White Boy in the Jungle

                                        White boy in the Jungle
 
 
As a child, like most children, I was raised on certain cinematic heroes, including Tarzan. While the character is likeable on various levels I now have mixed feelings about the concept. For example the issue of realisticness: While all ethnic groups of people who inhabit our world have the same basic intellectual capacity and spiritual worth there are certain physical and physiological traits that differ in our make-up. Everyone has the right to live where they want to but people with a lighter complexion do better in the latitudes closer to the poles whereas people with darker complexions do better closer to the equator due to the natural variations in protective melanin. When people with light complexions live close to the tropics they often need sunscreen to protect against sunburn and skin cancer while people with dark skin who live close to the poles need vitamin D supplements to compensate for the reduced sun exposure. This is true of black people such as scientists or military personnel who are assigned to Greenland or Antarctica. It is rather arrogant of some white writers to assume that a Caucasian person raised in the jungle or rain forest could survive and acquire greater strength, skill and fellowship with animals than those natives who live there full time. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there have been various writers who have created characters who are abandoned in the jungle/rain forest and who are raised by either animals or native shamans and thrive better than the natives do (Mowgli from the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling is an exception as he was native to the basic area in question) Such characters include:
 
Tarzan (Lord John Clayton, Earl or Duke of Greystoke) created by Edgar Rice Burroughs
George of the Jungle (a Tarzan parody)
Sheena (Janet Ames) created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger, Published by DC comics
Shana created by Marvel comics
Jana created by Hanna-Barbera
Jennifer of the Jungle from the Electric Company
Jungle Janet from the Tick created by Ben Edlund (She actually lived in The City and fought crime as a superhero, instead of living in a jungle)
Krista from the 1990’s remake of The Land of the Lost by Sid and Marty Krofft
 
These characters are likeable and many people harbor fantasies of either being these characters or interacting with them. But it is unrealistic to believe that strangers to those kinds of locales could thrive there better than indigenous peoples who have lived there for ages. Also I am skeptical of the assumption that humans raised by animals could behave in a heroic manner or have any kind of moral compass at all. A person raised and nurtured by animals would probably function in an animalistic manner. There have been throughout history stories of human infants who were lost or abandoned in the wild and raised by the beasts:
 
Romulus and Remus (raised by wolves)
Mowgli (raised by wolves)
Tarzan (raised by apes)
Moray (from Filmation’s The Super 7, raised by dolphins)
 
Some of these other characters were either raised by native shamans: Sheena, Jana; or their origins are unknown (at least by me) Shana, Jennifer, and Jungle Janet. Krista was abandoned when her family escaped from the Land of the Lost and she was somehow left behind and grew up with the help of the hairy hominid “Stink”.
 
 
Many of these characters had animal sidekicks or companions:
Tarzan had N’kima the monkey, Chita the chimpanzee, etc.
Mowgli had Baloo the bear, Bagerra the black panther, etc.
I haven’t watched George of the Jungle, either the cartoon or the movie enough to know the names of his companions.
Jana had an albino jaguar named Ghost and a muskrat or similar critter named Tiko.
Jennifer had Paul the Gorilla.
Krista had Stink the Pacuni and Princess, a triceratops with a broken horn.
(One could make a joke on that like in Mary Poppins when they told the joke: I know a man with a wooden leg named Smith, what is the name of his other leg? Krista has a triceratops with a broken horn named Princess, what is the name of her other horn? lol)
 
These characters also lived in various different areas: Tarzan, George and Sheena in Africa; Jana in South America, Mowgli in India, Krista in the Land of the Lost, a parallel universe; and I’m not sure about the rest. Jungle Janet fought crime in The City with the Civic Minded Five but I don’t know what jungle she was raised in, if any. Jennifer and Paul were often shown in a jungle or savannah environment but were close enough to a “city” to interact with Spiderman and the various denizens of The Electric Company. I’m not sure where Shana is from, that might have been revealed in an episode of The X-Men. I remember her from an episode of “Spiderman and his Amazing Friends” (Seven Little Superheroes)
 
 
There have been various movies and animated cartoon versions of the aforementioned characters that are entertaining. One particularly fun but unintentionally silly example was the Filmation animated cartoon of Tarzan where the Lord of the Jungle was portrayed clean-cut, clean shaven wearing a loincloth that looked like it was made by Fruit of the Loom and speaking perfect American English. He often did battle with aliens and found lost civilizations of white people in the African jungle or South American natives transplanted across the ocean to Africa by aliens. Although Filmation was very zealous in their promotion of racial harmony there was a curious deficit of black people in the African jungle where Tarzan lived. What’s up with that?
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I generally like these characters but the concept of European or American white people thriving better in these environments than the indigenous peoples who have lived there for millennia is both arrogant and unrealistic.