But it still depicts Americans only in a negative light whether it is a "race" or not. Is the commentary on Indians themselves in TOD other than the location? What if the cult is christians in my scenario and have American flags in their home? Does who directs the film change the content? I
Who directs the film doesn't change the content but it may change the intent. If an Anglo-American directed the film you describe, there's probably satire or commentary, however hackneyed, in mind. If an Indian, American or otherwise, did, there'd be a slightly higher burden of value.
I don't think Temple of Doom seeks to be commentary on India or Indians. I do think that the two primary groups of Indians portrayed, however, or either evil or helpless, and neither group has food that most of those in the viewing audience would find acceptable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rocket Surgeon
I thought as much, but its surrounded by so many if, ands, and buts, I felt it important enough to make that point stand proud.
That's reality for you. It doesn't often deal in absolutes.
Even if some such foods do occur in parts of India, representing only those - along with the fly-ridden meal offered by the villagers - would be tantamount to the film Henry W Jones suggests including only some small varmint stew complete with buckshot, extremely rare beef, and foodstuffs processed beyond all recognition in their culinary cross-section. It's not exactly inaccurate, but it's not flattering either. It's not a generous interpretation of a culture.
I'd like to interpret Temple of Doom generously, if possible. But there's just so little restraint demonstrated on this particular point, and so little reason to have included it in the fashion it was, other than, as Katz says, "George and Steven [reacting] like children" and "making it as gross as possible."
If George Lucas went to a classroom and showed these films to the kids, he'd be hung drawn and quartered by the teachers and ethnic communities and pressure groups.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is also racist towards black people.
By portraying Indiana Jones as being willing to offer up his skills to help the Indian villagers to overthrow the Thuggee, the implication that the film makes is that no black person from the western world either would or could do so.
It is also racist towards Hispanics for the same reason. In fact, it is racist toward any race that isn't white.
Intra-racially, it is also offensive to any white person who isn't of Irish, German, or Jewish descent.
Last edited by Attila the Professor : 03-23-2013 at 02:27 PM.
Reason: Double post.
It's also racist to every extraterrestrial race that has ever been or ever will be in the whole universe, which means it is infinitely racist, since it didn't include those generous and justice seeking aliens in the plot to save the villagers and their children.
It did imply Shiva was involved, but that is only one god, so what about all the other gods? Let's not quibble here, there are many gods who feel not just a little miffed at being left out, so a little bit of godism there too.
What are we to do about this terrible atrocity that was unleashed upon the whole good fabric of reality in 1984? Maybe that's it!!!!! 1984!!!!! An Orwellian subterfuge hatched by Hollywood to brainwash us all. Oh my god(s)!
There are indeed very subtle traces of godism in the film, but only those few of us who have done a cursory study of interracial, intercultural, interstellar, and inter-deital sensitivity and have written the appropriate undergrad-level dissertations are capable of seeing it.
There are indeed very subtle traces of godism in the film, but only those few of us who have done a cursory study of interracial, intercultural, interstellar, and inter-deital sensitivity and have written the appropriate undergrad-level dissertations are capable of seeing it.
Love it. You know, in all of the arguments about racism, I'm reminded of W C Fields for some reason.
In somewhat seriousness, Temple of Doom is the first Indy film I grew up with as a kid (my Dad bought it for me as part of a combo meal at McDonalds? It was a different world back then), so my recollections of the impressions I at least got from the film are still very retrievable for me because it was such a large part of my childhood.
The one scene in particular that I am sort of surprised to see people have such a different take on from me is the dining scene. I've always registered it as a joke on Willie, and at her expense. She is a stranger in a strange land...not only is she a westerner in India, but her whole personality is also foreign to most viewers, I would imagine, or at least most viewers of the Indiana Jones demographic.
So the joke to me was always seeing her unrelatabley high level of prissiness come into conflict with this foreign (to her) environment and eating habits. She and Short Round (a child) are contrasted by our hero, Indy, who at the other end of the table shows no aversion to the menu. And the movie doesn't seem to suggest to me, and never did, that people in India now or then dined on snakes, bugs, and monkey brains--it's hyperrealistic like everything else in Indiana Jones or any other pulpy story, designed to play the Willie gag out to its fullest possible extent. Her reactions are the joke...we're making fun of her, not the diners.
Now we're talkin'! I was worried you were just here to make jokes. (As an aside, before we get into it: it's far preferable to edit your post to add whatever else you've thought of rather than just post a new one.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by CodySolo
In somewhat seriousness, Temple of Doom is the first Indy film I grew up with as a kid (my Dad bought it for me as part of a combo meal at McDonalds? It was a different world back then), so my recollections of the impressions I at least got from the film are still very retrievable for me because it was such a large part of my childhood.
I grew up with it too. I find it hard to honestly evaluate things like that, but not impossible. Still, I feel like part of it is trying to figure out how I'd respond if I were seeing it for the first time. The village only bugs me a little instinctually, but has the potential to annoy more in the big picture. That's the macro stuff, the "Great White Hero" questions and whatever goes along with it. That's more just the form of storytelling that the film has opted for, and that's okay; they're all adventure tropes being engaged in, and at least some effort is put in to subvert them. The hero learns from the third-worlders, he relies upon a native god to achieve his goal, etc. (Yeah, you can find a bunch of these subversions, including the little ethnic sidekick, in all kinds of stuff. But I'm okay with bracketing it for now.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by CodySolo
The one scene in particular that I am sort of surprised to see people have such a different take on from me is the dining scene. I've always registered it as a joke on Willie, and at her expense. She is a stranger in a strange land...not only is she a westerner in India, but her whole personality is also foreign to most viewers, I would imagine, or at least most viewers of the Indiana Jones demographic.
I wonder how foreign a personality she really is. I think there are plenty of people who, more than anything, care about their appearance and their personal level of comfort. They want to be catered to in familiar ways. I certainly agree that the joke is in part on her. She's the one who needs to eat food with flies on it that repulses her. She's the one who's confronted with a "simple" bowl of soup that contains eyeballs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CodySolo
So the joke to me was always seeing her unrelatabley high level of prissiness come into conflict with this foreign (to her) environment and eating habits.
But it's not just equivalent to the sort of fish out of water story that happens where the context itself is familiar to the viewer, as when there's an Eastern greenhorn who makes his way out West and is confronted with wild horses and tough gunslingers. The context is foreign to us too. The joke is definitely on Willie but, weirdly, she (and Shorty) seem to be our viewpoint character in that half of the sequence too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CodySolo
She and Short Round (a child) are contrasted by our hero, Indy, who at the other end of the table shows no aversion to the menu.
Good point, although it may be that they're eating something else. He doesn't even seem to notice the snakes/eels, even though Blumburtt does. Perhaps Chatter Lal or the Maharajah have different tastes, and serve their most honored guests accordingly?
Quote:
Originally Posted by CodySolo
And the movie doesn't seem to suggest to me, and never did, that people in India now or then dined on snakes, bugs, and monkey brains--it's hyperrealistic like everything else in Indiana Jones or any other pulpy story, designed to play the Willie gag out to its fullest possible extent. Her reactions are the joke...we're making fun of her, not the diners.
The mustache on the fellow who's excited about the Snake Surprise always made me feel differently.
But we do know, or at least know that Gloria Katz claims, that Lucas and Spielberg were into the idea of "making [the meal] as gross as possible." I don't think the joke is just on Willie.
The village only bugs me a little instinctually, but has the potential to annoy more in the big picture. That's the macro stuff, the "Great White Hero" questions and whatever goes along with it. That's more just the form of storytelling that the film has opted for, and that's okay; they're all adventure tropes being engaged in, and at least some effort is put in to subvert them. The hero learns from the third-worlders, he relies upon a native god to achieve his goal, etc. (Yeah, you can find a bunch of these subversions, including the little ethnic sidekick, in all kinds of stuff. But I'm okay with bracketing it for now.)
It's the "Great White Hero" thing that I was sort of addressing in my joking posts earlier--in a serial style adventure, Indiana Jones is a hero in the mythical sense, he's one in a million, whether he's amongst Indians, Europeans, Americans, etc.. For the Great White Hero issue to be problematic, it seems to me, the implication would have to be that his being a white man is what makes him able to accomplish what the Indians he is aiding weren't able to accomplish on their own--that would be the delineation that would indicate racism in the story structure.
But this damning evidence seems to be absent, in large part because we've already been on one adventure with Indiana Jones in Raiders where we see that the reason he is able to accomplish the things he does is because he is especially gifted, regardless of his race. In Raiders, he fights the Hovitos, Germans, Egyptians, and Toht's Nepali henchman (a pretty racially diverse list of enemy combatants for one film), and trounces them all by the skin of his teeth due to sheer individual skill and craftiness.
The only implication I see in the films is that everyone from any race, nation, or culture who has some sort of insurmountable problem ought to pray to their respective gods for aid from Indiana Jones, because he always wins in the end, because he is Indiana Jones, not because he is white.
Do you have anything better to do in your life than troll on the boards of a series you don't really like? Can't you read some Batman slash fiction or something?
Do you have anything better to do in your life than troll on the boards of a series you don't really like? Can't you read some Batman slash fiction or something?
He can no more stop 'trolling' than you can stop recreating the same threads over and over again.
Point of order: I just finished watching Temple of Doom for the second time today. At no point during the movie is the term Hindu/Hinduism/whatever mentioned. By anybody. Which is important because the more demonstratively inclined members here are, like with the cuisine of India, conflating Hinduism with a monolithic set of values. This is, of course, a false assumption.
But first, it should be mentioned that geography is our first clue that Temple of Doom doesn't take place in India. No, it takes place in an "India" of the popular imagination; a concept rather a concrete physical place.
Note the movie's lone travel sequence: The Ford Tri-Motor takes off from Shanghai, flies over the Great Wall despite being nowhere near it, and ostensibly refuels in Chungking (modern spelling: Chongqing) before heading west. Each place is specifically mentioned on the map. Yet the rather infamous red line peters out and disappears somewhere over Tibet/Bhutan. This happens nowhere else in the series. Even the unnamed island where Belloq & Co. meet their demise is given concrete representation on the map; i.e., the red line has its terminus on the island's shore.
But let's get back to Hinduism for moment...
Hinduism has no central authority and as a result has no set of tenets that followers must adhere to. In order to make headway into the disorder, it has been broken down into four major denominations: Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Smartism, & Shaktism.
Vaishnavism
Vaishnavites venerate the Lord Vishnu as supreme God. No other god is above him; though, like other denominations, they recognize many other lesser gods and demi-gods.
Shaivism
Shaivism is the second largest congregation in contemporary India. Shaivites, of course, consider Shiva to be the supreme deity. It's also the oldest set of beliefs in Hinduism and can be found throughout the sub-continent and Southeast Asia.
Smartism
Smartism is the true polytheistic denomination amongst Hindus. Adherents of this tradition viewed all gods and goddesses as equals and individuals. Despite this, one particular deity (usually Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva, Devi, or Surya) could be venerated above others depending on the individual practitioner's preference. And as a non-dualistic tradition, there is no difference to adherents between the actual self and transcendental self.
Shaktism
Shaktism concerns itself with venerating Devi (lit: "the Goddess); by and large, the Goddess is the ultimate, absolute deity. Devi can take the form of one of several goddesses -- Mahadevi, Durga, Saraswati, Shri-Lakshmi, Parvati, & Kali.
There are aspects of all four denominations on display in the Thuggee's worship of Kali, but there is an older form of religion that heavily influences the film's spirit. More on that next time. I need to flip through a few more vedas.
I've only recently delved into the whole podcast phenomenon, but this subject could make a very interesting Indycast if it hasn't already been attempted.
Basically, its just a bunch of Americans doing what they always do - thinking they're the centre of the universe, invading other countries, laughing at their cultures and nicking their shiny gold stuff before going back home. Where they all live happily ever after.
