Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30th, 2023)

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

TOD screen used hat. Brand new video posted today.

 

[Wor-Gar]

I never thought TOD was a racist film. In retrospect, maybe the dinner scene is insensitive, showing all these foreign people eating live snakes and monkey brains straight from the monkey's head like it was a coconut. Having said that, as a kid watching those scenes, I thought it was gross but also cool. It was the kind of scene that made you smile even though it grossed you out, but not once did it make me think less of those people. In real life some people eat bats and dogs and all kind of weird stuff. Besides, it was just a movie, and that was often the mentality when watching those kind of films. It's a fantasy adventure film with magical rocks, the Gandhi the movie.

As for the white savior trope, and the natives not being able to help themselves, I never thought about it that way, perhaps because I was so used to seeing it, which might be a legitimate problem. But again, I never thought less of the native people being helpless. You go see a film about a heroic character, you expect him or her to do some heroic ****, help people, and save the day. You're not really thinking of the demographic he's aiding or why those people can't do it themselves. When I used to watch the A-Team or The Incredible Hulk shows, I didn't think about why those people could get the job done themselves. The show wasn't about them.

I agree. Maybe that's an aspect of white privilege, maybe not. But little me never saw anything but a kick ass hero kicking ass and stopping the bad guys from hurting innocent people.

I didn't make any judgement about Blade saving white people....

 

[jye4ever]

I never joined any religion because I don’t need to be saved or rescued by any magical sky hippe or cow lol

 

[Asta]

I never thought TOD was a racist film. In retrospect, maybe the dinner scene is insensitive, showing all these foreign people eating live snakes and monkey brains straight from the monkey's head like it was a coconut. Having said that, as a kid watching those scenes, I thought it was gross but also cool. It was the kind of scene that made you smile even though it grossed you out, but not once did it make me think less of those people. In real life some people eat bats and dogs and all kind of weird stuff. Besides, it was just a movie, and that was often the mentality when watching those kind of films. It's a fantasy adventure film with magical rocks, the Gandhi the movie.

As for the white savior trope, and the natives not being able to help themselves, I never thought about it that way, perhaps because I was so used to seeing it, which might be a legitimate problem. But again, I never thought less of the native people being helpless. You go see a film about a heroic character, you expect him or her to do some heroic ****, help people, and save the day. You're not really thinking of the demographic he's aiding or why those people can't do it themselves. When I used to watch the A-Team or The Incredible Hulk shows, I didn't think about why those people could get the job done themselves. The show wasn't about them.

The thing with ROTLA and TOD is that they grew out of Lucas and Spielberg's nostalgia for the repeats of 1930s and 1940s films and serials they watched as children.

From our perspective those films could be quite insensitive to race, which was a legacy of white imperialism and colonialism. Since they wanted to do justice to the period in their homage they replicated those kinds of stories with the same type of hero. There was no malicious intent to be racist, though India did ban the film on the grounds it was racist.

When we first meet Indy he's attempting to loot the Chachapoyan idol. While the Chachapoyans were gone, their descendants, the Hovitos, were very still much alive. Indy was looting an artifact from a foreign culture because, from his perspective, it would be better off in an American museum. He was a rogue like many adventurers before him. Yet this rogue was also the hero to be admired. The films are like a time capsule of 1930s and 1940s sensibilities, yet with influences from the contemporary period of their creation.

 

[Wor-Gar]

When we first meet Indy he's attempting to loot the Chachapoyan idol. While the Chachapoyans were gone, their descendants, the Hovitos, were very still much alive. Indy was looting an artifact from a foreign culture because, from his perspective, it would be better off in an American museum. He was a rogue like many adventurers before him. Yet this rogue was also the hero to be admired. The films are like a time capsule of 1930s and 1940s sensibilities, yet with influences from the contemporary period of their creation.

America was built on rogues who steal from other cultures.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Hence why I never joined any religion I don’t need to be saved or rescued by any magical sky hippe or cow lol

When we first meet Indy he's attempting to loot the Chachapoyan idol. While the Chachapoyans were gone, their descendants, the Hovitos, were very still much alive. Indy was looting an artifact from a foreign culture because, from his perspective, it would be better off in an American museum. He was a rogue like many adventurers before him. Yet this rogue was also the hero to be admired. The films are like a time capsule of 1930s and 1940s sensibilities, yet with influences from the contemporary period of their creation.

Holy crap, I never even thought of that.

I just thought the idol was considered, lost, so Indy, the good natured hero, found it. I never considered the idea that the natives knew the location of the idol and just left it alone because it was protected by the traps and because it was where it belonged. Oh dear. See, this is why you can't overanalyze these things.

 

[jye4ever]

America was built on rogues who steal from other cultures.

America gets ripped off just the same my sister cyber protects Disney IP with a 97% success rate she says 3% is stolen every day lol

 

[Wor-Gar]

Humans like to steal. They are weak and soft.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

America was built on rogues who steal from other cultures.

* he was Italian, but made a career of playing Native Americans until his death.

 

[jye4ever]

 

[Wor-Gar]

he was Italian, but made a career of playing Native Americans until his death.

Usurper!!!!

 

[Asta]

This is a pretty incredible "nod"....

Huyck and Katz were awful writers. No wonder the best bits were so blatantly lifted from other sources. Their next foray, Howard the Duck.

Here are a few more.


Dick Tracy (1937), which inspired the flying wing in ROTLA...

...also inspired a blatant 'homage' in TLC:

Richard Alexander as Thorg in SOS Coast Guard (1937) immediately made me think of the German mechanic in ROTLA:

Spy Smasher (1942) is possibly the source of Indy's jacket:

Spy Smasher was one of the serials Spielberg noted, and I think was one of the reels that Drew Struzan (?) saw in the back of his car.

Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943), along with the various Zorros, had some bullwhip action:

Going way back to the early cliffhanger, Perils of Pauline (1914), who incidentally had to escape downhill from a giant rolling boulder, this still reminded me of Indy and Elsa exiting the sewers in Venice:

It's just the tip of the iceberg. There's some good references in Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941), including a metal scorpion that may be source of the idea for the Eye of Ra.

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

So the moral of the story, Spielberg and Lucas stole from other white people, making everything ok.

Sometimes you just have to steal some ****, because someone, somewhere, will steal from you.

 

[Asta]

So the moral of the story, Spielberg and Lucas stole from other white people, making everything ok.

Sometimes you just have to steal some ****.

The word 'homage' covers a multitude of sins.

They stole out of love!

 

[Wor-Gar]

They stole a lot of Homage.

 

[Asta]

Here's another little one, a chapter title from Daredevils of the Red Circle (1939):

Which would turn up much later as a video game title:

 

[Otomofan]

I thought was well documented there was some action star in the 40s or 50s movies that wore Indy's exact get up.

Not to mention Jim Steranko kind of single-handedly designing the look in pre-production.

But whatever. Obviously the character Indy, as well as the actual men Lucas and Spielberg are RAAAYYCCIIIIIST and should be scoured from the annals of human history, like just about everyone else.




Isn't anyone else exhausted by this at all?

Oh. Sorry. This is POLITICS and that's verboten.

For a good reason. It bores the living piss out of me. No more politics and "isms" and "ists" and "phobics" in these discussions...please? Can't we just talk about movies??

 

[The Clown Prince of Crime]

Must... resist... stealing post....

They stole a lot of homage!!

*lower case "h" and exclamation point makes it different enough from Wor-Gar post

 

[jye4ever]

Must... resist... stealing post....

They stole a lot of homage!!

*lower case "h" and exclamation point makes it different enough from Wor-Gar post

 

[Wor-Gar]

Long ago they said they got Indy's outfit from Charlton Heston in Secret of the Incas.

But that ''leather jacket and wide-brim hat'' look was a quite a popular hero outfit in the 30's and 40's through the the 50's. I've seen similar versions in a lot of old movies and thought to myself that must be where they got the idea.