Koko: A Talking Gorilla (1978) - full transcript

Koko is a gorilla.

Ally is a chimpanzee.

This is Washoe.

She has already earned a place

in the history of modern science.

She was ten months old in 1966

when psychologists

Allen and Beatrix Gardner

began an experiment with her

that rocked the scientific world.

Washoe is now 12.

She has a vocabulary

of about 200 words.

She lives with other chimpanzees

on an island

at the Institute for Primate Studies

in Oklahoma.

Roger Fouts was formerly

the Gardners'assistant.

He was involved from the start

on experiments with chimpanzees

using sign language for the deaf.

No one had ever attempted

such experiments with gorillas.

Gorillas were thought to be

too difficult to handle,

much more dangerous

and less intelligent than chimpanzees.

The first birth here was in 1971.

It was Koko,

whose mother is shown here.

Koko is available to us

only because these gorillas

were taken from their mothers,

from their native jungle,

their parents

perhaps slaughtered.

Today, the only place

where a gorilla is truly safe

is within the concrete walls

of a zoo.

In Africa, they're driven

out of the equatorial forests

by farmers

and lumber companies,

as well as poachers.

Only a few thousand

mountain gorillas are left.

Their only enemy is man.

Even though Koko was born

in the San Francisco Zoo,

she's still an animal

of the primeval forest, an exile.

Koko lives in a suburb

south of San Francisco.

This is what's called

her cultural environment.

The names of these places -

Redwood City, Palo Alto -

serve as reminders

that less than 100 years ago,

this area was covered

by a huge forest.

On the campus

of Stanford University,

Penny Patterson, 28,

a graduate student in psychology,

is teaching Koko sign language.

Koko lives

in a specially modified trailer.

Penny lives

with her boyfriend off campus.

She has no children.

She arrives every morning

before Koko wakes up

and returns every night

when Koko goes to sleep.

The experiment began

five years ago.

Penny hasn't had

a single day of vacation since.

Penny's based her work

on the Gardners' work with Washoe,

but with one important difference.

Tests for intelligence and vocabulary

are set up in three different ways.

With signs, with words,

and with both at the same time.

The alligator is bottom left.

It's the third from the left.

Koko scores slightly lower

than a child of the same age.

Gorillas in the wild

are generally vegetarians.

Koko eats hamburgers and takes

vitamins like any American child.

Twice a month,

Koko's life is recorded on videotape.

Twice a week,

a tape recorder is used instead.

Every word Koko uses

each day is checked off.

Sometimes Koko

makes up sentences,

and these too are taken down

and analyzed by a computer

that extracts

their grammatical structure.

Koko doesn't know what to make

of her new yellow sweater.

She wants her old red one.

It was cold that day.

Gorillas are sensitive to cold

and easily catch pneumonia.

At four,

Koko loses her first tooth.

The event was filmed in Super 8.

This game was thought

to have been invented by Koko.

In fact, it's a game played

by young gorillas in the jungle.

This time, it's Koko's turn

to ask Penny something.

How far can Koko progress?

Koko's health

is carefully monitored.

Her urine and blood

are analyzed regularly.

Since early childhood,

Koko has been in daily contact

with deaf-mutes.

Gorillas reach puberty at six

and are fully adult at nine.

Their average life span

is 50 years.

When this film was shot,

Koko was almost six.

She experienced her first

sexual stirrings during the filming.

There's a newcomer

in Koko's life.

Michael, a young gorilla of four.

He already knows a dozen words.

At first Koko was afraid

of Michael.

Then she became jealous,

and then curious.

Now she loves him.

They'll have to wait

at least three years

untiI Michael reaches puberty,

which comes later for males,

to have children.

Watch this.

Koko wants to see Michael.

A lesson in progress.

Koko works

two or three hours a day.

Then she gets tired.

Gorillas in the wild

live in strict hierarchical groupings.

Each gorilla must obey its superior

in the group structure.

Penny, with a place

in that hierarchy,

must enforce that relationship

or risk danger.

All education implies dominance.

How could Penny avoid

transmitting her own values?

Koko may become the first

white American Protestant gorilla.

This film was shot

practically in secret.

Koko was still the property

of the San Francisco Zoo.

The zoo was threatening to send

the police to recover Koko.

Penny adamantly refused

to give her up.

She was ready

to run away with Koko,

or even live with her

in the zoo compound.

In the end,

the Gorilla Foundation,

which Penny created,

bought Koko.

Then we went to see

the zoo director.

Is this Koko's rightful place?

Would you have called the police

to get Koko back?

Koko doesn't have a voice.

Primates' vocal chords only allow them

to emit a handful of cries.

Koko is learning

to use a new tool,

a computer

that speaks out loud for her.

Every 10 minutes,

for several hours a day,

the new machine

invites her to its keyboard.

If someone killed Koko,

would it be murder?

No. To the law, killing an animal

is a mere misdemeanor.

Would a child who behaved

like Koko be put in an institution?

But why must man

be our only standard?

Is the question whether Koko,

because she can speak,

deserves some special status

accorded by man?

Or is it a question

of an animal's right to live

according to the rules

of its own species?

It seems what's been called

intelligence no longer designates

only that intelligence

in full awareness of itself,

but also that intelligence that lives

spontaneously, unselfconsciously.

In fact, Koko raises

all the important questions about man.

One can't decide a priori

that only human beings are persons.

One could prove

that this gorilla is a person.

In our society, a person has

certain rights, limited as they may be.

To grant these rights to primates

is to open the door for the animal world.

Since the dawn

of Western civilization,

we've lived with the idea

of man created in the image of God,

intrinsically different

from animals and nature.

In the wake

of Darwin's theory of evolution,

language was the last remaining

bulwark for this worldview.