Popular Culture Review Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1994 | Page 32

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they do not exhibit Kaa's ntore duplicitous form of treachery or Shere
Khan's despotic cruelty, and they are not stuffy and reserved, like
Bagheera. At worst, they seem mischievous and disrespectful, but
Baloo also displays such qualities when he burlesques the song and
dance of the monkeys, tickles King Louie in the armpits while the
latter is holding up the ruins, and uproots an entire tree just to scratch
his back. In fact, aside from their envy of Mowgii, no other group
seems as effectively, as Baloo advises, to "forget about [its] worries
and [its] cares" or to dedicate itself so fully to having fun as the
monkeys. They are great gormandizers, popping whole bananas into
their mouths with as much gusto as Baloo. And if song and dance are
the highest and purest expression of Baloo's quasi-Thoreauvian
philosophy of "bare necessities" an d simple pleasures, then surely
King Louie and the monkeys embody that philosophy in their sheer
love of song and dance, which is matched by no other group in the
jungle.
Nevertheless, Disney seeks consistently to negate the viability of
King Louie and the monkeys as positive role models for Mowgii,
despite--or, perhaps, because of?--Mowgli's willingness to adopt
their behaviors and to become one of them. It is rather Baloo and
Bagheera who collectively model the best behavior for him through
a synthesis of the finest qualities of each. Throughout most of the
film Baloo's representatively American openness, simplicity, and
democratic manner stand in dialectical tension with Bagheera's
representatively English reserve, refinement, and aristocratic
manner. However, the movie achieves a synthesis (appropriately
imaged by the two walking off together in a mutual embrace) at the
very last, when Baloo acquiesces to Bagheera's wisdom in leaving
Mowgii in the man-village, and Bagheera (renamed "Baggy") ends
up singing and dancing uninhibitedly, like Baloo. Ironically, as
Bagheera leams to loosen up and hug, dance, and sing like Baloo, he
also becomes more like King Louie and the monkeys~a potential
synthesis that the film must disguise or deny. Ultimately, King
l^uie's and the monkeys' otherness seems to Baloo, to Bagheera-and
to Disney—too radical to transcend. Their taint remains curiously
ineradicable.
The irrational taint associated with King Louie and the monkeys
is, however, recognizable in the context of American racism. In fact,
the film mirrors contemporary racist attitudes toward African-