At the end of Tarzan (1999), a few slides into the credits, you will see the statement that the movie is based on the novel Tarzan of the Apes (1912) by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  I find this fascinating.  What does anyone know about the famous “ape-man” (voiced by Tony Goldwyn).  To any casual observer, which would probably describe most, he is some dude that was raised in the jungle by primates.  He is really good at climbing trees and swinging amongst their branches, and he loves Jane Porter (voiced by Minnie Driver).  Allow me to introduce to you something that Disney probably does not want too many people to know: this highly successful production is based on one of the most racist novels of all time.  Its author was a well-known supporter of eugenics.  In layman’s terms, eugenics means scientifically breeding out racially undesirable human traits.  Burroughs lived at a time when scientific racism was as near as an acceptable academic pursuit as ever, and he belonged to the so-called “privileged race.”  He invented Tarzan to demonstrate the influence of the supposed savage influence of Africa and how it corrupts more civilized peoples.  Of course, Disney tried its best to de-racialize the story, though if you have these ideas in mind while watching it, you can spot some references to its more checkered origins.  Finally, I have no idea how closely the Mouse’s version is to the source material, having not read it.  I would be willing to bet, though, that Burroughs would find the film silly.  It is, but not for the reasons he would conjure.

Before Tarzan became king of the apes, he was an infant sailing off the coast of Africa with his family.  The ship he is on with his parents breaks up in a storm, and they are the only survivors.  They make it to shore and Swiss Family Robinson (1960) it up until Tarzan’s parents are killed by a leopard.  Nearby is a band of gorillas.  Recently, Kala (voiced by Glenn Close) and Kerchak (voiced by Lance Henriksen) lost their son to the same big cat.  One night, Kala is drawn to the tree house in which the human family had been living and finds Tarzan alone, the parents evidently dead.  She decides to take in the baby, adopting it as her own and giving him the eponymous name.  Kerchak, as the leader of the troop, is leery of this move, but does not deny Kala’s wishes.  Thus, Tarzan begins to grow as an ape, though it is plane to the rest of the gorillas that there is something different about him.  Even as a young boy (voiced by Alex D. Linz), he feels he must prove himself.  Thus, when his friend Terk (voiced by Rosie O’Donnell) dares him to pluck a hair off of an elephant, despite the evident dangers, Tarzan recklessly accepts.  He is successful in doing so, but the pachyderms take him for a piranha and stampede through the band.  Kerchak is not pleased with Tarzan, who takes the blame for the danger he incited.  It does help his status with the other gorillas, namely Terk, and by the time he reaches adulthood, Tarzan is able to do anything they can do physically, and he makes tools.  He gets a chance at redemption when the leopard attacks the troop once more, directly saving Terchak from being mauled.  The leader is thankful, but remains standoffish from Tarzan.  Not long after this incident, the band hears a strange noise in the distance.  Kerchak orders a withdrawal deeper into the jungle, but Tarzan goes to investigate.  Doing so brings him upon Jane, her father, Professor Archimedes Q. Porter (voiced by Nigel Hawthorne), and William Cecil Clayton (voiced by Brian Blessed).  While Jane and her father are there to simply witness the grandeur of a gorilla troop, it is painfully obvious that William has ulterior motives.  Note the fact that he is the only one carrying a gun.  As they hack their way through the primeval growth, Jane gets separated when a little baboon she had sketched takes her drawing.  Her pursuit of her work turns into running for her life when the rest of the baboons attack her.  Tarzan, who had been observing her, comes to her rescue.  Though she is initially frightened of him, his gentle but keen interest in her calms her fears.  After their introductions are figured out, he takes her back to her camp, which is in the process of being wrecked by other young gorillas and their elephant friend, Tantor (voiced by Wayne Knight).  The primates are startled by the humans, but Tarzan reassures them before going retreating back into the jungle.  He is also upset with Kala for not telling him that there were others like him.  Because of this, he ends up spending a lot of time with Jane and her father, learning some rudimentary English and seeing pictures of Western civilization.  All the while, Professor Porter is keen to be introduced to the gorillas, but Tarzan is under strict orders from Kerchak not to bring them near the troop.  It is not until the final day before the others are to leave that Tarzan relents. Actually, he is tricked by William, who tells Tarzan that Jane will stay with him if he reveals the location of the gorillas.  Since Tarzan has fallen in love with Jane, he takes Jane, Professor Porter, and William to meet them while Tantor and Terk attempt to distract Kerchak.  Unfortunately, the leader comes back before the visit is complete, and Tarzan must intervene to keep the massive gorilla from attacking the humans.  Doing so means Tarzan is no longer welcome, to Kala’s disappointment.  She then takes her son to where she found him.  There, he puts on some Western clothes and is about to depart with Jane and her father.  This is when William springs his trap, locking Jane, Professor Porter, and Tarzan in the ship’s hold while he and some other crewmembers go to trap gorillas to bring back to England in cages.  It is Tantor and Terk that free Tarzan, who makes it back to the band to stop William, but not before the villain shoots and kills Kerchak.  Before he dies, he asks Tarzan for forgiveness, and passes leadership to him.  In turn, Jane and her father decide to stay, and everyone lives happily ever after.

I mentioned in the introduction to this review of Tarzan that there are some oblique references to the story’s racist source material.  These include when Professor Porter tells Tarzan about the great minds he will meet in England, people like Rudyard Kipling and Charles Darwin.  These two were no strangers to the racial ideologies of their day, so it is puzzling that they would be discussed with such excitement.  Another aspect of this social milieu that Disney is not entirely able to avoid is the notion of the “missing link.”  It is used to describe Tarzan.  This is something for which many who also believe in evolution searched for years in real life.  It is the notion that somewhere out there is the definitive proof that man descended from apes.  There are many stereotypes out there about the Catholic view on these notions.  They mainly pertain to the fact that, as Christians, we supposedly stand with those who believe the Earth is 5,000 years old.  It is an idea against which I have fought in other reviews.  Catholicism is not anti-science.  Indeed, the Church does not deny the possibility of evolution.  What is more troubling are those on the other side of the debate who are equally fanatic, with or without that missing link, that take their beliefs as gospel.  Evolution is one theory for how man came about, but there are others.  No matter if we originated with other primates or were planted here by some other means, it is God that is far from their calculations.  It is a complex question, and it seems to me that an infinitely wise Creator is the only One capable of untangling it all.

As usual, this is probably me reading more into a movie like Tarzan than is needed.  Still, Disney used the phrase “missing link.”  Doing some comes with consequences that adults need to understand.  Kids will undoubtedly not catch these things.  As such, it is important to approach this motion picture with some caution.