Apes

November 24th, 2008Blog0 comments

So I’ve got to go back into workshop soon on Year Zero. Year Zero is a play about personal history, so I’ve been revisiting that subject a lot in my mind lately. I think that transmitting your personal history through storytelling is incredibly important; it lets us understand and come to terms with past events. And since we are all shaped inexorably by the past, knowing our history tells us who we are in the present.

One of my favorite stories about the past is this old sorta fable that’s been around for a while — I first heard it told in a scene cut from the movie The Contender. I can understand why it was cut, but it’s such a great bit that it’s a shame that it didn’t make it in.

In this scene, the President (played by Jeff Bridges) tells the story:

So these scientists have a bunch of apes in a room. And the scientists dangle a banana from the ceiling. There’s no food in the room so the apes start getting hungry, so one of them climbs up and reaches for the banana.

As he grabs it, a machine douses the whole room with freezing cold water. This shocks and terrifies all the apes in the room — including the guy reaching for the banana, who falls onto the floor empty-handed. All the apes are now wet and shivering.

But everyone’s still hungry, so another ape climbs up, reaches for the banana — and the same thing happens. The room gets doused with freezing cold water. No one gets a banana, and everyone’s wet and freezing again.

Now another ape can’t take the hunger anymore and reaches for that banana. But before he can get to it, all the other apes grab him and beat the shit out of him. No one wants to get wet.

Okay, now the scientists take one of the apes out of the room and replace him with a New Ape. New Ape sees the banana and goes up to get it, and all the other apes grab him and beat the shit out of him. New Ape has no idea why he’s getting his ass kicked, but it doesn’t matter. It’s happening.

The scientists take another one of the old apes out of the room, replace him with a Second New Ape. The Second New Ape goes for the banana and all the other apes grab him and beat the shit out of him — the first New Ape even joins in, beating the shit out of this new guy even though he has no idea why.

The scientists keep doing this — taking out all the old apes and replacing them with new apes. And what you end up with is a room fulla hungry apes beating the shit out of each other every time one of them goes for that banana — and none of them have any idea why.

So that’s how the past effects us. We are direct products of it. And history is the thing that tells us exactly WHY we keep beating the shit out of each other.