She has appeared on two covers for the National Geographic magazine. She has been the subject of numerous documentaries, the inspiration for a Michael Crichton novel and the star of a children’s book. She has hung out with Leonardo Di Caprio and Robin Williams, has featured in several newspaper articles and scientific studies, and has been referenced multiple times in the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld. So it is safe to say that 44-year-old Koko, a Western Lowland gorilla that communicates through sign language, is one of the most famous animals in the world.
A recent documentary, Koko: the Gorilla Who Talks to People, traces the relationship between Koko and Penny Patterson, who began teaching her sign language in 1971 as part of an ape language study. Since Koko is carefully guarded by Patterson in her home with little media access, this film is one of the few opportunities we have to decipher the enigma that is Koko.
Koko was born on July 4, 1971. Her encounter with Patterson led to Project Koko, the longest continuous study of animal-human communication. Patterson, who was doing a PhD in developmental psychology at Stanford University when she began caring for Koko, started teaching the gorilla American sign language as an experiment. Their relationship went beyond the confines of the project. Patterson treats the 300-pound gorilla like a daughter. They go everywhere together. Over the years, Patterson has battled sceptics and opponents who have tried to take Koko away from her, arguing that her project has been a success.
The documentary includes archival footage of Patterson and Koko taken by Ronald Cohn (Patterson’s long-time partner on the project), which is supplemented by interviews with Patterson and staff members. This almost leads one to believe that there is a scientific consensus that Koko can, in fact, communicate with humans.
That is, until, the interview with Professor Herbert Terrace, who had previously done similar work on a chimp named Nim Chimpsky (named after Noam Chomsky) on Project Nim, which was the subject of a documentary in 2011. Terrace tells us that Koko, in fact, cannot create a sentence. She is, and most scientists agree with him, merely imitating Patterson’s visual cues or acting out signs because she knows they will get her a reward. This puts all the archival footage in the documentary in a new light. Never do we see Koko without Patterson in the background. Never do we see Koko sign something directly at the camera or without Patterson around to interpret her signs for her. Although allegations do exist about the credibility of Terrace’s own research.
Despite the voiceover stating that the filmmakers received unprecedented access to Patterson and Koko, there isn’t enough footage of the primate. Most of the images are from Patterson and Kohn’s archives. This shuts viewers out of Koko’s life. While it can be ascertained that gorillas are incredibly intelligent and that Patterson and Koko share a very close bond, whether or not the gorilla can communicate goes unanswered.
Gorillas are too smart to be kept in zoos. One cannot help but wonder whether Koko would have been happier in the wild with actual gorillas who do use their own sign language to communicate with each other.
The documentary is at its strongest when the camera lingers on Koko, revealing aspects of a personality that would not be out of place in human beings. Koko never looks unhappy or wanting of companionship. She seems perfectly content doing normal human things, such as drinking out of a cup or cutting a birthday cake. A long section of the documentary features Koko with her pets. She plays with kittens and expresses sadness when one of them is run over. Patterson is unable to cheer Koko up with a soft toy.
It is impossible not to be moved by these sequences or to believe that animals do not have much more sentience than we give them credit for. It is scenes like these that Patterson’s Gorilla Foundation uploads to its official YouTube channel and uses as advocacy against poaching.