Thursday, February 05, 2015

Tarzan and Jane

To qualify the following, I'm not complaining, as I don't really care. But...

I just finished reading Tarzan of the Apes, the original Tarzan story by Burroughs. Its a great story, one of my all time favorites. It explores . . . that's the wrong word . . . it dives into the primeval world we've left behind and reveals its value to the modern world. Like King Kong it reminds us what we lose, or have lost. Its a fantastic story too. The battles between Tarzan and the great apes are simply awesome.

Well it got me to thinking about one of my favorite pieces of art. Its a piece where Tarzan rescues Jane from one of the apes...Terkoz I believe.


I made this my background.

But while I was looking for it I noticed a whole bunch of pictures of Tarzan and Jane. But interestingly enough, none of the pictures (except the above, the short run marvel comics and the early early comics) had Jane blonde haired. She had brown hair, dark hair, almost red hair, but never blonde.

And that's interesting to me because Burroughs went out of his way to describe her as blonde. She was blonde. No doubt about it. Dejah Thoris from Mars, she was black haired. Jane was blonde.

I understand the idea of changing things up a little. And I understand that because of the hang up on barbies and other such stuff that being blonde is seen in a negative light by many in pop culture, but really, its not. Being blonde is like being a red head. Its the color of one's hair. That's all.

Does it matter that everyone changes her hair color? Not really I guess. But Burroughs did make it blond and I'm sure there is a reason for it. Maybe he liked blonds, maybe he saw a woman that he thought would make a great character, maybe the blonde hair, and soft skin and civilized disposition contrast well with the dark, primeval jungle and Tarzan's tanned skin and black hair.

I don't know.

But can we just make Jane a blond again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Amen.

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