History Headscratchers / Tarzan

** Well, in the books its mentioned he shaves his facial hair with a knife to distinguish himself from the Mangani, after having discovered his human origins. Yeah, I know they are different universes, but perhaps he shaves the same way...

** Even if his father had facial hair there's no guarantee that Tarzan would be able to grow it too. as for body hair, well, anatomical accuracy has never been very high on Disney's list. Very few of their character who should have body hair do (Gaston only has if for a short gag during his song and then it's never seen again).

** In a fight Apes go for the groin and his should be an esser target then any ape.

*** At least in the Disney movie, when the gorillas first find him he has a diaper on. Maybe they thought he had to have a piece of cloth around him for some reason based on that? Don't ask where they got the loincloth, though.

*** Wait, Terk is a ''girl''?! I don't have a problem with Terk being a female gorilla, but still...What's wrong, Disney? Can't bear to have a female not be the DamselInDistress?

* Dear God, did Disney want us not to know what Terk's gender was?!?! Seriously?!
** I came on the page and the first thing I saw was 'female ape Terk', and you should have seen the epic double take

* When Tarzan was old enough to explore the jungle on his own, he found his parents' house and discovered books there, including some reading primers. Through long hours of study, he was able to decipher the words, teaching himself the English language. When he later encountered white folks, he was able to communicate with them. Except... he spoke with them verbally, something he would NOT have been able to teach himself from books. Sure, maybe it's possible for him to teach himself to read and write English words that way, but having never heard the words he'd have no idea how to pronounce them, or understand someone else saying them! Pronunciation cannot be conveyed through the written word if you haven't already heard those sounds and associated them with the letters that represent them!
** In the book, he cannot speak English when he first meets white men; he is taught to speak by a Frenchman during his first sea voyage. The Frenchman's English is poor, and so he uses Tarzan's written English as a basis for instruction, but teaches him French vocabulary. Thus, he learns that ape is pronounced "singe," man is pronounced "homme" and water is pronounced "eau.".

*** Maybe an American accent is closest to the accent an ape speaking english as a foreign language would have...
*** Except that if you speak Spanish, Japanese or any other language, when they teach you English you would try to imitate the accent of the person teaching you, you could have your own accent thrown in, but British english and American english right out say words differently since vowel are not pronounce the same, he would had said the word coffee as "coh-feh" instead of "co-fy" in american english.

*** He didn't say his name "in English". He just said his name--the noises that conveyed his identity. Would've been a different story if he'd said "Tarzan", and followed it up with "which means 'White Skin' in the language of the apes", like some bar-hopping popped-collar douchebag pompously telling you that "Keith means 'forest' in Gaelic."
* This troper remembers readin a Tarzan book where he encounters two tribes headed by ugly-looking brothers, both of whom have strange star charts in their rooms. Tarzan postulates that they may be aliens. Then this is forgotten and never brought up again. You'd think the discovery of alien life would be a pretty significant thing.

** In the book, there's a chapter or two where he encounters a man in the jungle. It's been about ten years since I read it, so I'm fuzzy on the details, but the man discovers Tarzan can read and write, and teaches him spoken language, so the next time Tarzan encounters people, he's fluent in French.

* Dear God, did Disney *want* us not to know what Terk's gender was?!?! **Seriously?!**

* When Tarzan was old enough to explore the jungle on his own, he found his parents' house and discovered books there, including some reading primers. Through long hours of study, he was able to decipher the words, teaching himself the English language. When he later encountered white folks, he was able to communicate with them. Except... he spoke with them verbally, something he would NOT have been able to teach himself from books. Sure, maybe it's possible for him to teach himself to read and write English words that way, but having never heard the words he'd have no idea how to pronounce them, or understand someone else saying them! Pronunciation cannot be conveyed through the written word if you haven't already heard those sounds and associated them with the letters that represent them!
** In the book, there's a chapter or two where he encounters a man in the jungle. It's been about ten years since I read it, so I'm fuzzy on the details, but the man discovers Tarzan can read and write, and teaches him spoken language, so the next time Tarzan encounters people, he's fluent in French.

** Well, in the books its mentioned he shaves his facial hair with a knife to distinguish himself from the Mangani, after having discovered his human origins. Yeah, I know they are different universes, but peraphs he shaves the same way...

* What I never understood is Tarzan's loincloth. Theoretically, a boy raised by apes would see no need for modesty. Unless he was made fun of because humans are roughly four times as "big" as gorillas.

**Well, in the books its mentioned he shaves his facial hair with a knife to distinguish himself from the Mangani, after having discovered his human origins. Yeah, I know they are different universes, but peraphs he shaves the same way...

**It's not just the facial hair, either. Except for his head (and presumably in one other place we can't see), he doesn't have hair ''anywhere''.