Pierre Boulle’s book Planet of the Apes has been adapted into two movies and has influenced popular culture. Its dystopian elements and animal rights overtones can be seen today. The book shows that evolution and poor choices can often affect the most stable civilizations.
When the group of Earth astronauts first land on the planet, they searched for anything familiar to them. “There was no doubt that we were on a twin planet of our Earth” (22-3).The planet had a similar climate, similar vegetation, same position in the solar system and the possibility of beings who looked like they would belong on Earth. This led to a comfort they had not experienced since they had started their journey. Although the creatures look just like humans on Earth, they act more like animals while the Earthlike animals act more like the humans.
Despite the topsy turvy situation presented, the astronauts believe that the situation will resolve itself. Instead it becomes obvious to the travelers that the beings in charge of the planet view the humans as animals. This becomes more evident when the astronauts witness the hunt of the humans as well as the imprisonment and experimentation. Yet this notion is not as far fetched as it is made to seem in the book.
Although humans are capable of rationalization and can use emotion and reason to influence conclusions, there have been cases where this is not the reality. Throughout history, humans have oppressed and imprisoned other humans because of a belief in superiority compared to others. The most well known example of this is presented in 1940’s Nazi Germany.
Adolph Hitler wanted to create a master race to populate the Earth after he conquered it. His plan essentially involved eliminating anyone who did not fit into his ideals of what humans should be. In addition to the elimination of humans, he had experiments performed on those he thought were real abominations to his plan. Hitler was not the only person to experiment on humans. Japanese scientists experimented on Chinese prisoners of war, while white Americans experimented on African Americans in Tuskegee on the basis of sexually transmitted disease research. The same is true of the apes in the book.
The apes view humans and an inferior species regarding their intellect and treat them as animals. The experiments performed are at first to determine their levels of reasoning. When the apes have proof, up to their standards, that the humans are inferior, they decided that more invasive experiments are required to determine how close their brains are. Ulysse, the protagonist, has aspects of being both an animal and a reasonable being, which leads to confusion for the apes. After finding him to be able to reason, the apes next want to test the limits of his reasoning. Despite evidence of his intelligence being on par with apes rather than humans, there are those in the community who believe the results to be skewed despite actually seeing the evidence.
Eventually he is accepted as being intelligent and is allowed to become a member of their society. They take care of him as a form of restitution for the circumstances he was put through. Unfortunately, members of the ape society realize that if one person is capable of rational thought, others may be capable and the balance of power may be overthrown. This is shown to happen when Nova, the mother or Ulysse’s child becomes “more and more rational” (263). Although she is unable to verbally communicate with Ulysse, she is able to communicate through gestures. Zira and Cornelius, his chimpanzee friends and scientist realize that to save his life and their own society, he has to go back to his own society.
Up until this point in the narrative, the novel and movies are similar. “Mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art.” (Benjamin). By creating a film from the book, the narrative has reached a larger audience. The movies have been modernized and Americanized but the concepts have remained the same. The big differences between the novel and movies are the endings. While in the book, Ulysse returns to Earth, after an extended period, to find that the fate of humans and apes was similar to what happened on Soror. He returns to find an ape in the role of man. The point of the book is to illustrate that one civilization will not always be in power. Civilizations flourish and falter all the time. This is significant because it relates the event to a matter of evolution, where given enough time, change is bound to happen, instead of change being due to chance.
In the 1968 version, the protagonist realizes that he had been on Earth the entire time. The humans have destroyed themselves and their civilization as a result of war. The ending relates to the reality of the late 1960’s. The Vietnam War appears to be a major influence in the ending of this version of the story. The ending is a reaction to fighting those who are said to be the enemy, but realizing the fight isn’t what originally appeared to be.
In the 2001 version, the protagonist of this story is chased to earth by one of the apes. Instead of landing in the present, the ape lands in the past and is able to change society, rather than having the changes occur more naturally. This ending is a comment on society’s willingness to change past events in order to manipulate the present. The change in history is due to time travel, but it seems to say that history isn’t always what it seems to be. People choose what is considered important enough to remember in the future. Although apes are now in charge in this version of the world, other historical events have remained the same.
While the changes in endings reflect changes in society based on the time period, aspects of the book have been seen in other media because it is entertaining as well as relevant to certain discussions. A major example of the concepts in recent popular culture is its incidence in The Simpsons. Storylines relating to Planet of the Apes have appeared in at least two episodes with the film version being referenced in a few more episodes.
In the episode Deep Space Homer, the buffoonish character of Homer is chosen to join a NASA program. When asked how he feels about space travel, he responds by saying “The only danger is if they send us to that terrible planet of the apes. Wait a minute...Statue of Liberty... that was our planet!” (IMDB). His reaction closely mirrors the reaction the Charlton Heston’s character had in the original Planet of the Apes film. The Simpson’s often includes references to films and literature as a way to expose people to new ideas and to rewards those familiar with the topic by presenting it in a new way.
Similarly, the theme of destroying those deemed to be inferior found its way into a song a television show by Flight of the Conchords. The song “Robots” (Youtube) is about a robot uprising that killed all the humans. The reason they for the uprising was the robots wanted to have fun and be free but were being held back by the humans. Robots were created by humans to do jobs deemed too dangerous as well as in an effort to increase efficiency and speed. Instead of reasoning, the robots just destroy the population. Although the song is in fun, it clearly used some of the concepts from the novel and movies.
In the book in particular, the humans that have been captured are places in jail like structure so they can easily be observed by the apes. The apes have an easy time watching all the humans, but the humans can also watch each other. In the jail, experiments similar to Pavlov’s experiments are performed as way to judge the intelligence of the prisoners. Ulysse is able to see the experiments before the apes get to him, giving him time to prepare himself for what is going to happen. Because he is intelligent and does the opposite of what is expected, the apes assume that his actions are due to observation rather than intelligence.
In this respect, it is like the Panopticon in Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish. “But the Panopticon was also a laboratory; it could be used as a machine to carry out experiments, to alter behaviour, to train or correct individuals” (203). All the prisoner’s can see what everyone is doing at all times. The other humans see how Ulysse acts and the reaction he gets from the apes, so they attempt the actions that he is performing such as building stairs with crates. The other humans try to imitate him because they are watching him just like the apes watch them all. This is a correlation to Foucalts panopticism. The humans choose their actions wisely because they know they are being watched. Ulysse knows that the other humans are watching him, which makes any escape difficult for him because they might alert the apes.
Despite Planet of the Apes being released in 1963, elements of the novel can still be found in modern culture. The fact that the books themes are still popular within modern culture shows that the concepts are still a part of people’s consciousness. The themes presented in the book will always be a part a society as long as there is a group of people who are being repressed another group who feel superior.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0701087/quotes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvrva8NoMLM
Boulle, Pierre. Planet of the Apes. New York: Random House Publishing, 1963.
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish. New York: Vintage Books. 1995
Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" 12 December 2008.
