 In the 19th and early 20th century, people of African descent were commonly visually represented as ape-like, a metaphor that fitted racist stereotypes, further bolstered by the emergence of scientific racism.Early films frequently mirrored racial tensions.While "King Kong" is often compared to the story of "Beauty and the Beast", many film scholars have argued that the film was a cautionary tale about interracial romance, in which the film's "carrier of blackness is not a human being, but an ape".