Jingoism in Indiana Jones

[SamuraiJack]

http://www.bluecorncomics.com/2008/05/jingoism-in-indiana-jones.html

I've wondered how the images of savage non-white races coupled with white stars in "exotic" locations have fueled the feeling of white superiority whether it is conscious or unconscious.

I downloaded the movie, and it's not really worth paying $11 to watch. You need to suspend your belief in what a human, let alone a group of humans can physically withstand as well as many improbable contrivances in the story that saves the good guys' lives.

I can see the torch has been passed on to Shia LaBoeuf for more of these movies. Maybe one of the movies will have Indiana Jones Jr. explore ancient relics in China with evil Chinese communists after him, while being aided by a Chinese woman who falls in love with him.

[Apollyon]

I grew up as a kid watching the Indiana Jones movies and loved them. But now after learning about colonialism and exploitation, these movies sicken and disgust me. Some people claim that movies such as these are "just" entertainment, but they are far more than that. They are indoctrination and education and are the tip of the spear in a war of cultural supremacy.

[lopan]

I was at the British National Musuem a few years ago for the first time, and i was disgusted. Unlike the museums here in Canada, where many of the pieces are donated (and, where the items/ exhibits are few), the BNM seemed less like a museum and more like a "spoils of war" exhibition. In it were treasures from around the world -- stolen from cultures that were, in some cases, too naive to understand the magnitude of what they were giving up, and in other cases, too weak to resist the might of the Empire.

I wonder what it would be like if, say, the Chinese in a few years, descended on Mount Rushmore and ransacked it, ripping the facades off the mountains and taking them back to China in the name of educational preservatoin and study. Would it go so well then?

[Heyyu]

I think people like to talk about the politics behind movies too much. Me, I just care if the movie is good or not. And the new Indy movie sucked massive donkey balls. And the only impact Temple of Doom had on me was making me think monkey brain was actually food...

[uRB4N]

Sad to admit but Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom really turned me off from Indian food for a really long time.

[elliott20]

Indiana Jones is very much the progeny of the pulp genre from the early 1920s through 1950s. These works are often characterized by their insertion of the mystical or trope elements that conjure up popular propaganda images almost to streamline the plotline.

One of the popular motifs that you'll find in these works is the use of orientalism inserted expressingly for the purpose of creating an atmosphere of mystery, exoticism and adventure in a foriegn land.

Indiana Jones is the epitome of this technique. In these works, you often need a token villain that is very over the top and over-arching as a plot device. (that way readers don't have to really examine the villain as people, just know that they are suppoesdly the villains) Raiders? Nazis. Temple of Doom? The Thuggee Cult. Last Crusade? Nazis again. Throw in a McGuffin of some sort, add in a plot twist, then make it sound incredibly foreign and BAM, indiana jones movie.

I remember when I first saw temple of doom with the commentary on, Lucas and Spielburg actually admitted that the whole dinner scene was done specifically to make the people even more foreign and exotic. Yes, they intentionally tried to make Indians even more foreign than they already were.

Me? I saw the scene and thought to myself, "hey, they didn't use coconut milk to complete the curry!"

[Apollyon]

Maybe one day they'll make a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie where Indiana Jones goes to the Ozarks and eats exotic hillbilly foods while fighting off hordes of inbred rednecks for some exotic treasure like a mystical port-a-potty.

[elliott20]

It's possible. I've actually lampooned this before in one of my tabletop RPG groups. (Yes, I'm a roleplaying guy, I'm that nerdy)

the game revolved around a group of archeologists (the players) exploring a post-apocolyptic Hoboken and eventually NY as a whole looking for lost treasure. The lost treasures were invariably items like "the dentures of George Washington" or "The Great Banjo of Deliverance".

[nycjoc]

Maybe one day they'll make a Raiders of the Lost Ark movie where Indiana Jones goes to the Ozarks and eats exotic hillbilly foods while fighting off hordes of inbred rednecks for some exotic treasure like a mystical port-a-potty.

They did it's called Deliverence. sans the Indiana Jones.

[Tyger Durden]

...In these works, you often need a token villain that is very over the top and over-arching as a plot device. (that way readers don't have to really examine the villain as people, just know that they are suppoesdly the villains) Raiders? Nazis. Temple of Doom? The Thuggee Cult. Last Crusade? Nazis again. Throw in a McGuffin of some sort, add in a plot twist, then make it sound incredibly foreign and BAM, indiana jones movie....




Because of their appearance in three of the four films, my first and last impression of the Indiana Jones Quartet is "Indiana Jones versus the Nazis" and how he really is a good guy for fighting against this particular brand of (superior race) villainy.

To me, his role transcends 'race' because I always try to envision, or at least remind myself, that this is an Archaeology Teacher on a Quest. In that case, I'm not necessarily reminded of the ethnicity of Indiana Jones', I see his profession and wonder if it's possible for a Professor to be that way in Real Life.

The modern gun he carries is balanced by his archaic whip and it is the whip he eventually falls upon using to save his life most of the time. His hat never comes off, he always wears the same dirty outfit. In many ways, he's caricature too.

The Gunga Din-like role of "Shorty" in one the of the films notwithstanding (maybe a little bit too overboard with the cuteness), I really don't see the 'American Way' vs. 'Exotic Culture' and how Americans are better in some way. I see a triumph of not-so-nerdy Professor (intellect) against Nature and man-made obstacles (physical) to prevent the abuse of ancient relics by super-villains.

I also look at it another way -- Indiana Jones isn't a representation of the USA Military or Rambo or Secret Spy organization that is so prevalent in American Films. He's the civilian representative of a University of Higher Learning (college) taking matters into his own hands...and that makes him more human and empathetic to me.

[little mixed girl]

i watched that movie last night with a group of people.

i haven't seen indiana jones since...elementary school and my memories of it include indiana running away from a big boulder, and a guy reaching into some dude's chest and pulling out his heart.

the movie was ok. i dunno what was with the x-files feel running through it.
i saw a black guy at the university.
noticed that the peruvians were especially lazy/poor looking.
my friend commented on how indiana as the american saves the day, and the others are just not ever up to it.

[Tyger Durden]

...i saw a black guy at the university.
noticed that the peruvians were especially lazy/poor looking.
my friend commented on how indiana as the american saves the day, and the others are just not ever up to it.




yeah, I'm sure there wasn't a way to squeeze Morgan Freeman into the script...:rolleyes:

Since some movie-goers aren't especially bright, these geopolitical facts about the time period in which the Indiana Jones films take place have yet to fathomed by them:

India was still a British Colony and operating under their own Caste System.
Blacks in America were still existing in Pre-Segregation, Pre-Little Rock Arkansas, Pre-Civil Rights Era conditions.
Japan was still war-torn and recovering from WWII and 40 years away from re-emerging as an economic superpower.
The Philippines was still war-torn and never recovered in the same way Japan did for whatever reason (lack of infrastructure and effects of post-colonialism most likely)
China was Communist and Isolationist.
Korea had a Civil War brewing on the horizon.
Vietnam was still under French colonial rule with a bloody Civil War still to come.
Africa and Mexico, Central and South America were/are still Third World areas and victims of European Colonialism.

If one takes into account all the above, then there is no way to look at the Indiana Jones saga with the typical Hollywood-induced ethno-narcissism (my term) that some North Americans have and be objective. The reaction of "Hey, how come I don't see MY ethnicity/race running around being a Hero in post-WWII?!?! This is an outrage!" doesn't make any historical sense.

An European-American (white) College Professor is running around with a whip and fedora hat pursuing relics and artifacts and trying to save the day simply because he would be the only ethnicity in the position to do so or, rather, ALLOWED to do so, in that particular time period or Era.

No, not unless one were to make a strictly fantasy-type movie that IGNORES the time-line (or is revisionist) that the Indiana Jones Saga follows, then Morgan Freeman or Denzel Washington or Jet Li or Antonio Banderas couldn't take over the role of Indiana Jones given the historically-based circumstances in which those current movies take place.

[Ike]

Ho'wood makes revisionist history movies all the time just to create another role for whites.

There are racial issues with Indiana Jones that go beyond "zomg the main character is white".

[kimtae]

Ho'wood makes revisionist history movies all the time just to create another role for whites.

There are racial issues with Indiana Jones that go beyond "zomg the main character is white".
Heck, it even throws a bone to blacks once in a while or wasn't Will Smith a little out of place in Wild Wild West. Fuck historical accuracy in Hollywood. It has never existed and it's no excuse.

[Tyger Durden]

Ho'wood makes revisionist history movies all the time just to create another role for whites.

There are racial issues with Indiana Jones that go beyond "zomg the main character is white".

Then feel free to bring up those racial issues in the Indiana Jones saga for discussion here. That's what this place is for.

[Ike]

Let's start with the assumption that the indigenous people couldn't have figured out how to develop aqueducts without alien intervention.

[Tyger Durden]

Let's start with the assumption that the indigenous people couldn't have figured out how to develop aqueducts without alien intervention.

Yes, aqueducts were developed by indigenous people such as Romans and Mesoamericans, but inter-dimensional transport to another Universe, sliding pyramid blocks (hydraulically-powered? gravity-powered?) and creating Crystal Skulls seem beyond their capabilities...even with Today's technology.