Becoming a father of two young boys has allowed me to relive my childhood movies. Working with mimetic theory for the last three years has made me sensitive to whatever bears the marks of mimesis. So, when my boys began watching The Jungle Book, I couldn’t help but notice René Girard’s master theory of human relationships play out on our television screen.
Girard claims that what makes us human is our natural capacity to imitate the desires of others. His basic formula that we “desire according to Another” is simple, but far from simplistic. (Stick with me here.) The ramifications of mimetic theory impact every facet of human relationships. One major implication of the formula is that we tend to desire acquisitively. In other words, we seek to acquire objects another person desires or possesses. Acquisitive mimesis leads us into rivalry for objects. As one person reaches to acquire an object, another person reaches to keep and protect the object. It doesn’t take long before the object no longer matters; what we really seek is to acquire the identity of the other person.
What gives the animals in The Jungle Book a human-like quality is their capacity for mimetic desire. In this song, appropriately called, I Wanna Be Like You, we are given a primer on mimetic desire. King Louie speaks for his fellow apes when he sings to Mowgli the mancub, “I wanna be like you, I wanna walk like you, talk like you, too. You’ll see it’s true, an ape like me, can learn to be human too.”
Later in the song, King Louie claims that he desires “man’s red fire.” In terms of mimetic theory, we would call this the object. King Louie doesn’t really want to acquire “man’s red fire.” What he really wants is to acquire the identity of being human.
Acquisitive mimesis is a dangerous part of our humanity. Bagheera the panther rightly conveys the danger. He understands that Mowgli’s life is in jeopardy, so he and Baloo the bear devise a plan to rescue Mowgli from Louie’s acquisitive desire. Here we see acquisitive mimesis at play again. When Louie discovers their plan to rescue (or is it acquire?) Mowgli, Louie wants to keep Mowgli even more. If the clip continued for a few more minutes, we would see Mowgli in the paws of Baloo, then Louie would acquire Mowgli, then Baloo, then Louie, and finally Mowgli ends up in the safe paws of Baloo.
Whenever I refer to childhood stories to explain mimetic theory, I worry that the explanation might not be taken seriously. We would be remised if we discounted The Jungle Book’s anthropological message. It is a classic story because its message about human desire are true. René Girard’s mimetic theory helps us understand that truth.
