An Inclusive Litany

5/11/92

Attacking the pop primatology of the PBS show "Life on Earth," Donna Haraway, Professor at University of California Santa Cruz, calls David Attenborough's encounter with a gorilla "an orgy of touch with a blackjack male." When Attenborough cautions that despite its peaceful nature the gorilla is "lord of the forest," Haraway brands the statement, "the theater of male exhibition." In another context, she analyzes the tin can from which chimpanzee specialist Jane Goodall eats, finding that it is a sort of time capsule preserving "pork, beans, and the social relations of industrial capitalism enabling the colonial 'penetration' and division of Africa."