‘I was a child, I was in love, it was wrong and you knew it!’, says Marion, to an indifferent Indiana Jones in ‘Raiders Of The Lost Ark’ [1981], thus proving that he is a dangerous pedophile.
It's also not horribly off from the era of the film. While a teenager carrying on with a man in his mid to late twenties wouldn't have been exactly cheered across the board, there was less stigma around it.
Overall, I'd say it's a good detail. Indy is a deeply flawed man. Rash, often dangerously so. Pig headedly stubborn. A near zealot regarding archaeology. And, "it belongs in a museum" with all the ethnocentrism and colonialism that carries. That he would be stupid enough to become involved with a 15 year old (iirc, that's how old she would have been based on the original script; 16 or 17 if later versions apply) is totally within his character.
However, he also has shown that he's passed that specific kind of stupidity when he has students flirting with him as a man in his forties. At least on screen anyway.
Nah, he's saying it as an absolute. The fact that his enemy was a nazi (well, was working with them iirc, though the distinction is moot. Edit: nope x he was selling it to nazis) is a side aspect. He had a history in the movies of using archaeology as an excuse to raid temples and take cultural artifacts. Remember the big boulder chase scene?
That he said it about a Spanish cross (iirc it was supposed to be Spanish) as an American archaeologist, the way he said it, points to it being more than a statement that those specific people didn't have ownership of it.
Again it's definitely period appropriate. And it's a great quote that shows who Indy is, what he stands for. But it also shows the way of thinking about artifacts that was very much an extension of colonialism.
It's saying "these things in the world that once belonged to insert any given culture can only be properly cared for by museums of white people". Which, again, is perfectly appropriate for the character and era.
See, he could have said it needs to be returned "where it belongs", or some other phrasing. That he didn't was a writing choice (and a good one as already said). I can't say if the writer of the line shared Indy's predilection, or if they thought it was just a good line for him, but the structure of both scenes where it was said revolve around Indy having both a deep respect for history, and the mindset that curation of said history should be the domain of the right people.
Mind you, he isn't always hard core about it. In temple of doom, he specifically returns an artifact to the people it was stolen from. So there's nuance to the character. But he is a flawed character (which was the point of the original comment), and thus has aspects that we aren't supposed to like, or at least exist to show that our hero can overcome his flaws when it matters.
Well, I'm not a historian nor an indiana jones fan, but I think there's context missing.
He does raid temples and whatever, but he's usually in the business of going to abandoned places or finding artifacts lost to time, and he's against people doing the same thing in order to either hoard them, or use them to obtain power to do nefarious things.
I don't think anyone was appreciating the idol in the temple that gets him almost crushed by a boulder, since it was guarded by zillions of traps. The artifact they are excavating in the scene we are talking about is buried in the ground. Obviously the people that are "in the culture" that would appreciate them either don't give a shit, don't know where it is, or don't exist anymore.
Part of the way the British museum and other "nefarious westerners" plundered other cultures for artifacts was just buying them off locals that flogged them for whatever they could get away with, and aristocratic assholes would hoard them.
So what's going on with the enlightened culture being robbed in that circumstance? They can't defend the artifacts from dickheads, and their own people are stealing it and selling it to foreigners. "It belongs in a museum" at least has it being studied, documented, presented to the public, instead of being thrown around by people buying it as a novelty or seeing it just as any commodity to fulfill their own greed.
Obviously, this isn't the same situation for EVERYTHING in western museums, like the "Elgin Marbles"/"Parthenon Sculptures" should go back to Greece, but there are many lost mesapotamian cities that are just fucking completely lost in Iraq, and they aren't being found by any Iraqis. Should they remain away from sight of all humanity and not be documented if it means a clay pot might end up in the British Museum?
5 Comments
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 19 pts · 24d
Flawed heroes/characters exist.
It's also not horribly off from the era of the film. While a teenager carrying on with a man in his mid to late twenties wouldn't have been exactly cheered across the board, there was less stigma around it.
Overall, I'd say it's a good detail. Indy is a deeply flawed man. Rash, often dangerously so. Pig headedly stubborn. A near zealot regarding archaeology. And, "it belongs in a museum" with all the ethnocentrism and colonialism that carries. That he would be stupid enough to become involved with a 15 year old (iirc, that's how old she would have been based on the original script; 16 or 17 if later versions apply) is totally within his character.
However, he also has shown that he's passed that specific kind of stupidity when he has students flirting with him as a man in his forties. At least on screen anyway.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 23d
doesn't he say that in opposition to private ownership* of such artifacts
*by nazis?
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 23d
Nah, he's saying it as an absolute. The fact that his enemy was a nazi (well, was working with them iirc, though the distinction is moot. Edit: nope x he was selling it to nazis) is a side aspect. He had a history in the movies of using archaeology as an excuse to raid temples and take cultural artifacts. Remember the big boulder chase scene?
That he said it about a Spanish cross (iirc it was supposed to be Spanish) as an American archaeologist, the way he said it, points to it being more than a statement that those specific people didn't have ownership of it.
Again it's definitely period appropriate. And it's a great quote that shows who Indy is, what he stands for. But it also shows the way of thinking about artifacts that was very much an extension of colonialism.
It's saying "these things in the world that once belonged to insert any given culture can only be properly cared for by museums of white people". Which, again, is perfectly appropriate for the character and era.
See, he could have said it needs to be returned "where it belongs", or some other phrasing. That he didn't was a writing choice (and a good one as already said). I can't say if the writer of the line shared Indy's predilection, or if they thought it was just a good line for him, but the structure of both scenes where it was said revolve around Indy having both a deep respect for history, and the mindset that curation of said history should be the domain of the right people.
Mind you, he isn't always hard core about it. In temple of doom, he specifically returns an artifact to the people it was stolen from. So there's nuance to the character. But he is a flawed character (which was the point of the original comment), and thus has aspects that we aren't supposed to like, or at least exist to show that our hero can overcome his flaws when it matters.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 23d
Well, I'm not a historian nor an indiana jones fan, but I think there's context missing.
He does raid temples and whatever, but he's usually in the business of going to abandoned places or finding artifacts lost to time, and he's against people doing the same thing in order to either hoard them, or use them to obtain power to do nefarious things.
I don't think anyone was appreciating the idol in the temple that gets him almost crushed by a boulder, since it was guarded by zillions of traps. The artifact they are excavating in the scene we are talking about is buried in the ground. Obviously the people that are "in the culture" that would appreciate them either don't give a shit, don't know where it is, or don't exist anymore.
Part of the way the British museum and other "nefarious westerners" plundered other cultures for artifacts was just buying them off locals that flogged them for whatever they could get away with, and aristocratic assholes would hoard them.
So what's going on with the enlightened culture being robbed in that circumstance? They can't defend the artifacts from dickheads, and their own people are stealing it and selling it to foreigners. "It belongs in a museum" at least has it being studied, documented, presented to the public, instead of being thrown around by people buying it as a novelty or seeing it just as any commodity to fulfill their own greed.
Obviously, this isn't the same situation for EVERYTHING in western museums, like the "Elgin Marbles"/"Parthenon Sculptures" should go back to Greece, but there are many lost mesapotamian cities that are just fucking completely lost in Iraq, and they aren't being found by any Iraqis. Should they remain away from sight of all humanity and not be documented if it means a clay pot might end up in the British Museum?
Whelks_chance@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 24d
This always felt unnecessary to include in the script. I don't know what it adds to their backstory that couldn't be done some other way.