Gorillas in the Mist (with guest Martin Darlington)

Sean and Cody exchange Thanksgiving leftovers for Rwandan mountain gorillas and join forces with History by Hollywood podcast host Martin Darlington for an in-depth look at Gorillas in the Mist, the popular biopic of legendary primatologist Dian Fossey. In this 1988 film based on her memoirs, amateur naturalist Fossey (Sigourney Weaver) begs bigwig anthropologist Louis Leakey for a slot on a junket to Africa to count endangered gorillas. When she gets in-country she begins an obsessive one-woman war against poachers, zoo headhunters, amorous graduate students, wayward National Geographic photographers and anyone who stands in the way of “her” gorillas. Environmental issues discussed include species conservation, poaching in Africa, bushmeat and its relationship to economies and disease, the world wildlife conservation business and a repeat grudge match with our old friend the White Savior Complex.

Was the real Dian Fossey a saint and a savior, or an out-of-control monster who did more harm than good? Who might have been responsible for her still-unsolved 1985 murder? Should Westerners from developed countries go to Africa to save wildlife, or is that another form of colonialism? Are poachers always bad? What was the Congo Crisis and what does it have to do with this movie? Why would you want to put a chimpanzee into a gorilla suit? Are there actually any real gorillas in this picture, or are they all people (or chimps) in suits? How did Teddy Roosevelt set out to save the environment by shooting up the landscape with a shotgun? Is Sigourney Weaver’s agent secretly subsidizing the production of Green Screen? After the racist Götterdämmerung of King Kong, why are we talking about gorillas again? All these questions are beating their chests and screeching to be debated on this Very Special Episode of Green Screen.

Big thanks to Martin Darlington of History by Hollywood, with whom this episode is a joint production.

Gorillas in the Mist (1988) at IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095243/ Gorillas in the Mist (1988) at Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/gorillas-in-the-mist/

Next Movie Up: Batman Returns (1992)

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