according to the well-researched Killcounts page, King Kong kills 49 human beings in the original movie. White, black, native, urbanite, pagan, Jew, doesn't matter, Kong kills them all. If this is the guy Ann feels simpatico with, I'm never taking her out to lunch. "I eat soup with my hands! You can't keep me in your cage!"

I guess what irks me the most is that this sympathy and sentimentalism for wild animals has really reached a fever pitch. Not that I think we ought to shoot 'em, but I think we ought to realize that they are just fine with killing us, and we should not get too attached. That's how people wind up getting mauled by bears or jumping into jaguar pens. You may make pals with a pack of wolves or a grizzly bear, but try that when they're hungry or defending their turf and see how far you get.

And definitely don't try it with King Kong. He didn't get to be king by holding elections.