Saturday, December 29, 2007

Hmm, must reassess my views on chimpanzees










I’ve never been much into monkeys and apes. I make exceptions for the mighty and sad gorillas (in the mist, and otherwise), and the orang-utans of SE Asia. But, regularly monkeys I find to be dirty and nasty, and far too concerned with their own genitalia.

Among the more overrated of their lot are everybody’s favorite showbiz apes, the chimpanzees. I frankly don’t like them. I don’t find them funny when they’re anthropomorphized, and any film of TV show with a chimp in it is not going to be watched by me. Furthermore, chimps in the wild are truly nasty animals, not to be trifled with. I say, let’s not trifle with any of them.

But then I read something about chimps the other day that kind of redeemed them for me. Chimps, according to the article, really, really hate clowns. Clowns at a circus have to be very careful to not walk past the chimps because the chimps will (literally) go apeshit.

That speaks well of chimps. For even if I have some antipathy for their species, I dislike clowns much more. Everybody of sense and sensibility hates clowns – or should. Clowns are not funny, they are evil. Chimps seem to know that at some sort of primal level.

Actually, it’s odd about such primal fears. They’ve done experiments with monkeys in which they stick a rubber snake in a cage with young monkeys – young monkeys raised in captivity who have never seen a snake in the wild – and the monkeys will go insane with terror at the faux serpent. That’s genetic programming for you. In other words, somehow the message gets through at a cellular level that snakes are greatly to be feared in the wild, and the monkeys who will never see the wilds, still have the fear.

Back to clowns. Were there bizarre jungle clowns that terrorized chimps in the past? It’s similar to the question one might ask about the common housecat: what were cats most afraid of before there were vacuum cleaners?

Oh, and about clowns. I make an exception for Krusty because he shows the true sinister nature of the clown in all its debauched hideousness. I like his honesty.

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7 Comments:

Blogger meggie said...

Another great post, because I agree with everything you say!! haha.
It does make me wonder what base instinct in us, on the cellular level, has had such an experience in the deep & ditant past, to so loathe & fear clowns!
And ditto to your feelings for monkeys.

2:58 PM  
Blogger andrea said...

What Meggie said. I especially have to agree about Krusty, but what about those "damned dirty apes" from Planet of the Apes? Now THAT's anthropomorphism.

3:34 PM  
Blogger Janice Thomson said...

I really enjoyed Gorillas in the Mist but I would agree that most monkeys really are nasty little, and big, animals. They're great to watch in the wild but I'm not sure why people want them as pets.
Clowns do have their uses at the Children's Hospital for instance - laughter goes a long way in the healing process. But I have seen tiny tots absolutely terrified of them at children's parties too.

3:54 PM  
Blogger Tanya Brown said...

This was an excellent post in all respects.

I do like apes and monkeys in general, except for chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are total assholes. Small surprise - we share a great deal of DNA with them.

5:11 PM  
Blogger thailandchani said...

Interesting! I hadn't quite thought of it this way .. but you're right. I remember the wild monkeys in Thailand and they scared the bejeezus out of me. (As they should have, of course.) They were mean!

Clowns. I literally can't stand them. They don't frighten me but they give me the creeps.

Dolls, too. I will not have dolls around my house.

7:58 AM  
Blogger Jazz said...

They’ve done experiments with monkeys in which they stick a rubber snake in a cage with young monkeys – young monkeys raised in captivity who have never seen a snake in the wild – and the monkeys will go insane with terror at the faux serpent.

The point of them spending our tax dollars on such experiments would be????

6:24 AM  
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6:16 PM  

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