Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an odd movie. It is marketed as an action adventure but ends up playing out as a humorous cheesy adventure film. My question is: was the movie originally intended to be funny or was it supposed to be a serious movie? I think it is a mix; some of the scenes are just too outlandish to be taken seriously. For instance, most normal movie goers would know that people in India don’t eat food that is still living and movie around. Slightly more educated people know that the Hindu religion forbids people from killing, much less eating, monkeys. Thus that whole scene is outlandish and shouldn’t, and hopefully isn’t, taken seriously. Moving to a different train of thought, does the movie use stereotypes? Absolutely, but name me a movie or book that doesn’t. The difference is that in this movie the stereotypes are generally so outlandish that they aren’t taken seriously. There are fictional elements in the movie no doubt about it, but I think most people know when they go to see the movie that it is, in fact, a fictional movie not based on facts.
That about wraps it up… However, some interesting discussion came in towards the end of class about Star Wars and I didn’t get to say anything, so even though hardly anyone will read this I have to write something…
I would be the first to admit that the first three Star Wars (4-6) are classic, but many people say that the last three (1-3) don’t fit in the Star Wars universe. I would have to disagree most vehemently. Sure the Phantom Menace has a annoying creature that should die, and some poor acting, but it added to the Star Wars story and for those who enjoy Star Wars that is a good thing. It may have been disappointing, but look at it this way, many people had decades to hype of the next Star Wars so it is easy to become disappointed when it doesn’t live up to expectations, that doesn’t mean that it is bad though.
The Clone Wars was a bit better, some of the battle scenes were awesome and Obi-Wan is great… It became obvious in this movie that Georgey boy has a tough time with love scenes, but if one can look past that it is a pretty good film.
Last I would like to mention Revenge of the Sith… Other than a awesome name, it was a great movie. Awesome space battles, killer light saber duel and VADER!!! I really think that Lucas ended the series well.
Well that’s all for now folks. Till next time.
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Thanks, Anthony. The comments on Lucas and Star Wars provide me with a new perspective.
As far as Temple of Doom goes, it's important to remember that intentionality doesn't really matter. We have the text and our reactions, which are more important than trying to figure out what Lucas and Spielberg actually intended to mean.
You can refine your thinking about this and other films by looking into definitions of comedy, pastiche, parody, and camp. You'll find that all four of these are very different. I think it's possible to argue that Temple is campy.
But let's not use definitions of anything to exonerate Spielberg and Lucas. Regardless of their intention (we can't know what this is anyway), their humor in this film does play off sexist and racist stereotypes. The only way you can argue that this is a parody of these attitudes is to argue that they hold up Indiana Jones himself to the same scrutiny. Don't they want us to admire Indy and not see him as a parody of a hero and someone to be made fun of?
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