Indiana Jones -- a pinko?
Joshua Glenn of the Boston Globe says: "[I]s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really an anticommunist movie? Does Ford's character oppose the theory of a classless, stateless society based on common ownership of the means of production? Or is he instead merely an anti-Communist, i.e., opposed to a single-party regime devoted to the implementation of communist policies in, for example, the USSR? Or is Indy actually a pinko? Sounds crazy, but a couple of clues in the movie point at this possibility..."
Writing at the Globe's Movie Nation blog, recently, film critic Wesley Morris noted that when Jones is placed on leave, the head of his department asks him what he plans to do: "First, Indy says, he's going to London, then there's a job offer from the University of Leipzig he might well take. Leipzig is in what was then East Germany. Indy wants to defect!"LinkAs if that weren't suspicious enough, Alex Golub, an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i Manoa, points out at Savage Mind, an anthropological blog, that in one early scene, Jones tells a student to read V. Gordon Childe. (Childe was an eminent British prehistorian whose Marxism got him into hot water in his native Australia; during the early cold war, he maintained contact with archaeologists in the Soviet Union.) "Would a die-hard anticommunist really recommend a Marxist archaeologist to a student?" demands Golub.
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We've got top, top men looking into that.
Top men.
I fully support communism in fictional characters!
Over dinner after the movie, my girlfriend complained that Indy's dour anti-Communism seemed out of character. I've just informed her that it was clearly just an act to cover up his true sympathies.
A die-hard anticommunist archaeologist might recommend a Marxist archaeologist to a student if the archaeology was sound.
Wt -- thght h ws Scntlgst!
communists belong in a museum!
#6 beat me to it, but Indy DOES argue in Raiders that artifacts belong in museums, where they can be enjoyed by all, and not in the hands of private collectors. Sounds communist to me!
that link in #5 by DWDYER looks like Christologist propaganda. Funny picture though.
This feels like a sly attempt at making the movie much more interesting and thought-provoking than it actually was.
It's a movie. It is, furthermore, an action movie. Time would be better spent analyzing the affairs and politics of real people...or even by picking one's teeth. The contemplation of hinted sympathies in a fictional character in an action movie is one step short of a X superhero can beat up Y superhero discussion.
He was a premature anti-fascist.
And yet, #10, you have elected to participate in it. What does that tell us about your subtext?
"stateless society based on common ownership"
Common ownership forced onto society and regulated by the ummm... State.
I always thought of Indy as some sort of pseudo-anarchistic iconoclast. I gotta disagree with #10 because regardless of what he is, or is envisioned as, he does represent the ideals and goals of a big chunk of the middle of society. And I think his personality describes what a large percentage of people think about these topics, but don't classify themselves as such. On the other hand, its a hollywood movie, and if we look for social commentary from hollywood, we're screwed.
Mbagen makes a great point. This kind of discussion (in the Globe) would be banned in many fan forums.
In a related story, taking a class on leadership taught by a lawyer who once represented the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade is evidence that Scott McClellan was a liberal mole in the Bush White House.
Which makes much more sense.
This is a film where precisely no care was taken over the script. The holes in the plot are so large you could fly a 747 through them, the dialog jars with its badly edited discontinuities. If we apply Occum's razor to this did they suddenly take a whole lot of care checking place names and archaeologist biographies to make a very subtle point? (And we know subtlety has never been in the toolbox of either Lucas or Spielberg). Or did they just get a dozen different writers to make some rubbish up with no regard for attention to detail then cobble it together badly much in the manner that was done for the all the other aspects of the film? When I saw it there was rather a lot of merchandising advertisements before, during and after the film using the techniques pioneered by Lucas and Spielberg. Obviously the best way to promote socialism is with overpriced dolls of the characters and a toy modeled after the jungle mower.
Lucas and Spielberg have made sure that their best works will be seen in the worst possible light by posterity. On their death beds would they have been wishing they made more money? Another fine example of not doing the work properly leading to a rubbish outcome. The script is the thing that has to be of minimum standard. There is no way to make up for it if not.
Dear Noen
"a leadership course taught by Sara Weddington, a longtime friend of Ann Richards who was known for her involvement representing the anonymous "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade," huh?
#9 and 16 are absolutely right. There is no way Spielberg or Lucas thought that hard to insert subversive things in the movie that didn't egotistically reference their own past works. Beyond that, they let monkeys fill in the blanks with implausible physical events (atom bomb survival, injury-free consecutive waterfall dives in a duckcar) and unconnected, dramatic and later illogical plot points ('I have to do it, the skull told me to'). Because it turned out to be so horrible, the public naturally takes in upon themselves, as a defense mechanism to avoid utter regret for spending the money maybe, to try to make it into something better..apparently this includes professors.
Actually it's probably the opposite: writers put in those references just to cover themselves from inevitable accusations of being rabid anti-communists (which were raised almost-automatically in Russia).
BTW, I partially agree with #18; it feels like the movie was badly cut. If this wasn't just a movie to "pay the bills", Spielberg owes it to himself to release a (probably longer) "director's cut".
As many have stated, it's just a movie, folks --- and not a well-thought-out one at that. However, at the risk of sounding like a total nerd, I do have something to say in Indy's defense.
If one accepts "Young Indiana Jones" as part of the Indy canon... Indy is very well-travelled, and even had friends in Russia who were part of the Bolshevik revolution. Hatred of a culture is usually fed by ignorance of that culture; when one actually has or had friends who were part of it, one tends to be more ambivalent, even if one disagrees in principle. Indy, of course, is a man of many cultures.
The fact that his partner turns out to be a turncoat gets Indy in hot water (right after his post-fallout scrubdown, of course), and his whole past is brought into question --- in typical commie witch-hunt style. One may protest one's patriotism... but one may feel resentment toward this treatment that could easily lean towards distrust of the American government.
Indy is not a politician. He's an archaeologist. As such, tippie-toeing around political issues is not first & foremost on his mind. He's often been at odds with the government even as he's served it. (Think the final scene in "Raiders.") This does not make him a fascist, and it doesn't make him a "pinko." He may agree in principle with the ideals of communism, but he won't say so out loud, and he wouldn't care for the way the KGB turned out.
Furthermore, the University of Leipzig has a campus within walking distance of the French border --- in West Germany. (However, I don't know if this campus existed then, or was part of the University, so this could be irrelevant.)
Atom bomb survival is actually fairly likely for those with good cover not near (relative to yield) point zero. The whole point of a test village was determining what constituted good cover, and whether your house would burn down, depending on its materials and how well kept it was.
Folks are surprised and dismayed that improbable and rather silly things happen in an Indiana Jones movie?
The Indy movies are big-screen recreations of pulp adventure stories from the '30s and '40s. They're wildly ridiculous and over-the-top... on purpose. The wisecracking, melodramatic dialogue takes leaps of logic on purpose for pulp effect.
I don't normally forgive plot holes and head-smacking implausible events in movies, but where Indy's concerned, it's part of the charm.
#10 - mbagen - Who do you think you're kidding? Y superhero would totally beat the hell out of X superhero, no contest. Anyone who thinks otherwise is obviously a communist!
"Just before dawn on June 24 1957, a 37-kiloton fission bomb, code-named "Priscilla," was suspended from a helium balloon about half a mile from where the big safe stands. In the path of Priscilla's shock wave the Atomic Energy Commission had built its own tiny twentieth century city. Priscilla rocked that mini-civilization in southern Nevada with twice the explosive force of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Its flash -- far brighter than the sun -- was reflected back off the moon, and soldiers covering their eyes in trenches two miles away claim they were able to see the bones in their hands."
The Priscilla shot was part of Operation Plumbbob, and is notorious for the high level of exposure to which our soldiers were deliberately subjected.
http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/2004/08/13_else_museum-attempted-suicide.htm
http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Plumbob.html
I attributed the implausible survival of the protagonists through extremely dangerous events to implausible crystal skull power.
Well with Ol' George writing, it wouldn't surprise me.
Indy a communist? Hardly. Did everyone miss his use of a conservative catch-phrase "I like Ike"? (implying that he voted for the Republican candidate Eisenhower)
to #24. well he did drink from the chalice right? So that means he's immortal now.
Actually, according to the wikipedia article about Operation:Plumbob, two of the tests produced no nuclear yield. And it's worth noting that Hiroshima and Nagasaki DID have survivors. Many people lived long lives afterwards, though in the case of the Plumbob explosions, many servicemen ended up with abnormally high levels of leukemia (10 out of 3000, instead of 4).
So while IMPROBABLE, Indy's situation was not IMPOSSIBLE. In fact, even if he HAD been exposed to high doses of radiation, it might not kill him for decades. His escape by fridge is more suspect, and falls into the realm of his genre. Oh, and I thought it was a lot of fun.
Failed attempt at humor Takuan.
#10: Hear Hear! Don't people have better things to do?
I noticed the Leipzig thing while I was watching the movie, but what really bugged me (aside from the monkeys), was how the skull was highly magnetic-- but only when it was convenient. Need to find it? Throw some metal up in the air! Need to toss it between a couple of cars in the jungle in the middle of a high-speed chase? Go right ahead, because it doesn't seem to stick to them.
Okay important fact time.
East Germany was not the closed off "under the curtain" society in the 50's. The wall was not there yet...and while the red scare was in full force it was still Russia not all of Eastern Europe that was the enemy.
Indy was not a pinko...his love of the ancient always overrode his common sense.
I like the irony of how the same right wing folks that complained about pop culture studies and deconstructivist techniques are now using those techniques for themselves and their agendas.
You've no doubt heard of plausible deniability.
The Indiana Jones movies are all based on deniable plausability.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Ike would be considered a crazed liberal if he ran today. Beware the "Military-Industrial complex"! Commie! Jane Fonda lover!
Being absolutely right would not absolve him of being liberal, and he would be toasted. And didn't he have an affair while in office? Enter the poisonous centipede.
When I saw the movie, I assumed the Leipzig comment was a joke in reference to the fact that he just got thrown out for being a commie.
Anyway, I guess it's not a popular position these days, but I quite liked the movie. It was nonsensical and silly, but it's Indiana Jones for god's sake. Nonsensical and silly is kind of the point, just so long as it's fun, which it was.
#27: He may have immortality in the sense that he will never die of age or other age-related conditions. His heart won't shut down on its own, but that doesn't mean a bullet won't stop it pretty well.
#22 is spot on. It's Indiana Jones for crying out loud. He's found the Ark of The Covenant. He drank from the Holy Grail. There are aliens in the movie. Quit questioning everything and just try to enjoy it, or go see something else.
No one has commented on what I thought was the most glaring pro-Communist (or at least not anti-Communist) aspect of the movie was the ending. We're told that the interdimensional aliens are a hive mind, a collective consciousness. Furthermore, the story goes that the person who returns the crystal skull to the Mayan city gets the alien's power, and Indy tells us at the end that their power was knowledge: their collective knowledge. Their communal knowledge.
Thus, at the end, Kate Blanchette's character returns the skull and gets vaporized and sucked into the dimensional portal. One could interpret this to mean that they killed her, but it could also mean that they assimilated her into their perfect, technologically advanced, collectivist, Marxist utopia. It's everything Blanchette's character wanted. Sure, Indy saved America from the Reds, but in the end it looks like Khrushchev came out on top.
Good point AGAMEMNON. Wow. Never thought I would put those words together in a sentence, "Good point AGAMEMNON". LMAO.
Wynneth, please -- don't use solid uppercase.
Yeah watch that sticky shift key...
The references were just a bit of brainless set dressing. Perhaps a writer threw them in as a gag, but Spielberg goes by the sound of things, the look of things. His "raptors" were actually deinonychus, because they looked more impressive. In this latest, ciafu (sp) ants are African. And no ants, army or driver, would behave as his do, which seem to be taking acting tips from those swarms of bees you used to see in old cartoons, that formed shapes as they attacked people.
It's a brainless film, Just fun, that's all. The chase scenes were fun. Such plot as there was existed just to string the chase scenes together.
Indy's life history? His political views? Character development? You must be joking. For Ford, the acting is minimal, he just has to wince or grin ruefully.
Pass the popcorn.
Reading through the comments, readying myself to throw in my observations about the ending's collective unconscious, and then came ... Agamemnon!
When Indy and Co. entered the alien room, my first thought was "sleeper cell of fellow travelers." And then came the dialogue about the collective unconscious. During all the loud sights and sounds, as Blanchett got sucked into the other dimension, didn't she scream "I was wrong!"? I thought perhaps there she was realizing this collective was not the ideal for which she'd hoped...or did I not hear her correctly?
And speaking of collectives, what about those prairie dogs and monkeys and ants -- do they not all exhibit some sort of collective unconscious? The behavior of these creatures has been one of the most-criticized portion of the film, but could not their actions be another clue to the nature of the skull?
I don't really care, mind you. I thought the whole film was just a hoot...
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Trying to get into the spirit of it all I bought at a party supplies shop what I registered as an Indy hat; only some while later did a more accurate perception kick in and I realised it was in fact a Freddy Krueger hat, a switch in semiotics across the entire width of the spectrum.