It’s crazy to think we can find our help from other things than besides people. However, for me people voice the characters that helped me see the light. Last night I finally started watching Tarzan. It’s been a few years since I’ve actually seen it because honestly the entire movie is just sad from start to finish. And the only thing I think about when it’s on is the old Play Station 2 game my cousin and I used to play every time she was slept over at the house. Yes, I only played it while she was there. Some how every time she played it, she’d get passed the five levels while I was still struggling to get through level three. The game went along with the movie. You start off as baby Tarzan; kid Tarzan, and then adult Tarzan with the damn leopard. Guess who died every time I tried getting through level 3? Me playing the adult Tarzan. It was annoying as hell so we just let her play it every single time. At least somebody was getting enjoyment by it. You have to look at it that way I guess!
Like I said though, last night I watched the very beginning of it and tried not to laugh or quote the whole Terk and Tantor parts because apparently I still know those lines pretty well. I’ve always liked the soundtrack for the movie a lot. Phil Collins did an amazing job at the storytelling of the songs with the story of Tarzan at different ages. One scene had is still pretty fresh for me and just breaks my heart is the scene after the elephant stampede and Kala and Kerchak are trying to find out what caused it, when Kerchak gets angry with both Kala and Tarzan and says “he’ll never be one of us.” Even when I was a kid, that scene used to get me. I’m lucky I didn’t cry during the scene last night, but it still deeply affected me in the same way it used to. When little Tarzan is by water and pulling mud on his face to make him darker like an ape. It’s kind of like what a human would do to look for accepts within a bigger crowd of people. I’ve done it before, just not with mud. I used clothes, makeup, and hating myself when I looked into a mirror. It was awful to feel like you were not good enough for others as yourself. Tarzan as a kid had the same problem with showing he could be like one of the apes, until Jane and her father showed up on land a few years later.
That water scene also brings up something else that I think mothers or fathers with children who are both different physically and mentally. Kala tries to get Tarzan cleaned up after throwing mud on him; she also tries to distract him from Kerchak’s harsh words and uses something very good in this situation. Kala uses the fact that they are different, but they still have the same eyes, noses, ears, hands, and hearts. To me NOW, sounds like that would register easily for a young kid who has problems with fitting in with others. There’s really nothing to proof but the fact that we’re all the same with the things we use on a daily basis. I think the one problem is that after a while a person who knows they are different from the rest and then finds somebody who looks like them, talks like them. They start to wonder in what world they truly live in. When Tarzan first met Jane and her father, he didn’t understand why they looked so much like him but didn’t act like an ape. He was brought up one way, but seeing these two as different creatures, much like Kerchek saw him as a baby. A danger. Similarities are within this part of the film with the real world. I think when a person has never met another person like themselves and all of a sudden meets this interesting creature, it just draws them into one another before you know it a friendship forms and then noticeable differences are no longer an issue.
In the movie, Tarzan tries to gain respect from Kerchak and the other apes, but when he learns about what he truly is, he can’t deny who raised him all these years. Kids want respect from others their age and their elders. When they are constantly denied that chance it can two things, it can either fuel the fire or drive them or it can drain everything out of them and they just feel too broken inside to fix things. It seems that everybody is going with the second one a lot more. In a way, Tarzan, Kala and Jane are all good role models in a way. Kala lost her child but rescued a human baby from a monster. Mothers have a knack for saving their children from everyday monsters to monsters under the bed and inside the closet. Tarzan proved himself worthy of the apes, Jane and her father, and most of all Kerchak. Jane is a known as the stranger that looks passed the differences that Tarzan has with how he acts with both the apes and humans. She becomes the only ally to both sides of him. I think in a way, I have a grown to see myself as a person with disabilities but thankfully overtime I have grown to like the way I am and wouldn’t change it for the world.
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