WILD THING (1987)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure* 
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*

In all likelihood most fantasy-film concordances would leave out WILD THING, because it contains no marvelous content.  To be sure, there are a fair number of feral-child films—notably Francoise Truffaut’s THE WILD CHILD—that remain confined to the level of the naturalistic.  But WILD THING  transforms the mundane nature of their environments by the intrusion of an uncanny figure.  

WILD THING, scripted by the renowned John Sayles, is tongue-in-cheek meditation on the Tarzan mythos—though not so invested in humor as to become a comedy.  The character of “Wild Thing”—who never receives any other name—begins as the small child of a hippie couple.  The child's parents are killed by a crime boss and his policeman stooge.  The kid sees a tattoo on the hand of the head crook, which will later lead to a vengeful confrontation, just as Tarzan has to wait for maturity until he can take revenge on the great ape that kills his father.  In contrast to the Burroughs book, though, there are never any quasi-Freudian aspects to the conflict. 

Instead of being raised by apes, Wild Thing is raised by street-people, chiefly by Leah, an addled bag-woman who teaches him to avoid all authority, which she refers to as “the Company.”  She’s been victimized by electroshock in an asylum, causing her to rave about how the Company tries to make everyone alike.  This theme isn’t pursued in detail.  Leah perishes during Wild Thing’s childhood just as Tarzan’s foster-mother dies, both having lived long enough to make it probable that the feral child can pursue his own Rousseau-esque existence.

Roaming about the rooftops of the city (which take the place of jungle-trees), Wild Thing becomes a legend to the land-bound inhabitants. The superstition even becomes incorporated into the local culture as a “rite of passage.”  When young Rasheem wants to join a gang of his fellow Afro-Americans (taking the place of jungle-tribes in the Tarzan books), the gang initiates the boy by tying him to a lamppost at night, to see if he has the courage to meet the Wild Thing.  Instead, Rasheem meets a lady social worker by the name of Jane (of course), and both of them are pursued by the hoods of a crime-boss named Chopper.  Rasheem gets away but Jane must be saved by the intervention of the legend himself.

Much of the time, Wild Thing (Rob Knepper) follows the model of Tarzan in cavorting around with minimal clothing.  He doesn’t command animals, though a cat follows him around, giving rise to a legend somewhat credenced by both black and white locals: that Wild Thing can change into a cat.  Through various misadventures Wild Thing romances Jane, learns that Chopper is the man responsible for his parents’ deaths, and takes the appropriate revenge.

WILD THING is by no means a high-energy adventure. Tthe hero only has a handful of battles, and neither the villain nor the hero’s fights against his forces are impressive.  The film does have some winsome moments, as when Jane initiates Wild Thing in the mysteries of sex, or in the many scenes in which Sayles embraces the individualistic weirdness of the street-culture.  However, at no point is it any competition for Sayles’ better film on this theme, THE BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET.