One of the more common critiques of Planet of the Apes is that it normalizes concepts related to racism. Rather than getting into the particularities of that critique here, a much more efficient use of limited space and time would be to refute this almost entirely. The suggestion arises, naturally enough, from the simplistic paralleling of monkey fur color with human skin color. Such a reading is actually wildly simplistic and more along the lines of uniformed and ignorant. To equate the darkness of gorillas with the darkness of black pigmentation assures a tangent that takes the focus away from the reproduction of that ideological assumption and sociological truth: Birds of a feather flock together.
Without drawing undue attention to the subject—which may be why it is a sociological element so easy to overlook or misinterpret—the film eventually does reproduce the commonly accepted theory that people of like natures (or similar appearances) keep together. Think about the representation of the hierarchical nature of ape social strata: the gorillas, chimps and orangutans do not merely appear to be resistant to social intermingling, they also appear to all operate equally within their division. The chimps are revealed as being more subversive in nature whether they have earned a doctorate or assist in transporting humans from the zoo. The gorillas are soldiers with a bloodlust and pride after the kill. As for what ties the orangutans together, well: see, hear and speak no evil does quite nicely.
In order to fully appreciate just how meaningful and significant this behavioral grouping it is to the construct of the film’s vision of ape society as a satire on human society, it helps to know something that cannot be seen on the screen. During the filming of the movie, the extras could not remove their ape makeup to eat lunch because it would take so long to get the makeup back on again for afternoon shooting. As a result, the set was populated by dozens of gorillas, chimps and orangutans trying to find shade in the hot desert sun while trying to eat without messing up the makeup. According to star Charlton Heston, “'There'd be a kind of self-segregation. The gorillas would all eat at one table, the chimpanzees at another, the orangutans at another.'' This social grouping that mirrored the on-screen hierarchy was not, apparently, some sort of Method Acting experiment; it was just a natural outgrowth of actors who had by circumstance been segregated during filming. It also points out that perhaps the problems of racial segregation that were the focal point of a country being ripped apart at the time were not entirely due to unjust political actions.
Beneath the obvious social commentary and corrosively ironic satire, Planet of the Apes relentlessly pushes it message that whether the civilization is ape or man, technologically advanced or primitive, cultures inevitably develop social hierarchies into which members comfortably and unthinkingly fit themselves often to the detriment of progress, partnership and practicality.
