The Tarzan series and movies, for the most part, can be accused of racism and it is not difficult to see why. In the movies black Africans were either presented as vicious savages or lackeys good for little more than carrying things on their heads or running away at the first sign of trouble. The whole persona of Tarzan comes across as white superiority to the infinite power. There he is - super strong, capable of killing the fiercest of beasts with little more than a knife, or lowering the boom on the bad guys by summoning elephants with his fearsome yell. The Tarzan movies and television series were not meant to be intentionally racist like "Birth of A Nation", regretfully they come across as an unpleasant reminder of past attitudes towards race. The saddest fact was the Tarzan television series aired during a sixties, a time when African-Americans were struggling to be treated as equals and civil rights were becoming the law of the land.
Review of Tarzan
