Having not been blessed with fatherhood, I have no idea what the boys of today will remember when they get to be my age. Too many will have no literary or cinematic memory to apply to a contemporaneous event. Somehow, I doubt that punches from Mortal Kombat or Assassin’s Creed will provide them with much reflective help. Which was not the case for me last Thursday while observing the Democrats’ mortal blow to 250 years of American justice — the sham conviction of Donald Trump.
The Democrats, like the Nazis in the film, crossed the line. They desecrated something sacred in their thirst for absolute power.
Like countless patriots, I was nauseated by every element of this rigged trial as already extensively covered: the fabricated crime, the hostile environment (New York City), the partisan prosecutor (DA Alvin Bragg), the compromised judge (Juan Merchan) whose family members targeted Trump for ideology and profit and who tilted the entire procedure against him, and twelve angry jurors with not a Henry Fonda among them. The last point is an allusion to the film masterpiece, 12 Angry Men, that will also be lost on most Millennials and Gen Z members. But other artistic visions ran through my mind that day, foremost among them, Tarzan of the Apes. (READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: The Last Woke Memorial Day)
I loved the Tarzan movies growing up, the exciting adventures of a powerful primitive hero (they were all white males back then) violently defending the wilderness against “civilized” — read petty, greedy, immoral — men. His only material reward in this crusade was well worth it for us boys — the shapely, sexy, skimpily clad Jane. The couple’s cozy jungle tree house was our dream home, complete with a pet-servant chimpanzee, Cheetah. Yet the screen Tarzan’s inarticulation and general ignorance kind of bothered me. Then I read the books.
I wish most younger kids could experience something akin to the joy with which 13-year-old me opened a box containing all 24 paperbacks in the Tarzan series, written by the wonderful Edgar Rice Burroughs. I devoured them all in one summer, sharing each finished work with my best friend and neighbor, Victor. Vic and I had a ball throwing out Tarzan’s names for animal species, which I can cite to this day — Numa the lion, Tantor the elephant, Pacco the zebra, Gimla the crocodile, Hista the snake. Best, the literary Tarzan was not merely a near naked savage but the ultimate aristocrat, Lord Greystoke, who spoke perfect English and French.
The Tarzan pictures never captured the magic of the books, but they were great fun, most famously the spectacular six made by MGM from 1932 to 1942 starring former champion Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan the Ape Man, Tarzan and His Mate, Tarzan Escapes, Tarzan Finds a Son!, Tarzan’s Secret Treasure, Tarzan’s New York Adventure). These productions were logistically incredible, featuring fantastic studio sets, hundreds of actors (with more black extras than any other series), dozens of wild-looking animals, and one monstrous rubber crocodile which Tarzan battles in a thrilling scene in Tarzan and His Mate. When the films became less profitable for MGM by 1942, the cheaper studio RKO took them over. It was a scene and line from the first of them, Tarzan Triumphs, that leapt into my mind when I heard the disgusting Trump trial verdict.
Tarzan Triumphs came out in 1943, with America at war. The U.S. State Department told Tarzan producer Sol Lesser that a Tarzan film would be the ideal way to spread the message of democracy over fascism. And Lesser delivered. For much of the movie, Tarzan is an isolationist, trying to keep out of the global struggle incurring into his African orbit. “Jungle people fight to live,” he says. “Civilized people live to fight.” But when Nazis enslave a native village, abduct his adopted son Boy, and try to kill him, Tarzan has had enough of neutrality.
In possibly the most indelible Tarzan film scene of all time, Tarzan wakes up from unconsciousness to learn the Nazis have taken Boy. He stands up, looks determinedly at the camera, and grabs his enormous knife. “Now, Tarzan make war!” he says, clutching the knife.
The scene blew me away as a kid. And according to author Gabe Essoe in his superb book Tarzan of the Movies: A Pictorial History of More Than Fifty Years of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Legendary Hero, it electrified the theater audience as well. Essoe wrote that the entire theater let out an enormous, unforgettable cheer. And Tarzan Triumphs became one of the highest grossing pictures of 1943.
I can understand the exuberance that one scene inspired. You had a bunch of children and moms in the audience, their dads and husbands risking their lives for them and their country — and now Tarzan on their side. I also realize why it came to me last week. The Democrats, like the Nazis in the film, crossed the line. They desecrated something sacred in their thirst for absolute power, and their hatred for the one man who can thwart them, whose name also starts with a T. And even once detached citizens can see them for the dangerous un-American zealots they are.
Two days after the multiple guilty verdicts celebrated by the delusional Left, Trump strutted into the UFC 302 stadium in New Jersey and got a raucous standing ovation, accompanied by cries of “We want Trump!” It must have driven the elitist Bidenistas crazier. And even wiser heads abroad can see the cruciality of the coming election. This is particularly true in England, where the nominal Conservative Party is about to get demolished in an imminent election for betraying the will of the people who overwhelmingly put them in power.
“The U.S. election is much more important than ours,” posted actor turned rightist opinionist Laurence Fox on X. “There are profound differences between the GOP and the Democrats. Whereas there is no difference at all between the Conservatives and UK Labour. It’s left to Trump to save the West.” (READ MORE: The Leftist Exorcism Has Begun)
Just as Tarzan saved the lost city of Palandrya in Tarzan Triumphs. After last week’s Democratic injustice, we’re all Tarzan now. And “Now Tarzan make war!”
