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On the surface, Monkeys Fish the Moon is a fun little tale about foolish monkeys
who think they can catch the moon. But if one analyzes what the monkeys seek, how
they go about seeking it, and the end result, the film can be read as a representation of
At the beginning of the film, the monkeys are not obsessed with the moon; rather,
they are trying to obtain food, and they do so in an individualistic manner. When a
monkey knocks down two coconuts from a tree, the fruit is stolen off the ground by other
monkeys before he can reach it. The original monkey has to chase one of the thieves for
his food. The film soon cuts to a monkey reclining lazily with a pile of fruit, and while
he is not looking, another monkey scoops some of the fruit into his empty coconut half
and scampers off. Finally, while two monkeys are fighting over another piece of fruit, a
third monkey swoops in and takes it. Clearly, as indicated by these three examples, this
capitalism or the old Chinese way of life, feudalism. The film is not overtly critical of the
situation, but it’s clear that it’s not really a fair society—the monkeys literally do not get
when one of the monkeys spots the moon and calls for everyone to unite. As the
monkeys band together to reach the moon, they reveal both the power of communal effort
and the ingrained individualistic nature of the society. After a number of failed efforts, in
which the entire group helps, they finally link together to hang from a tree, allowing one
monkey to scoop up the moon’s reflection. As a group, they are successful. Sort of.
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First of all, the group effort is not altogether smooth. For example, when the monkeys
walk up the rock for the first attempt at the moon, one monkey pauses and another passes
him, only to be pulled back into line. This brief expression of individualism
demonstrates the selfish behavior that can occur even when there is a desire to work
together for a goal. When the monkeys make their second tower and it collapses, there
are a few more symbolic meanings. The monkey on the bottom struggles mightily to
support the rest of society and must gain extra support from two other monkeys. Even
then, however, the tower, and the social structure that this is so clearly represented here,
is very difficult to maintain. Moreover, the tower collapses when the top monkey reaches
out to grab the moon. In a sense, when the goal of the community is not readily tangible,
as the moon is not, then the people are not likely to sustain the effort to reach that goal.
In other words, if the benefits of communism are theoretical and philosophical, i.e., not
felt on a substantial, everyday basis, then support for that way of life will waver and
perhaps come crashing down. Of course, the monkeys do try the group effort again, and
eventually capture the moon’s reflection. However, the success is not full in the sense
that they have only caught an image, just a whiff of what they hoped to attain. Their
success is fragile, only partially real, and therefore cannot last. Once the monkeys have
the reflection of the moon, they quickly begin to fight over it, breaking the coconut shell
in the process and losing that which they worked so hard to obtain. Clearly, be it
monkeys or people, nobody really likes to share what they worked to possess. In other
words, despite all the good communal intentions, individual desires can’t be erased.
read the tale as a representation of natural human behaviors, but considering both the
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thematic clash between communism and individualism and the polysemous nature of the
moon, it is possible to read a more specific critique of Chinese communism. On the one
hand, the moon is a heavenly body that has captured the imagination of mankind
throughout time. And yet it is also a steady force of nature, not only influencing the
tides, but at one point in Chinese history, determining the Chinese calendar. That the
monkeys think they can possess the moon, its power and its mythic qualities, seems
rather foolish. But if one looks at from a broader political and historical standpoint, their
actions are not as ridiculous. At the peak of the cold war between the United States and
Russia—i.e. the clash between capitalism and socialism—was the space race. A nation’s
ability to reach outer space was symbolic of its power and intelligence as well as the
validity of its national ideology. The space race was a specific contest between the
world’s two superpowers and both achieved some success. China, though communist,
was nowhere on the same plane as Russia. The monkeys’ desire to reach the moon is
perhaps symbolic of China’s desire to reach the same general level of power and
prosperity as the Soviets by using the Soviet form of government. Reflecting the allure
that this prospect might’ve held for the Chinese is the mesmerizing camera movement—
swaying while pushing in toward the moon—when the monkeys first see the celestial
body. But the monkeys’ mild success, that is, the capturing the reflection of the moon, is
not only temporary, it was, in reality, completely illusory. In turn, this could signify the
failure of Chinese communism to provide that sort of first-world power to China, and any
success the system did have was not only temporary, but misleading and unreal to begin
with.
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Released in 1981, Monkeys Fish the Moon came out during a general transitional
period in China when capitalism was creeping into the nation and criticism of
communism was more acceptable. The film quite clearly demonstrates that on a
beings, and in a practical sense, the Chinese communists did not achieve the level of
success for which it had hoped. At the same time, though, the capitalist, individualistic
way of life is depicted on the most basic and fundamental level as being unfair and
ultimately undesirable. Moreover, it is very ineffective when striving for a greater good.
In the end, the monkeys are left staring longingly at the moon. They still want to reach
that high level of prosperity and power, but they really do not know how to go about