Australian Video Art Archive

Catherine E Bell

 

Gorilla Girl

00:02:40 2009

This video work is influenced by Hollywood jungle films from the 1930s and 40s like Mary Kornman: Queen of the Jungle, Tarzan and King Kong, where the female lead is inevitably rescued from perilous encounters with wild animals. Gorilla Girl, a homage to the New York radical feminist group, subverts the role of the female actress in these films from being the object of desire, to an androgynous and empowered matriarch. The fur-clad baby girl, rules over her jungle kingdom, holding court, to a gladiatorial maraud of malfunctioning, battery-operated gorilla toys vying for her attention. The work also draws upon cases reported in the media of abandoned children being rescued and nurtured by domestic and feral animals.
- Catherine Bell

DVD available