That's right. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is all about dick. And lots of it.

To avoid spoilers, stop reading now.



The following list is just off the top of my head, and I wish I had screen captures to fully illustrate my point, but ultimately Indiana Jones is about pushing heteronormative lifestyles down our throats, or penetrating our thought processes, whichever you prefer. Because, gasp, isn't it a shame that Indiana Jones never married or reproduced? Well, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull retroactively fixes that dilemma! Welcome Shia LaBouf--the most overrated young actor of our time. Which, actually, fits quite well given that Harrison Ford is his dad. Recently, I've been watching a lot of Harrison Ford movies (kind of by accident, you see, it started with rewatching the Star Wars last semester, then rewatching the Indiana Jones movies in January and February, and that was followed by rewatching Bladerunner for my dissertation project, and last week Air Force One was on cable, and you know how it goes...), and, well, it just turns out that Harrison Ford is the worst thing in these movies (except for Air Force One--Glenn Close, who is a beautiful woman, has the worst hair I've ever seen in that movie. Her hair is way worse than Harrison Ford.). Harrison Ford is a bad actor. I'm talkin' really bad. He's wooden and has no range. He got insanely lucky with the roles of Han Solo and Indiana Jones that play to his wheelhouse, which, as far as I can tell, is probably really close to what he's like in real life anyway. (After rewatching these movies, I was reminded of the fact that, when I was in college at Michigan Tech, my friend Laura had a friend, Ben, who would become her boyfriend at a later time, but, during the 2000 presidential election, drove home to Wisconsin to cast his vote for Harrison Ford. After my recent realization that Harrison Ford is a terrible actor, I grew to judge this old friend of Laura's even more than before for his awful, awful choice in voting. Not just in throwing away his vote. But throwing his vote away on such a bad actor.)

But now instances of the penis, in as close to chronological order as I can muster having just seen the movie:

• The Mushroom Cloud Destroying the Quasi-Suburban Nuke Town: I thought that this was going to be a great way to start the film. The white plastic mannequins were being burned and destroyed. White picket fences? Boo! Howdy Doody? Boo! Lives in suburbs? Boo! I thought that this would set the stage for Indiana Jones to be the perpetually scrappy, bachelor archaeologist. How wrong I was. So where's the penis in this? Well, it's the mushroom cloud at course! Which leads me to...


• Scrubbing Indy's Penis After Standing in Nuclear Fallout: need I say more?


• When Indy and Mutt go to South America and are Walking Around the First Set of Ruins: The men crawl into a in tomb, which rhymes with womb--it was titled, and, apparently, titled uteruses are something that can actually happen to women (remember this is why Charlotte from Sex in the City can't have kids with her first husband), which implies that Indiana is old and dried up, so it's a good thing that he already knocked a chick up 18 years earlier.


• Quicksand: they gave the mom a stick. They gave Indiana Jones a snake. He is afraid of the snake. He has always been afraid of snakes. Snakes symbolize the penis. Indy wants to retain his bachelorhood, which means he really doesn't want to grow up. But he ultimately embraces the snake, which, in turn, saves his life, which symbolizes that he embraces the penis, which means he's growing up and taking responsibility for knocking up Marion, which protects the heteronormative balance.


• Mutt Protecting His Penis Between the Cars: his legs were spread between the cars, and jungle plants kept whapping him in the happy place, but he puts a hand over his groin ensuring future generations of Jones boys.


• Army Ants That Form a Penis in Order to Get at Cate Blanchett's character: they form a phallic like structure that extends out so that one army ant can attach itself to Cate's feet. Then it crawls on Cate Blanchett's legs which is then crushed between her thights. She is obviously a lesbian. QED


• Army Ants Carried a Man into a Vagina: vaginas are scary. Embrace the penis. QED


• If the mayan temple is shaped like a penis and the alien spaceship is shaped like a ovarian egg, then Indiana Jones is the sperm off to the left hand side of the screen inseminating the egg with knowledge. QED


• Oh yeah, and Cate Blanchett's character. Her name was Mulva Ivanovich, right? And she had a rapier? Which symbolizes that she had penis envy. Which means she is a lesbian. Because she possessed knowledge and had a plan to do something with that knowledge. Which is why she had to evaporate into thin air.


• All the knife imagery. Knives penetrate, catch my drift?

Now here is a list of things that offended me:

• The crystal skull had the same exact effect on the indigenous people as it had on the ants. The movie equated indigenous people with the intelligence of ants. Sigh.


• How does the old adage go? That women only went to college to get their MRS? Well, I'm offended that Marion Ravenwood served no purpose in the movie except to get her MRS. Marion from Raiders was a bad ass. Now, she was more doe-eyed than bad ass. Even Willie Scott from Temple of Doom served her purpose in the movie. She got to scream! Marion drove a truck next to the edge of a cliff and smiled like a tard.


• That Cate Blanchett died. I was sad when she died. She was the only redeeming thing about the movie. She was really, really unbelievably gorgeous. Such a pity.


• But the real reason I'm sad that Cate Blanchett died is because apparently the moral of the story is: knowledge put to use is evil. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is good.


• Steven Spielberg's obsession with aliens coming out the ground. I thought he was Jewish, not Scientologist. But maybe George Lucas is Scientologist. And Steven is like, "Oh, George. You so silly. I'm God's Chosen Person. So, I'll let you tell your silly alien stories."

But the biggest reason why I was disappointed in the movie:

• That they took the whole reason why Indiana Jones was cool away: he was human and he was scrappy. He was a scrappy guy. And I was excited to see Indiana Jones as an older guy, because, even as a young guy, he got beat up. He did the best he could. But what's he gonna do pushing 60? (Or, in all reality, 65 since that's how old Harrison Ford actually is.) I would have liked to see him be more scrappy. But, instead, they made him into a super hero. I suppose it was the nuclear fallout that did it... But I don't want Indiana Jones as the newest X-Man. I want my scrappy archaeologist back.

Labels: heteronormativity, indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull, movies, penis

( 5comments )

at May 28, 2008 3:21 AM  JabbaTheSlut said...

I think YOU'RE the one with penis envy you lesbian in hiding.

Jabba

 

at May 28, 2008 10:47 PM  Jabba The Slut said...

Hmmm. Maybe you're not a lesbian after all. No balls.

Jabba

 

at June 11, 2008 12:22 AM  jillydreadful said...

While it's physically true that I don't have balls, I'm actually surprised that these comments were hiding on my wordpress account. I was so sad that no one commented on all the penis in Indiana Jones. Even if people didn't agree or wanted to complain about how I'm overanalyzing Indiana Jones and maybe wonder out loud (or whatever the blogging equivalent is) if I can even watch regular movies without my critic/theory hat on. But not a single response. I'm actually glad I provoked some sort of response, even if it's kind of myopic and meant as a put-down and not related to Indiana Jones at all.

I usually get e-mail notifications when comments are posted--the first comment is scanned for spamming purposes, but all subsequent comments are automatically allowed. Since you're new, it wouldn't post automatically.

 

at June 12, 2008 10:35 PM  Natalia said...

Hi! After reading your comment about no one posting, I thought I'd write up a response. I don't completely agree with your reading of the movie. While you make some great points (like the indigenous people reacting like ants to the crystal skull--so sickening that this is in a movie made these days!) and the need to make Indiana Jones "normative" (part of the reason I think they did this is so they can pass the franchise on to someone else who isn't so old and thus make more money), I don't agree with all the penises. I think you're right to a certain extent. Penises are, after all, everywhere. But I really do feel like sometimes a mushroom cloud is just a mushroom cloud. But Mutt did protect his penis, so perhaps you're on to something.

Maybe I was too shallow for turning off my "thinking cap" during the movie, but after all, since I analyze almost everything in life, it's easier at times just to veg out. Do you tend to analyze everything you watch? Are there certain forms of entertainment that you don't do this for? Do you find yourself not analyzing reality tv? I'm just curious. :)

On the whole, a great post. Well written and insightful. Got me thinking that's for sure!

 

at June 13, 2008 12:29 AM  jillydreadful said...

Have you ever thought about the shape of a mushroom cloud though? It looks like a penis! (I'm giggling so hard right now it's difficult to type.)

Anyway: yes, I tend to analyze everything I watch. It's exhausting. It used to be things like America's Next Top Model and Charmed were my sanctuaries: I could watch them without thinking. Mostly. But then Charmed got really boy crazy at the end and I started reading fourfour's blog and now even my mindless shows are no longer places I feel relaxed.

Are there certain forms of entertainment that I don't analyze? Without my comic books, anime, television shows, it feels as though all of my safe havens are being appropriated into my dissertation. One would think reality television would be a genre that doesn't lend itself to analysis, but, I find, it lends itself to even more critique somehow.

Lord of the Rings Online (the mmorpg WOW equivalent), I have discovered, is the only place I feel as though I can be relatively mindless, especially if I'm farming crafting materials to sell at the auction house (is there something like that in WOW--I didn't play it long enough to find out back in 2005).

I didn't like LOTRO at first. Brad and I both bought a lifetime membership for $199 back in January, and I only did it because the lifetime membership was a one time offer. The world felt overwhelming in comparison to Guild Wars, but I bought it anyway because I thought I would adjust. But a few weeks ago, B and I were going to a board game convention and I only went one day out of the four days, because I stayed home and played LOTRO instead. And ever since, it has felt like a wonderful release.

I didn't, until this moment, realize why I suddenly took to LOTRO so suddenly in May. Now it all seems so clear...