King Kong (1933) is a film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, based around the legend of 'Kong' and the world Kong is entering, from the point of view of an ambitious director and his cast in hopes of making a film on Skull Island. King Kong is a gigantic gorilla that our main characters, Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) and Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), meet once they dock on Skull Island to shoot Denham's film. 
FIG.1: KING KONG POSTER (1933)
At the beginning of the film, Carl Denham is searching for a beautiful woman to star in his film, as this is what the media are requesting from him- and typical of most films nowadays- he finds a gorgeous, slim, blonde lady to hire. When he firsts meets Ann she is in trouble with another man of which accused her of stealing. This makes her vulnerable with the man unafraid to hold back from hurting Ann and Denham intervenes, making Ann come across as a stereotypical 'Damsel in distress' and Denham the typical male hero. Ann herself is a huge influence on women in film influenced by the male gaze. 

 The male gaze is a theory presented by Laura Mulvey, where the women are placed in the frame to become sexualised objects, strictly for male pleasure. Women often have little 'practical' character roles in films; they are mostly put on screen for show. The leading characters in King Kong are white and happen to be male, the only woman in the film that has any speaking role at all is actually Ann. 'Women are underrepresented in film...White men are vastly overrepresented in film.' (Murphy, J.N. 2015), this statement further references the point made above that women are often put on screen just for male pleasure, while men run the show. Women at the time, in the 1930's, were not treated the same way as they are now. In the 1930's, during the great depression, women were mostly set to be housewives, as jobs were very limited and employers preferred to give the roles to men. Some men even blamed women for the great depression itself. The film King Kong itself reflects the time of the 1930's, where a line of women in the city of New York are seen waiting outside a Woman's Mission to be fed. This shows that they most likely are not paid a lot, or do not have jobs. When the audience meet Ann with Carl Denham, she is desperate for a job, she says she used to have a job until the studio where she worked closed down. 'There were no protections at the time for women in the workplace, meaning they could be fired simply for being a woman without unemployment or severance. Working women also had no guarantee of equal wages or treatment.' (Beach, J. 2018). This statement from a post about 'Limits to Women's Rights in the 1930s' helps clarify that it's likely Ann wasn't receiving equal pay, treatment and could've easily ended up in the line for the Woman's Mission like all the other women in the city. The film reflects quite realistically how men and women were almost separate classes with different rights back then. So not only is Ann a huge part of the male gaze theory, but she is also a big reflection of how women were treated in the 1930s, she is the only female speaking role in the film. Although this is morally wrong today, it reflects the times extremely accurately. Ann would've most likely been searching for a job and due to being beautiful she manages to be swept up into the crew of Denham's film. She is a typical blonde with little character role other than being placed in for the male eye- which is actually still a huge part of film today! [Figure 2.]
FIG.2: Screenshot of Google search result for 'Blonde woman in films'

When looking at the time of 1930's it is also clear that racism was still a huge issue. Racial discrimination was not illegal in the 1930's and the Ku Klutz Klan still had a lot of power. In King Kong racism is very clear. The black natives on Skull Island are presented as being very tribal, primitive, animalistic and 'savage'. A world completely unknown to the white man, who don't even know how to approach them properly- they are even faced with a language barrier to further symbolise the differences between white and black men at the time. On top of this, King Kong himself is actually a big symbol of racism. Kong is portrayed as a huge, black monster- who eventually is dragged back to New York City to be exploited for being 'a  monster' [Figure 3]. This is similar to the way black people were slaves to white people at the time before equal rights were introduced. Kong is referred to as 'a creature worshipped as a god in his own world, who is kidnapped and taken to the United States in shackles to serve as a plaything for a wealthy white elite—has proven especially metaphorically rich.' (Rabin, N. 2017) Which further proves to an audience that this film is a metaphor for racism through the embodiment of Kong, an exaggerated version of a black person at the time. 
Fig.3: Kong's exploitation, Film screenshot (1933)

 King Kong now has been remade many times over, and Ann has finally become a more equal character to the men, which is a huge breakthrough for the times and shows how far society has come and how films reflect the times of when they are made. There are still flaws, but overall King Kong (1933) is definitely worth a watch, the special effects for the time it was made are incredibly well done- the stop motion was pushing the boundaries and makes it very enjoyable and exciting to watch as a spectator. 
ILLUSTRATION LIST:
FIG.1: King Kong Poster (1933) [Poster] At: https://www.atthemovies.co.uk/gallery/484-king-kong-1933 (Accessed on: 4 October 18)
FIG.2: Screenshot of 'Sexiest Blonde Actresses' At: https://www.imdb.com/list/ls063525760/ (Accessed on: 4 October 18)
FIG.3: Kong's exploitation (1933) [Film Still] At: https://www.popoptiq.com/american-kaiju-an-examination-of-king-kong-1933/ (Accessed on: 4 October 18)

 BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Beach, J. (2018) Limits to Women's Rights in the 1930s [Online] At: https://classroom.synonym.com/limits-to-womens-rights-in-the-1930s-12082808.html (Accessed on: 4 October 18)
Murphy, J.N. (2015) The Role of Women in Film [PDF] At: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.co.uk/&httpsredir=1&article=1001&context=jouruht (Accessed on: 4 October 18)
Rabin, N. (2017) The Monkey and the Metaphor: What Every King Kong Film is Really About. [Online] At: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/03/king-kong-skull-island-movies-metaphors (Accessed on: 4 October 18)