My rant against this film
First I should preface this by saying that I recognize I watched this
with 30 years of hind sight and that thankfully we've become a bit more
enlightened as humans and hopefully are a bit less arrogant and a bit
more honorable in our treatment of animals... Having said that I found
this film to actually be quite disturbing. The behavior of the so called
trainer was morally reprehensible. The hypocrisy in her statements
about the rights of animals and the high level of intelligence of the
gorilla made it obvious she was absolutely clueless towards the
contradictory nature of her interactions with Koko.
I found it hypocritical to speak to an animal's rights and intelligence
while keeping it separated from it's own kind, imposing a human moral
code upon it, and subjecting it to cruel treatment like keeping it bound
with heavy chains and making it walk on a leash. How is that dignifying
it's intelligence or honoring it's rights as a living being?
Beyond that what I found most troubling and disturbing was the simple
interaction between the trainer and Koko. What was described as an
experiment to teach a gorilla language was far from it. Teaching
language would involve hopefully getting the gorilla to communicate and
not only that but to instigate communication which Koko never seems to
do. I did not see any instance where Koko approached the trainer and
said I'm hungry, cold, happy etc. All Koko's signing was a result of
direct prompting akin to what a dog might do if you hold a biscuit in
the air and exclaim "sit sit." Koko had memorized the hand movements
associated with certain sounds to get a treat but is that really
communicating? I think not. So beyond that why was the trainer so
intent on forcing Koko to adhere to a human code of ethics? Why was 90%
of the interaction revolved around the trainer telling Koko she was
"bad" and had misbehaved? How was Koko misbehaving when she was just
being a gorilla? Koko is not human so how could she be expected to
understand right from wrong as a human would? And beyond that when she
didn't understand why was she subjected to verbal and physical abuse?
What did any of this morality play have to do with teaching language?
In my opinion this is where a line was crossed and this experiment was
used just to fuel the ego of the trainer. Most disturbing were two
examples, one where Koko is prompted to put papers in a box to which she
responds by sitting in the box herself. The reaction to this by the
trainer is to verbally abuse Koko for an insufferable amount of time
calling her "bad" and "stupid." And it wasn't just that she said this
but her bullying of Koko lasted for about 10 minutes of uncut footage.
How is not putting papers in a box justification for this sort of abuse
from the trainer? Beyond that the worst and most disturbing moment was
when the trainer had a problem with how Koko was interacting with
another gorilla and she violently jerked the chain around Koko's neck,
cornered her, and proceeded to slap her with an open hand twice in the
face. At this point I about came unglued and if it was possible to jump
through my TV screen into this trainer's environment I would have given
her a taste of her own medicine.
Also, I feel the presentation by the filmmaker was bias and very much
slanted in favor of the trainer. An interview with a zoo keeper is
included where he explains the role of the zoo is to try to create an
artificial habitat as close to possible to that which is in nature while
limiting interaction with the animals as most as possible. Although
this seems completely reasonable and would have been a much more
preferred situation for Koko we are somehow lead to believe the zoo
keeper is the foil to the trainers attempts to own, abuse, and brain
wash the gorilla.
Not knowing anything about what has since happen to Koko or this trainer
I can only hope this torturous "experiment" was discontinued at some
point. To think Stanford University sponsored this abuse of an
defenseless animal much longer than what we saw is upsetting to
consider.