Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
That just sounds like trying to claim it's an equal opportunity offender (which frankly using the excuse "it makes fun of everyone" has always been bullshit). It's still racist. And I mean, I can criticize the franchise as a whole for its racism and yet it can remain a favorite of mine regardless. You like Temple of Doom, more power to you, but the hoops to jump through in excusing the racism in there isn't good or helpful. Temple's racism is a lot more blatant and a lot harder for people to shake off.
Frankly I get enough of the "looking for controversy" shit whenever anything gets pointed out for problematic elements. It's a smear to dismiss any actual criticism as invalid by painting it with a strawman and ignoring the complaints.
edited 25th Jan '18 6:32:22 AM by AdricDePsycho
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
"Indian" and "Nazi" are not equivalent. Can't believe I even have to say that. To justify the film's issues with Indians by complaining the other films didn't give Nazism a fair shake...well that's a lot of things but I'm going to go with "screwed up" for starters.
Temple of Doom relies on Orientalist stereotypes out of a 19th century British travel guide in order to characterize it's villains, and therein lies the problem, a problem compounded by the film being set in the days of the Raj and British rule being portrayed as an unabashedly good thing.
Indian and Thug are also not equivalent, and the film explicitly defines its villains as surviving off-shoots of a cult that all the other Indians - including the local Maharajah once he's shaken off mind control - act to oppose. The ultimate impression is less the British Raj coming to save the day, but more like everyone and their grandma working against a particularly nasty group. The story goes out of its way to demonstrate how the villains are not representative of the local culture, to the point it probably takes more effort to equate them... though it's nice to see people undaunted by the task.
So yeah, another option would be Easter Island. The Pyramids are a bit too overplayed, to the point The Mummy can be fully considered an Indiana Jones film. Easter Island, however, still has a significant air of mystery. Stonehenge is also viable, being a New-Age fluff magnet... and I can't wait to see people getting offended over British stereotypes for a change. For that matter, one significant Christian relic that it seems everyone but Indy has discovered is Excalibur. Only fitting for someone already dubbed a knight, by another knight no less.
edited 25th Jan '18 9:03:47 AM by indiana404
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
Your sarcasm is completely uncalled for there. The Indians they show to contrast the Thuggee are either starving and emaciated and in need of the Mighty Whitey to help them, or "civilized" thanks to the British Raj.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
The entire premise of the film is that the white man has to save the Indians from their own evil superstitious cult. That's literally a part of the propaganda that the British used to justify their colonial empire—"we're saving the savages from themselves."
So I say once again that the film relies on Orientalist stereotypes to define all of its Indian characters, and the attempt at comparing it to the other films not giving Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia a fair shake is a false equivalence.
By that broad a definition, the freakin' Red Cross is a mighty whitey organization, since it most frequently helps people in third world countries. Indy comes about people explicitly beset by drought and famine, whereas the actual trope tends to indicate that a) the native culture and lifestyle is inherently inferior, which is not what the story shows; and b) that the protagonist is better at their characteristic skills then they are themselves - which he partially exhibits, but likely by virtue of being, after all, an experienced archaeologist and polyglot.
There's also nothing indicative of anyone being "civilized" by the British Raj - the Maharajah is the local authority of the time, and it's he who calls the soldiers. It's basically the cavalry arriving, with the British captain being there by virtue of this still being a story set during the 1930's and not, say, the Sepoy rebellion. Given their historical nature, the Thugs would be most closely equated with the Yakuza - another example of a criminal secret society with the occasional mystical bent, and one whose depictions are just as often derided as racist by people who - on their own volition - equate it with the culture as a whole.
edited 25th Jan '18 9:40:32 AM by indiana404
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
You keep trying to deflect the accusations of racism by criticizing the people making those accusations and using strawman arguments against them, that's not arguing in good faith. Please knock it off.
Regardless, the Red Cross are actually real whereas Indians Jones isn't. The Yakuza comparison doesn't work because the Yakuza aren't a goddamned death cult built off of a horribly mangled version of Hinduism that doesn't even exist. Indy is still a Mighty Whitey, moving the goalposts on that won't change anything.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
The Red Cross operate with local support (and don't generally shoot people), the Maharaja is an agent of the Raj because that's literally how the Raj worked, portrayals of the Yakuza often run into trouble for invoking Yellow Peril, Dragon Lady, and the like, and you're really running out of arguments if you have to fire off this many strawmen.
And this is why these arguments never go anywhere positive. Someone always invoke some form of Godwin's Law and suggests "You 'leap to the defense of the movie' and you're defending racism."
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
Probably because it is defending racism?
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
No, they never go anywhere positive because inevitably someone feels the need to pretend away the film's racism. Or in this case, to claim that since the other films aren't nice to Nazis, it's okay for this one to invoke Orientalist stereotypes about Indians.
You're allowed to like the film. No one's said you shouldn't. You just don't get to pretend that Mola Ram is anything other than what he is—namely a racist caricature.
As both @Unsung and I have mentioned, the films use stereotypes for virtually all their characters. Complaining about particular ones while ignoring others - like all but saying that because Russia doesn't have a history of suffering colonialism, it's fair game - is indicative of rather selective perception.
But yeah, I'm @KJMAckley here, no point entertaining such derails. Back to next film speculations. I'm still placing bets on Excalibur, or another Christian relic, the question is where the location will be. I kinda want it to be Scotland, since it also meshes well with the Jones' own heritage... and Indy could again demonstrate his own ridiculous accent.
edited 25th Jan '18 10:07:35 AM by indiana404
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
And as has been said before, the stereotypes used against Indians are plenty more harmful and reflect blatant orientalist racism. Using the excuse that they stereotype everyone doesn't suddenly make it okay, it's a lazy justification. And frankly, whatever colonialism Russia might have had does not mean it using the Soviets as bad guys with stock tropes is just as bad as the racist depiction of Indians in Temple of Doom.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
A movie is just a movie, it does not and cannot represent racism as a concept. Saying that a movie has good qualities is not in support of racism, nor is it dismissing its existence. Once the racism card has been dropped it becomes extremely difficult to have these kind of discussions.
Here's a simple question, while keeping the same basic story what changes could be made to prevent it from having racism issues? Make Mola Ram white? Then it's a white guy enslaving helpless brown natives. Make the natives white? Then it's still Indy beating up a brown villain but made even worse.
Even if they didn't name check India and the Hindu gods the setting itself is problematic, cause I think the very concept of a white hero having to deal with angry natives has some racist undertones no matter how you deal with it. That includes the Raiders prologue in Peru AND the guardians of the grail in Last Crusade.
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
And I've repeatedly tried to say that I genuinely love the franchise despite the racism, that it's fine to love the franchise as long as the problematic elements are acknowledged, and that I have taken issue with stuff from other movies as well. I explicitly mentioned Raiders and Crystal Skull's racist depiction of Native Americans.
There's probably no way to even fix Mola Ram and the Thuggee Cult in Temple of Doom, the crux of this entire debate has been over if it's racist or not, and it quite blatantly is. If you like the film, fine, but pretending it's not racist is not fine.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Oh, bother.
Liking a movie while acknowledging the bigotry in it doesn't necessarily make one a bigot.
Trying to downplay and deny the bigotry and dismissing other people who do point out the bigotry, otoh?
edited 25th Jan '18 10:35:04 AM by M84
Disgusted, but not surprised
Meanwhile, I reckon matters in Temple of Doom could be improved by having Indy be a deuteragonist, encountering the Indian village as they're already about to launch a final desperate rescue effort. Something like Big Trouble in Little China - another film that's just about entirely made up of stereotypes, yet probably more fun because of it. That about drops any mighty whitey implications and gives a definite positive and competent portrayal of Indians, contrasted with a historically-based criminal group that by the humblest records has killed tens of thousands of people. (The Guinness Book of Records has them in the millions - I think that suffices for them to be put alongside the Nazi.)
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
I'm going to need to see where Guinness got that number but they certainly aren't comparable. Nazis killed 10 million people in a genocide, the Thuggee robbed and murdered several thousand. Hardly comparable. Despicable, yes, but not a one to one comparable.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
What I and others have said is that there are differing levels of racism/bigotry at play, and acknowledging counterpoints (such as the fact Mola Ram is explicitly perverting the Hindu religion "You betrayed Shiva!" and there are sympathetic Indians in the story) isn't the same as diminishing or denying racism problems. And that's different still from saying "The mine cart chase was awesome, too bad about the racism."
From what I remember I think the villagers said that they sent men after the children but went missing. The reason Indy and company was able to get in was because they could pass as influential foreigners and not be killed right away.
The constant attempts here at conflating "they portrayed Nazis and Communists as one dimensional villains" with "they portrayed Indians as horrible Orientalist stereotypes" is pretty awful. "Nazi" is not an ethnic group. Neither is "Communist agent".
And of course no one has said you can't have nonwhite villains so that's just a strawman. Funny how there's this refusal to debate in good faith.
That's exactly what we have been debating. If the premise is that a non-white villain IS NOT automatically racist, then under what circumstances could the movie be made where it doesn't run into racism? If the only answer is remove all non-white people from the movie, that goes against the original premise.
No, it's what you have been debating. It's not what Adric or M84 or I have been debating because we never said you can't have nonwhite villains. You said that while strawmanning our positions, but it's not a stance we actually hold.
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
I outright said that I would've liked if Lao Che, a Chinese crime lord, was the main villain of a film. None of my argument has been to say that non-white villains are bad or should not be used.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?
Oh, bother.
I don't mind non-white villains either.
I mind if said villains are also grotesque stereotypes.
Disgusted, but not surprised
I understand the fifth film is currently slated for 2020, so I can't help but wonder what it'll be about. Particularly, that if the originals took example from 1930's pulp serials, while Crystal Skull had a more 50's sci-fi vibe, the fifth film would have to be set in the 60's at least. What are the emblematic sci-fi/fantasy tropes of the period? Would it be something New-Agey, would the requisite relic be some Tibetan trinket, or would it continue the trend of odd-numbered films being about Christian holy items. I reckon that, respectively, Atlantis and the Spear of Destiny won't be used, given their prominence in other media of the franchise... unless Disney buys Paramount and purges that from the canon as well.
What's left? The Shroud of Turin is a bit on the nose. The Golden Fleece, perhaps? Or maybe something around the Pyramids, since they're both an emblematic adventure location and associated with all sorts of New-Age fluff. Any bets?