Indiana Jones and the Red Scare

JOE ALLEN'S "The trouble with Indy" does a great job of laying out the problems with the Indiana Jones series as a whole--the gross racism and papering over of archeology's plundering, imperialist past (something modern-day anthropology continues to grapple with)--but does little to address the most recent installment.

This is not a defense of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Allen's critiques stand, and, as a film, Crystal Skull pales before its predecessors on a number of fronts (including, sadly, Ford's acting the part of Dr. Jones).

In terms of racism, the immediate counterposing of the ant scene with the indigenous defenders of the temple (and the similar way of warding off each) is particularly blatant and offensive (it caused me to cringe--as Allan notes, it's one thing to poke fun at the racism of the past, but it's quite another to reproduce it).

However, it is interesting to note a couple aspects of the recent film that Allen neglects.

First--in fact, a critique put forward by many reviewers--is that the Russians in the film don't "measure up" to the Nazis of the previous films as "villains." I take this differently. Lucas and Spielberg could have used the Russians essentially as 1950s stand-ins for Indy's previous opponents--faceless, easily disposable, the "other" to the "good" American hero.

Instead, the Russians are not "evil"--they are even shown in the opening scene as parallels to their American counterparts. This is an interesting (if unintentional?) comment on the makeup of two superpowers' militaries. The dancing scene in the jungle further shows this: the Russian soldiers, despite being a part of "the evil empire," are ordinary people with their own lives and loves--a far cry from the portrayal of the Nazi soldiers in the earlier films.

Second is the short but important allusion to McCarthyism and the attack on academics by "red scare" politicians and bureaucrats. Indy and his colleagues are targeted by FBI men who question their loyalty and blacklist them, getting Dr. Jones fired from his position at the university.

In the time of David Horowitz and others who persecute those who challenge U.S. imperial policies in the academy, bringing negative attention to a parallel phenomenon has to be applauded.

Overall, Allen is right to point out the problems with the Indiana Jones films, and socialists should be able to point out the subtle (and not so subtle) forms of racism and historical problems of cultural icons which lend ideological support to the imperialist policies and attitudes of today.

We should also recognize the potentially progressive aspects as well, which we can point to and elaborate on, as a way of beginning discussions about history and imperialism.
Jeff Martin, Berkeley, Calif.