Raiders of the Lost Ark - 100th Episode Spectacular! - The Bechdel Cast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Dog Cast, the questions asked if movies have
women in them? Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
Do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef invest start changing
it with the Beck del Cast. Do do Do Do
Do Do Do Do Do Do Do keep going do

(00:21):
do Do Do do do do do? You know something horrible?
But when I was watching this movie, every time, I
was expecting the NFL team, you know, the one that's like,
it's close enough, there's a lot of brass and it
precedes men fighting. That's true. So you're like, but I
was like, that's not his song. I was like, actually,

(00:43):
in one of the most famous movies of all time,
it turns out to do this a song. Hey, everyone,
welcome to the Beck dol Caret. Hello, I'm Caitlin Dronte.
I'm Jamie Loftus, and here we are for our one
hundred episode. This is where you put in the crazy
frog music. Cue ding ding ding ding. You know? Okay? Well,

(01:07):
oh crazy frog heads, is that there will know? So
this is our hundredth episode of the Betel Cast. If
this is your first time listening, I'd recommend maybe make
this not your first episode. Yeah, because this is our celebration.
We're probably gonna be a little more casual. No guests today, guests,
we're raw dogging it, baby, because I don't know. We uh,
we've been doing We've been doing our hundred episodes almost

(01:30):
two years. We've got a lot to reflect on. Yeah,
and also I have ten pages of notes for this movie.
I mean, what would be more fitting. It's the celebrations.
You have to take twice as many notes as you
normally would. Um, so before we get started, this will
probably be a slightly looser episode that you're used to,

(01:51):
and it'll just be the two of us, so hopefully
you want to hang with us for a little bit.
This is like kind of closer to what our bonus
episodes are, like yeah so good or Matrion. Yeah, if
you like more to chill gals, just kind of tune
the ship there. Uh no, actually cut that out. But

(02:12):
we do have a movie, like we have a task yes, okay,
for the sake of consistency. The Bechdel test was the
idea or podcast is built around. It is a media test,
a test applied to media, usually to movies and television,
that requires there be a scene that has two female

(02:32):
characters with names that speak to each other about something
other than a man for a total of at least
two lines of dialogue. That's our standard. Does it happen frequently? No?
Listen on there, you start the demo today. I always,
I always initiate the demo. Okay, Hey, Jamie in our episodes,

(02:57):
which when's your favorite doubt? Doubt? Uh? That passes? Yeah,
that passes. What I could have said to make it
not passes. John Patrick Shanley what a genius. Okay, I
wish All for Melina had been in it, but fortunately
Segue Alfred Molina's first major film credit is the movie

(03:20):
we're discussing today. It's one of Caitlin's favorites. That's right,
Raiders of the Lost Arc. Before we get into it,
I'm just gonna get a little heartfelt here for a second,
and I think this will continue to pass the Bechdel

(03:41):
test because I just wanted to say, Jamie, first of all,
I've had such a fun time recording. Really it's been.
It's technically when you include our bonus Matreon episodes, it's
been over a hundred. But of our regular released episodes
that are available on you know iTunes, Spotify, wherever you
get your podcasts. This is our hundred one. I have

(04:06):
had so much fun talking and laughing with you. When
you track our progress from episode one two now, it's
there's so many different categories of progress. Oh my gosh. Yeah,
there's I feel like there's like progress of like our
understanding of talking about gender and blind spots that I

(04:28):
think we definitely had two years ago that we're working
on more now. And there's also the very heartwarming I
think track of like we've gotten like mentions of this
from listeners before, like you can sort of tell the
point where we become like really good friends, and that

(04:48):
warms my heart too. There's so many I love you, really,
we're glad that we do this. Me too. Fun. I
have so much fun with it, and I learned ship
all the time. I genuinely think that like doing this
show and having like the need to like I mean
for us, especially like to watch media critically or we're

(05:11):
not doing our job correctly has informed like everything else
that I do, and just sort of a general way
of perceiving the world in the past two years has
has changed. And we didn't I mean, we were talking
about this podcast pre election but the fact that our
show came out pretty much I think, like maybe a

(05:32):
week or two after the election to it's been a
doozy of two years in terms of like, I think
that there's stuff like at the beginning of the show
that we just didn't even have language for or wasn't
really discussed that much that now we do. So our
conversations we have gotten so much more sophisticated as time

(05:54):
goes on. But also we still regularly call into question
the consistency of beetlejuice come. So have our conversation has
gotten more sophisticated though, and to be fair, but okay
for using that example, and you know, I love when
we do. I'm already regretting bringing it up. Well, you
could think about it in terms of discourse. It took

(06:16):
us a whole year to even mentioned beetle juices come
because we as a culture simply didn't have the language.
It was just embedded so deeply that we assumed that
we didn't know what he came and we and it
was a taboo. We didn't think about it. It took
us a whole year of the podcast, nearly eleven months
till October of twenty seventeen to be so bold as

(06:40):
to say, does he come dry scaps or wet scaps?
And that's why people listen for this exact discourse specifically,
and then also just because we are you know, we're
bringing up these conversations, giving people the language that they
need to discuss come of all genders. Well, most of

(07:01):
that conversation, until we started talking about beetle juices come
most of it past the becto tests. So yeah, let's
talk about Raiders of the Lost Art. Dude, that's for
football soccer. Sorry, that's a soccer. So what is this movie?

(07:23):
It stars my least favorite character. I was going to
say Alfred Molina, but he's not the star really, I
mean in terms of men I respect. The spectrum is
represented in the first scene of this movie. Before we
get there, Caitlin, please tell me what is your history
with Raiders of the Lost Art. I would love to

(07:44):
tell you. I would say that I first saw this
movie when I was probably nine or ten. All three
of the original trilogy of Indiana Jones films were on
VHS at my house, and as soon as I discover them,
I never looked back. I have seen this movie, probably

(08:06):
a good thirty times, I would say, yep, I would
say I've seen Last Crusade even more than that, because
that is I would still call it my favorite. But
I'm beginning to appreciate more and more that Raiders is
a better film. Um templea doom I've never been that
fond of, and it is not aging well at all.
That's also one that the female lead is by far

(08:29):
the least strong, right, the least strong, the not to
detract from the cause, but the most annoying and the
least active. As I've said many times, part of feminism
is being able to openly acknowledge when you do not
like another one, right yeah, so yeah, definitely the weakest
one and until Crystal Skull rears its ugly head in

(08:53):
whatever year that was two thousand eight or something like that, which,
by the way, was my first date ever boy where
I brought like my date, but also my best friend Peter,
because I was scared. I know, I know, so basically
to some up, I I love this movie. I still

(09:14):
love this movie. We will unpack all the reasons that
there are to not love parts of this movie, but
I'm gonna stand by this movie and say that it
is great, even though I already have a good idea
of what nipple rating I will give it, and it
is not high. But even so, I love this franchise
and it is definitely in my top five favorite franchises

(09:38):
and movies of all times. So that's where I'm coming from.
Cool my history with this movie. I feel like we
should have our own Bingo card out for this episode
to see it, to make sure we hit all the
right notes. This movie saw last night, and then I
wasn't going to watch it a second time, but then
I was going to go to the d m V

(09:59):
this learning, and then I sucked it up, so I
just watched it again, watched it twice. Good, good, good,
We're growing Yeah, yeah, I did not grow up with
this franchise. I also didn't grow up with a Star
Wars franchise. I don't know. I don't really know why
that was. You would think that I would have encountered it,
but I just didn't. We weren't we weren't a big
movie household. We weren't a big but we were like

(10:21):
a big Disney movie household. We were a big cartoon household,
which I think influenced the direction of my life. But
we were we were more of a TV household than
a movie household. Um, so I just never really watched it.
Mostly watched holes, which we should do it upside um,
but I never watched it. And then as I grew older,
I mean, as as you know about me, action movies

(10:43):
just kind of weren't my thing. And then, as I've learned,
actually directly via this podcast, Harrison Ford also is very
much not my thing, and so I had little incentive
to watch this movie until I mean, this movie feels
important to do canonically. And I will say I was
expecting to come in, you know, just swinging my labia

(11:05):
around like loose PASTRAMI being like, I hate this movie,
this movie sucks whatever, But I have I have more
conflicting feelings about it than I thought. There were parts
of this movie that I liked very much. I mean,
and by that, I mean I loved the Alfred Molina
scene and he's so handsome. Does it pass the Bechtel

(11:30):
test if Harrison Ford grabs the front of Alfred Molina's pants? No,
it passes the Bechtel test. When Alfred Molina steals from
Harrison Ford and leaves him to die, it doesn't pass
the Bectel test. But now from Molina dies obviously what
a crazy I mean? And I didn't like that was

(11:51):
his first movie ever and he's on screen with a
huge movie star for a long time. I was like,
he's just so gift and he didn't crack under pressure.
He gave the performance of a lifetime. He never God,
I would like, literally give a finger to see him
as Tavia. But yeah, what are you gonna do? So
writers of the Lost Arc? So I'll do the recap

(12:14):
of the story of Writers of the Lost Arc, because like,
not really that much happens. A ton happens. What are
you talking about? There are some scenes that go on
for a long time, but fun. Okay. So we're in
the mid nineteen thirties. We meet Indiana Jones. He is

(12:35):
an adventurer who mostly steals sacred artifacts from indigenous cultures.
But we love him, love him. I think the greatest
piece of acting here is us believing that Harrison Ford
could be a teacher. Okay, I know you hate Ford.
I not as an individual, I hate his characters. He

(12:55):
seems he seems like a perfectly fun guy. So we
meet Indiana Jones. We see him trying to take a
golden idol from a tribe in South America. But who
else is there? Well, Cepedo a k a. Alpha. It's
his big day and he recovered in Tarantula's for part

(13:19):
of the city. Jeeves is cool and he is you
can tell he's like, I'm not sold on this franchise,
but I'm a young buck who needs an opportunity. I
can see what's going through his head. What if there
is maybe there's a universe where he has those tarantulas
on him. He gets bitten by one because one of

(13:39):
them is radioactive, and that that's what makes him become Doc.
I love that. Oh it's like the twenty three Years Sleeper.
And then he wakes up one day and he's Doc Doc. Okay,
that's Cannon. Now that's Cannon. It's as Cannona's dry scaps baby. Okay.

(14:00):
So Alfred Molina is there. So is this character named
Belloc who is Indiana Jones's rival, and he takes the
idol from him because he's friends with the indigenous culture
that Indiana Jones is trying to steal from. Then we
cut to a classroom because Indiana Jones is also a
professor of archaeology. The teacher who can read. Sure, Look,

(14:21):
he's an academic, he has he has more degrees than
I do. He's wearing glasses. I'm like, this is fucking lazy,
but fine, Yeah, Harrison Ford can read and he has glasses. Sure,
I only have a master's degree in screenwriting. I don't
like to bring it up, but it is from Boston University.
He's got a PhD from Chicago. A doctor. He's a doctor,

(14:44):
Dr Jones. Doctor I know, and I love anytime someone
says doctor Jones. It is the best doctor Jones songs.
Mr Jones, what, oh my god? Have you never heard
that song? No, it's like the Amy Weinhouse song Me
and doctor Chill. Alright. Anyway, So he's at his university,

(15:08):
he's teaching the kids about archaeology, and then he gets
approached by a couple of army intelligence guys who have
intercepted a communicate from the Nazis, and the Nazis are
looking for the headpiece to the Staff of Raw, which
is a thing that's going to help them find the
Ark of the Covenant. It's another piece of indigenous art

(15:29):
that Harrison Ford needs to steal so that more evil
white guy doesn't get it right, but it's not suggested
that perhaps this is something an indigenous adventurer could do.
Only Harrison Ford could do it, and in this scene
he's the best, and he says things as if he's
read a book before. Sure, doctor, look he's got a PhD.

(15:53):
And I believe it's Hitler PhD candidates. God damnit. Hitler
is looking for the art because he wants to weaponize it,
so Indiana Jones has to find it before he does
so that that can't happen. So Indiana goes to Nepal
to get the headpiece from Marion Ravenwood, which is her dad,

(16:14):
her dad, and then yeah, he Indiana Jones learns that
her quote he died it was like an old professor
of his and he and Maryan have a history which
we will talk about, but it was a child. Yeah. Well,
there's there's too much to say now, so we'll get there.

(16:34):
So then some Nazis coming to steal the headpiece. They're
not successful, so then Marian partners up with Indie by
the way, after he immediately comes back triggers her and
then burns down her small business. And now they're working together. Okay,
So then they go to Tannis, which is a city

(16:55):
where the arc is thought to be. They meet up
with Indiana's friend Salah, a white guy. Yeah, yep, we'll
get there as well. And then they figure out what
the markings on the headpiece mean, and then they make
sure their staff is the right height because Bellock's staff
is too long. They're digging in the wrong place. Oh no,

(17:16):
They go to the map room to figure out the
right spot to find the arc. So indeed, he starts
digging and they find the Well of the Souls, So
so they're they're in the Chamber of Secrets and then
they find the arc. But Belloc shows up and he's like,
that's nine nine nine. So Bellock takes it and he
loads it onto a plane and then there's a big

(17:37):
fight sequence and then they're like, no, let's put it
on a truck. And then there's another big there, like
we need to have a battle scene on every mode
of transportation or the movie can't end. Have we yet
passed the point where Marian is kidnapped? And then Indy
shows up and he's like, actually just gonna leave you here. Yeah,
I glossed over that part. There's a big fight sequence.

(18:00):
It's in a market scene. Maryon gets kidnapped and then
she thought to have died, and then he right after
he figures out the spot where the arc is. He
goes into a tent and Maryan is there. She's bound,
she's gagged. She's like, get me out of here, and
he's like, no, I have to go get an arc curse. Yeah.
Then she is taken to the Well of the Souls

(18:23):
and gets dumped in there with Indiana right and then
they have to escape and that's when they go on
this wild goose chase of going after the plane and
then the trucks, and then they get on a boat.
At one point there's some kissing. It's very cool. By
the end of the movie that they all end up
on this island where Belloc performs this ritual to make
sure that the arc works. I guess he's doing a

(18:46):
test run before he gives it to Hitler. Shares ghost
comes out of it and all their heads exploit their
faces melt off. Indiana is like, don't look at it,
and then don't like a Shares go and then that
is pretty much the movie. Yeah, I I liked it
more than I was expecting. Well, I mean, if you

(19:07):
like movies like you know, The Mummy or National Treasure,
those movies don't exist without this movie. So that's true.
And I love National Trushre I know you do. I
love the I feel like I've said this a million
times too. But the Daylight savings time, plot, plot contrivance, gorgeous, beautiful.
Why wasn't there that? I think that's what this well,

(19:31):
speaking of time, I think it's time to take a
quick break. But then we'll come back and we'll talk
more about raiders Do Do Do Anywhere? We're back now, So, um,

(19:52):
there's a lot, there's a lot here. This is one
of the movies that takes place in a world where
women barely exist, says all of early George Lucas. Basically
where up until like three years ago, you wouldn't know
that George Lucas had really met a woman before, and

(20:13):
then all of a sudden, you know, the less evolved
he was, the more women would appear. But whatever, this
is very much. I mean I think that this is
and George Lucas has involved in both projects obviously, but
like this is like comparable to Leia in some ways
of like we're given one female character she does a
lot of stuff. She's relatively active within bounds. I would

(20:37):
argue that this movie would never empower Maryan to the
point where she didn't need Indy, which I think that
in that way, she's kind of a weaker character than La,
because I think that, like, it's clear that she would
be okay without the guys, but Marian, like, there are
clear limitations to what the movie will allow her to
do before she's taken captive basically, but there's no one

(21:00):
for her to talk to, no one for her to
talk to, and yeah, as you said, not that much
for her to do more than I was expecting. It's
interesting with Mary And there were some points where I'm like,
I can't imagine that this was done super intentionally as
like a meta text thing. But for the sake of argument,
there are scenes where you know, this is so common

(21:23):
in any action movie, where Harrison Ford is tossing her
to the side, getting her out of harm's way, throwing
her the piles of hay, but then Marian will get
up and start fighting again and then help pick her
up and toss her away again. And it was interesting
because I don't think it was like super intentionally done
of like Indiana Jones is very much a typical action

(21:46):
hero of like my lady can't get harmed, You're not
got to keep her safe. But unlike you know, like
Mary Jane Watson caught in a web for the climax
of another Alfred Molina classic. Uh, Marian keeps getting up
and keeps trying to fight, and and like she has
fighting that goes beyond like the standard woman one bunk,

(22:10):
one panda the head. Wow, she did it. Like she
doesn't have multiple battle victories, Yeah, which I wasn't expecting. Sure,
and let's go through them. Let's talk about her sort
of role in this story. So and well, before we
do that, I just want to kind of give a
quick overview of her character. Um. So, when she's introduced
on screen, she is beating a man in a drinking contest,

(22:34):
so we know she she's not like the other girls,
right she We know she can hold her liquor, which
is a skill that will pay off later in the movie.
So at least that's set up for our specific purpose.
We know that she's the daughter of a famous archaeologist
and she has traveled the world with him, but she
doesn't necessarily seem to have any specific career ambition of

(22:56):
her own or interest in archaeology, which is fine, which
is fine, but it's a small business owner. But also
she doesn't really seem to like that because she says,
I'm stuck in this dive. I can't you know, I
want to get out of here. And we know that
she's had a relationship with Indiana Jones in the past,
which is a whole other conversation. I would say, even

(23:19):
though she is sort of presented as like not like
the other girl's kind of character, I do and I
have always admired her for being tough and self sufficient,
self sufficient she you know, doesn't take ship from anyone. Yeah,
I know, it's it's pretty surface level. The thing there
is like it's weird because again it's like eighties convention

(23:43):
of like surface level empowerment. But even the way she's
presented of like she is able to sustain a life
on her own, but it's not anywhere close to the
level of like satisfaction she could get out of life
with Indiana je And so there's like a level of
like when he arrives and sweeps her off into adventure.

(24:05):
It's not that she was waiting for him to show up,
but sort of, you know, like like he's definitely the
catalyst that turns her world upside down exactly makes it
exciting again, which yeah, is it's not great, but I
would say overall, she's presented as a smart, capable character

(24:25):
who advocates for herself. But the trouble is that the
story rarely gives her an opportunity to do anything that
has much of an impact on the narrative for the
for the time it's coming out. It's not bad, but
there's still a lot of shortsightedays around it. I would wonder,
like how much of an influence the success of Leah's

(24:46):
character had on the way this character was written, because
Leiah predates her by a couple of years. Yeah, so
the first Star Wars movie came out in ninete. This
movie came out in one. Okay, So yeah, I mean
that's good, and that's I mean, her character is more
complicated to analyze than I was anticipating. Yeah, because as
much as it not like the other girl tropes kind

(25:08):
of bug me, there at least grounded in this story
where it skills that she, like you're saying, needs later.
I guess this is like the in between level of yes,
we are acknowledging that a woman can sustain a life
on her own, but she can't truly experience the joy
of life without a man's And then if for taking

(25:30):
it all the way back to the Mummy episode. In
that movie, we see we see the Rachel wife's character
having really important knowledge the greatly in fact, the direction
of the story which Brendan Fraser needs to be able
to carry on with his quest. Whereas in this movie,

(25:53):
while she does some things and makes some active choices,
there's nothing that she can sure beats that's crucial to
the narrative because Indiana Jones has given all of the
necessary information and knowledge and you know, problem solving skills
to you know, make all the important moves of the
story because he can read. Don't forget Indiana Jones character

(26:19):
who canonically can read and has a doctorate. Anyways, So yeah, oh,
I also just wanted to make a comment on the
actress who plays Marian She Allen. Yes, she doesn't end
up doing a whole lot of stuff by choice after
this movie, I would just like to throw out there,
no judgment, just wanted to put it out there. She

(26:41):
does marry a man named Kale, a grown man named Kale.
Karen and Kale, Karen and Kale. That's something people had
to say seriously when making plans. So that's just all Kale.
So yeah, do you think Cal and Karen are around
if you knew Kale first? In any case, just a
little bit of gristle for you to chew on for

(27:03):
our hundredth episode. You bet you? Okay, back to talk
about Yeah, let's talk about her role and major contributions
in the story. So we see her for the first
time in the bar in Nepal. Some bad guys come
in and threaten her. They use violence as a way
to turn her business down. In reality, she would have

(27:25):
to stay and at least get the insurance money, not
leave that day. Anyways, Indiana has to come in and
save her. There is a fight. She does a couple
of things, like she hits a guy with a log head.
She drinks whiskey out of a barrel. This was That
was the first thing where I was like, she's more
active than I thought she was going to be. But

(27:46):
she still wasn't that like she could. She couldn't have
won the day on her own for sure, and then
as opposed to Oklahoma, Oklahoma Smith my favorite actor movie hero. Personally,
I'm partial to Utah, Pennsylvania, Johnson Pennsylvania, Johnson is great?

(28:09):
Where's Johnny Utah? And all of this point break Okay, anyway,
choose its crews favorite action hero. Okay. So by the
end of this scene, Indiana Jones is doing most of
the fighting, but Marian does shoot the last bad guy

(28:29):
who was about to kill Indiana Jones. I'd argue this
is a little trophy of the woman did something. Yeah,
so she saves him, but it is like, oh, wow,
look at it, look at look at what a woman.
I guess that I could I think that, And I
think that that is partially used as like a reasoning
to the audience of like, oh, she is a realistic

(28:50):
person for him to take on as a partner, which
there's a pattern of the way she's treated in this movie.
I feel like almost the movie never well, it does
make a decision eventually, but it goes back and forth
several times of like if we're thinking chessboard, is she
a pawn or is she an actual player in the game,

(29:12):
Because there's multiple times where she's used as a pond
she treated like an object to move the plot forward.
There's that moment where what's the name of that character,
katanga u Katanga has her on the boat and it's like,
I think that, you know, we could sell her as
a prostitute once we get off the boat, and that
moves the plot forward and gets what needs to happen
in the scene to happen, but only because she's treated

(29:34):
as an object. Same dale whenever she's randomly abducted. That
just adds steaks by her being there. But then there's
other moments where her skills and presence are necessary to
the plot moving forward, and the movie just kind of
goes back and forth, and never I think that it
settles on the decision that she is a pawn, because

(29:56):
by the end she is wearing like a wedding dress
and it's to be rescued. But for for a while,
it's back and forth. And then one more quick thing
about the bar scene is that at the end of
that she makes the choice to accompany him on She's like, like,

(30:17):
you got more than you bargained for. I'm your goddamn partner, right,
so so I'm not getting tired of it personally me either,
and Prior to that, you know, we see her interacting
with like the Nazi guy who's like, I don't know

(30:38):
what kind of people are used to dealing with, but
no one tells me what to do in my place,
she blows smoke in his face, you know, So she's
more headstrong considering the era, considering the genre, and also
considering the fact that these movies were based on these
sort of adventurer cereals from the nineteen thirties. I have

(31:01):
not watched that media personally, but I would wager that
those did not treat women very well, and if it
was a woman in the story, this is probably progress
built upon that. Yeah, I would imagine. So if you,
if you are familiar, as as the audience listening to us,
if you have seen those, you know, adventure cereals that

(31:23):
Indiana Jones movies are kind of inspired by, let us know.
But again, I would hazard to guess that the women
in those stories were just kind of tossed around and
not allowed to do anything or damsels in distress the
whole time. So yeah, but you know, more progress could
have been made than it was. I agree, Yeah, I

(31:46):
would be shocked if this wasn't somehow an improvement on
the source material, but you know it's still an idea one, right, right, right.
So the next sequence is the one in the marketplace.
They are now in Cairo, h Indiana Jones calls her
stupid because there's a monkey that's their friend. Now, Indiana

(32:09):
Jones is enough, right, but yeah, but he's like, oh,
do we need the monkey? And she's like, it's got
your looks and he's like, and your brains and she's like,
I noticed that she's smart, so um, and then that
fights scene breaks out. As soon as the fight breaks out,
you see Mary and picking something up and like starting
to hit a bunch of bad guys with it. It

(32:31):
seems to be an aluminum pan that would not inflict
much damage, but hey, it's what was right there. But
it's more the same thing that we see in the
first fight scene at the bar, where Indiana Jones is
doing most of the fighting and she is not doing
nearly as much. He says to her pretty early on

(32:52):
to get out of there, and then he throws her aside.
She falls on the ground. A little later on, picks
up a frying pan and hits a guy over the
head with it. But this is something that. I feel
like we see a lot where if women in a
movie are allowed to participate in a fight scene, they're
usually not given actual weapons. No, no, the well, and

(33:13):
then very often I think that they end up using
domestic items to fight, which is like a weird subtext
of like, oh, well, they would never have just have weapons,
and so they you know, you know how to use
this pot, They've they've cooked many things. Let's let's have

(33:34):
her fight in her language. Like what yeah, totally absolutely
agree with that. Or another example of what happens when
women are fighting and fight scenes is she will wrap
her legs around a guy's face and then pussy slam
him on the floor. Yeah. Yeah, so those are usually
the two options. Rarely do we see a woman wielding

(33:57):
a gun and being skilled with a gun. Now is
this something as a hater of guns, do I want
to see women firing of guns all the time? Not necessarily,
but because men get to do it so much right,
and we see so little of women doing it in
action movies. It's a very noticeable disparity. Uh. And then

(34:21):
I honestly like I did lose track of the fight
scenes because it's just not a language that I speak,
I'm like, okay, there's he's gonna win, Like why are
we He's going to win, but we have to see
him struggle before he wins and fights. But you just
love it. But he's gonna win and we don't know that.
But intellectually we know, but emotionally we only twist in movies.

(34:44):
Ever that's ever happened is in School of Rock when
they lose the Battle of the Dance. That's the only
Act three twist. You never see it coming. So the
rest of the sequence plays out where she after she
makes a few failed attempts at fighting, she hides in
a basket, then gets captured, gets loaded onto a truck,

(35:07):
and is thought to have been killed in a big
truck explosion. And then she disappears from the movie for
about fifteen minutes and doesn't appear on screen again until
Oh no. But it's to build suspense, doy, so she
appears on screen again whenever Indiana Jones finds her in

(35:31):
a tent where she is tied up, she is bound
and gagged and he's like, hey, there you are. I
thought you were dead, and she's like, give me out
of here, cut me loose, and he's like no, that
would be too says that they'll be on me. That's
gonna risk you dying. The only thing that's more frustrating

(35:53):
than a woman needing to be constantly rescued as a
woman almost being rescued, and then the guy being like,
actually not, and then they still end up together. It's
just not a cute thing to do. I don't care
what this movie tells me to feel. I don't think
it's cute or charming. I understand. God damn it. He

(36:13):
just left her with Nazis, right, And then we cut
to a scene where the Nazis are talking about torturing
her to get information out of her, which I think
it would have been an improvement on the story if
she was given information about the medallion that she not
that I wanted to see her tortured, but if if
she had had Because they get the medallion and there's

(36:36):
these markings on it that they need to have interpreted
so they can figure out how high the staff of
raw needs to be. It would stand to reason because
she's been in possession of this thing for so long,
because her father was a noted archaeologist who was an
expert on this very ark of the Covenant, Tannis staff
of raw stuff. You would think that maybe she would

(36:57):
have along the way acquire heard some information about this,
but because the movie God Forbid a woman knows anything,
that doesn't become you know, world cannon. Until at least
the early two thousand, women didn't know facts. But then
we talked about this on the tomb Raider episode because

(37:21):
we can very easily liken lot of craft tomb Raider
to Raiders of the Lost Arc. And even in that movie,
where we have a female protagonist who is driving the story,
she is given most of the information she needs to
propel the story forward, usually by men. So it's not
even though that she knows the stuff or has a

(37:42):
waited or like even it's not because it's like sometimes
it's uh Mary Sue situation where it's like, how would
she have known that? Radically? But it's like she could
have sought out that information and found it, and we
could have had her be actively looking for like that.
But no, bret In staid, a bunch of you know,
guys come up to her and they're like, hey, here's

(38:03):
the information. You know. Anyways, See he's like, who is
that and why is he? In Sagg now like that's insane.
So after she realizes that Indiana Jones is not going
to cut her loose and rescue her, she takes matters

(38:23):
into her own hands, to her credit, so what she
does is she tries to outsmart and out drink Bellock
so that she can try to escape, because her whole
plan is to get him so drunk that he can't
chase after her whenever she tries to run away, and
there's a knife that she threatens him with and it

(38:44):
almost works until and he's mad. He's got a coat hanger.
But she made that Nazi so mad with her knife
and she's, oh shit, that not he pissed, and then

(39:04):
she is made or maybe this already happens, but at
some point in this scene, she is made to put
on a sexy white dress basically like a virgin. We
it's a wedding dress like it's just as she's putting
this on, Belloc is spying on her, which means that
the audience is spying on her while she's changing. And

(39:30):
that's another sneaky moment where it's a moment of blatantly
objectifying a woman, but the bad guys doing it, so
you don't have to feel bad about participating, which is
like not dog does not happen. It works, right, So
that scene concludes with them taking her and then throwing
her into the Well of Souls where Indiana Jones is

(39:52):
already hanging out. This seems fun. At this point. We
haven't seen Alfred Billina for well over an hour, and
we're getting frost right there. You've had to pause and
watch Shock a lot for a while. I had to.
I had to keep pausing and watching a whole other movies. Yeah, um,
watch all a feud in the middle of this. So then, um,

(40:17):
she's in the tomb in that scene starts with an
upshot of us looking up her dress while she's dangling
from a statue, and then they now need to escape
from this tomb, the snake tomb. The snake tomb. That's right,
So she is less scared of snakes than Indiana Jones,
but she's still shrieking at the top of her lungs
throughout the entire scene. If we need to remove snake

(40:39):
stigma as a future snake owner, let's normalize women with snakes.
I guess I still don't support this snake things. Too late,
I gotta Terry, Um, I need to fill it. So
they're trying to escape, and of course Indiana Jones is
doing most of the escape ing. She's mostly just squealing

(41:02):
about snakes. Uh. This could have been an opportunity to
because she has like because Indiana Jones has a crippling
fear of snakes in the whole tomb is slithering with them.
So this could have been an opportunity to make her
more active and to have her be the one because
she's not so petrified, being the one who is actively
doing stuff to find an escape route. But of course

(41:26):
that does not happen. So Indiana Jones he's doing he's
whipping stuff, he's crashing through a wall. Um, he's doing
all manners stuff. He's occasionally that that theme we all
know and love starts to play in the crowd will
go wild. And as my friends pointed out, because I

(41:47):
watched this recently with Nolan, Alex and Jake and sorry
everyone for hanging out with men, but that was the
reality of the situation. So shouts out to my friends.
But um, I think it was my friend Nolan who
pointed out that he is an archaeologist and yet he
is destroying an ancient historical site. Oh, he has no

(42:10):
regard for the culture he's supposed to dearly love like
and that's I mean, that is perhaps one of the
more realistic elements of the nineteen thirties being presented, because
like it's so well documented of like British it's it's
like super fucking colonial ship of like if you're an archaeologist,
it's basically sanctioned fievery because you're white. That maybe is

(42:35):
the most historically accurate, just like he wants one thing
and he'll burn down any other piece of ancient history,
and archaeologist should probably be more comfortable around snakes. There's
just a lot of like he's a very least an
unethical archaeology. Yeah, there's there's no doubt about that. Also
in this scene, because she's now in her in a

(42:58):
wedding dress, he's where did you get this dress? From him?
And she's like, I was trying to escape, no, thanks
to you, And he's like how hard were you trying? Right,
I'm like, dog, you had the opportunity to rescue me
from a serious So she's like, well, where the hell
were you? And then instead of answering, he rips off

(43:21):
the bottom two feet of her dress for the torch. Yeah,
and then they throw a bunch of skeletons at her.
She's screaming, and then they get out of the tomb,
so she is rendered I would say, more inactive in
this scene than probably any of the other scenes she's in, which,
as you pointed out, it's pretty inconsistent with like sometimes

(43:43):
she's like doing stuff and it's in it's helping, and
it's you know, further in the cause, and at the
time she's completely damseled. So the next scene we come
upon with her is the fight scene at the plane
where she does some I would pretty cool stuff here.
She hits the pilot with some wooden blocks who was

(44:06):
trying to shoot indies, so she saves him there, and
then she gets in the plane and shoots a bunch
of bad guys with like the big gun. Um. But
then she gets trapped in the plane and he has
to save her, and then she is not on the
screen again for a while because there's a big chunk
of the movie where he's on a truck and he's

(44:27):
punching Nazis. That scene certainly was long, but it's so good. God,
I love it. The only thing that occurred to me
during the truck scene was like, Wow, he must have
really a high quality pants because anyone else's pants would
have just, you know, totally deteriorated. He's dragging along at
like seventy miles hour, so you know, good on his pants. Guy,

(44:52):
they don't like pants. As far as I got into
being engaged in that scene, hey, let's take a quick break.
We'll put a pause on the conversation and we'll come
back after the break. That's all breaks work. Yes, do
do Do Do Do Do Do. It's hockey night in Canada,

(45:23):
da Sweet saying on me, I can't believe you don't
know that song. Oh my god. Okay, so we're back
and this is the hundredth episode. Okay, so we're we're
finishing up Marion's moments of activity. Yes, so the next

(45:44):
scene we're gonna take a look at. Here is the
scene on the boat. Well, first, before Marion even gets
on the boat, she kisses Sala on the mouth to
thank him, right, and he has a horny connection, which
is her choice, but also as weird, like Indiana Jones

(46:04):
doesn't kiss him on the mouth to thank him. So
that part I mean it was stupid, but I don't know,
Like Indiana Jones, he's so like, you know, all of
his male friendships, he literally like kind of no homos
his own friend when his friends like I'll miss you,
and then Indiana Jones like that's clearly too much emotion

(46:26):
for him. He's like you are a friend, like you
are a good friend, and then you're like okay, so
also only going to get so he would never say
he missed someone, sure, But also in the very beginning
with Alfred Molina, whenever he's like grabbing onto his pants
and then pulls them to the other side of this
like crevice. They've kind of like got their arms around
each other, and then Indiana Jones pushes Alfred Molina away

(46:49):
because do you know you're being embraced by a god?
And second of all, I'll go on record to say
I would get guarantee that we're talking Cannon. All of
Harrison Ford's early characters are homophobic, not a question in
my mind. I don't think Harrison Ford is really an

(47:09):
ally to it or his character. Sorry, I don't know
anything about him as a person, but all of his
characters are part of like they're like rogue is charm is.
They're not an ally to literally anyone. Uh. And I
want to talk about him as like, you know, a
man's man, but we'll get there. Oh yeah, there's some

(47:30):
not the worst perpetrator of toxicity in the whole world,
but you know it's certainly a purp, yeah for sure.
So then they get on a boat. She puts on
another sexy white dress, which she wears for the rest
of the movie pretty much until the very last scene.
And then she spends that whole scene trying to take
care of Indiana Jones, for which he is not grateful. No,

(47:51):
which is I think falls into the man's man's persona
of like I don't need anyone to take care of me,
independent man, blah blah blah. And this is kind of
like a familiar scene too, of like the warriors wounded
and now the woman must be his nurse. And it
reminded me I was thinking immediately of that scene from
Beauty and the Beast after the Beast has rescued Bell

(48:13):
from the wolves and then she you know, heals him,
and at first he's really mean to her, but then
by the end it's like there's something here, kind of
like the exact same road map for this scene because
until this moment on screen, we have not seen them
be Oh no, we have seen them be romantic. He

(48:33):
kisses her, I think, whenever he finds her in the tent. Yeah,
like there are moments, but it's just like, this is
the first moment where he isn't totally nagging her, right,
And it's also one of their first like private moments
that they're not in grave danger. Right, it's like a
quiet moment. So yeah, he's not quite as much like

(48:57):
peacocking around. But even then still it's you can tell
that this character is so steeped in his own masculinity
that acknowledging that he needs help from another person pains
him greatly. Also, his own physical fallibility is upsetting to him,
which we find out in this scene as well, which
I thought was like kind of an effective choice of like, Okay,

(49:20):
at least Indiana Jones has an insecurity that we are
now aware of. I didn't know that before, so that's something. Yeah, Oh,
I forgot to mention that, you know, they kiss on
a boat, not on like Hydros Titanic. They but but
the spark simply isn't there. And then The next thing

(49:42):
that happens is the Nazis invade this boat and then
we you talked about this scene already where Indiana Jones
hides but Marian gets captured, and then the ship captain
Katanga is like, hey, let's keep her because she's got
value where we're headed. And then the Nazis are like, no,

(50:02):
she's our property. Yeah, like literally, she's property in this
And then Indiana Jones gets on a submarine, but I
don't think he goes inside, so I think we're meant
to believe that he just like somehow hangs on the
outside of a submarine for what seems like a journey
of like several hundred miles. Sure, I'm like, I don't know.

(50:25):
The rules of this world are very unclear. I mean
probably a little bit on purpose. Where like there's one
point where Indiana Jones gets literally shot, but it doesn't
seem to slow and by that much. He gets shot
and then punched in that bullet wound, right, and then
he's like I'm fine, and he like later he's like, aoie,

(50:47):
but give me a little kiss. It's like this, but whatever,
it's an action movie, right. So then we arrive at
the island where So this scene is interesting because in
many action movies, the female lead is tied up at
the end um usually so the male hero can save her.

(51:08):
But an interesting thing happens in this movie where the
male hero is also tied up and ends up being
very passive during the climax of the movie. It's so
weird how shares goes really steals. I thought that was
interesting as well. I mean, and it ends up kind of,
I guess, being a wash because no one really does anything.

(51:30):
You kind of just trapped and they're like, well, just
don't open your eyes and let's just power through the
end of this movie. Yeah, it's kind of I don't know.
I mean, I guess I don't feel one way or another.
It's not as bad as like the normal Tolby mcguarth
throwing Kurs and Duns out of the frame, or it's
not as bad as specific Rim where the female protagonists

(51:50):
launched out of the final scene via submersible, or like
in Twilight whenever Bella's one's like I'm just going to
pass out for the climax of my own story right,
or the time she likes sleeps for three months because
a breakup. I don't know, but I think ultimately it
just ends up being just kind of an unusual choice

(52:11):
to disable both of your protagonasts for the sure, I mean,
I guess that. I mean, I'm grateful for the world
that we have those face melting, head exploding shots. I'm
glad that ghost looks like share. I guess that you
don't really need anything outside of that. I don't know
that was that was kind of I mean, yeah, because
of the Nazis bring their own demise upon themselves, so

(52:34):
it was interesting, not not a usual climax to an
action movie. So I would say my overall thoughts on
her participation in the story, what's her participation grade, Well,
it's it's not very high. She she needs to be
saved no less than probably five times throughout the story,

(52:55):
if not more. She is I would say, more act
of and kind of more headstrong than a lot of
female characters in similar roles in similar movies. But that's
not saying much because usually women don't get to do
anything in these types of stories. And I think when
it comes down to it, there's a lot of pluses

(53:17):
to this character, but ultimately the writing of her is
very inconsistent where the movie doesn't know how much they
want or there and when she's there, the rules of
how much she's allowed to participate it seemed to be
very limited. I don't know that I could stay as
sistinctly what she wants, Like what does this character want

(53:40):
besides to not work at a dive bar? Like there?
We don't really know, like where the goals for Indiana
Jones couldn't be more clear, to the point where it's
like I wish there was a little more but with
Mary and it's like, well, what does she want? And
I don't think that the movie really gives that a
lot of consideration. Oh not at all. Yeah, I mean

(54:03):
most kind of you know, romantic interests aren't given any
sort of specific goal, especially you know, action movies like this.
Some of them do and that's and that's great, and
I think that should happen more often. But yeah, the
movie doesn't give it a second thought. So speaking of
their romantic relationship, here we here, we go there, I mean,

(54:26):
I don't there's multiple ways to interpret it. Is the
best I can say. Where sometimes when people say child,
they mean a younger version of a person, because she says,
I mean, it's also unclear how old her character is
supposed to be. I think the actress is about thirty,
but I don't know how old her character is supposed

(54:46):
to be. But she references ten years since they first hooked.
So let me break this down the scene where they
first interact on screen together in the movie, which is
when Indiana Jones walks into her bar in Nepal. She says,
Indiana Jones, I always knew someday you'd come walking back

(55:07):
through my door. What are you doing here in Nepal?
And he says, I need one of the pieces your
father collected, and then she punches him in the face, right,
which is another That was the other thing I wanted
to cite as like not like the other girl's move. Yeah, well,
let me talk about that real quickly, because I would
say in movies that it's like, oh, she's not like

(55:28):
the other girls. There are other women too put her
up against. And because there are no other women, I
don't think the movie is actively doing that. I'll counter
that with the type of character India's, which is, you know,
I think it's made clearaters very early on, like he's
the eternal bachelor type character. And why is he an

(55:50):
eternal bachelor because he can't find a woman who can
match him, you know, And so that's I think little
things like that are meant to indicate, like here, like
Indiana finally meets his match. I don't know. It sounds
like that sort of tapers off as the series goes along,
but as far as I can tell, because this is
the only Indiana Jones movie besides The Child a Buff

(56:12):
Bonus one that I've seen, and to me, it seems
like the character was like, you know, he's like in
his late thirties and is still single, unusual especially for
the thirties, and it's like he's just he's a he's
a professional, and he doesn't have time for relationships and
unless it's some lady who can really keep up with him,

(56:32):
so that I don't know, Yeah, I see that. Um okay,
So back to back to this what's about to become
a very upsetting conversation. So she punches him. She says,
I learned to hate you in the last ten years.
He says, I never meant to hurt you. She says,
I was a child, I was in love. It was
wrong and you knew it. He says, you knew what
you were doing. It's not good. He says, look, I

(57:00):
did what I did. You don't have to be happy
about it, but maybe we can help each other out now.
And then she's like visibly exasperated, and she says, do
you know what you did to me? To my life?
This is the scene that plays out on screen. Let's
examine a conversation between the director Steven Spielberg, George Lucas,
who is sort of the creative mastermind will say behind

(57:22):
the movies, and Lawrence Kasden, the screenwriter of the film
honestly rather than not. But we have we must. So
this is a kind of spitballing meeting that they're having.
They recorded it, and then this is from the transcript
of the recording. So so I'll be kasidin, you'd be
George Lucas, and I'll be Spielberg. Okay, I'm going to
pretend Kasiden is British, so watch out everybody. So Kasdin says,

(57:48):
I like it if they already had a relationship at
one point, because then you don't have to build it.
Org Lucas says, I was thinking that this old guy
could have been his his mentor he could have known
this little girl when she was just a kid, hadn't
a fair there when she was eleven and he was
fulty two. He hasn't seen her in twelve years. Now
she's twenty two. It's a real strange relationship. Spielberg says,

(58:08):
she'd better be older than twenty two. Lucas says he's
thirty five, and he knew her ten years ago when
he was twenty five and she was only twelve. Lucas
is stuck on twelve. He says it would be amusing
to make her slightly young at the time Spielberg and
promiscuous she came on to him. Lucas says, fifteen is

(58:30):
a right on the edge. I know it's an outrageous idea,
but it is interesting. Once she's sixteen or seventeen, it's
not interesting anymore. But if she was fifteen and he
was twenty five, and they actually had an affair the
last time they met, and she was madly in love
with him, and he she has pictures of him, says Spielberg,
and the conversation, My god, that is George Lucas. So

(58:53):
Lucas wanted him. He negotiates, He's like, fine, I guess
we can't do a of in but I'm not going
above fifteen like Jesus Christ. So it is unclear what
they settled on because they never articulate what actual age
Marion rave Wentz character is. Karen Allen was thirty at

(59:16):
the time of the movies, but I'm assuming the character
is supposed to be playing younger, right, So because Harrison
four is always supposed to be playing younger, and and
because she says I was a child it was wrong
and you knew it because she says that to Indiana Jones,
I'm guessing they went with the fifteen narrative, but not

(59:36):
over literally sets the parameter of like she cannot be
of consenting age or it's not hot. That's literally what
he says, right, it's it's horrifying. So my guess is
she is a teenager. She's fifteen. Also, it is unclear
what happened between them, but I think we can assume

(59:59):
that they had sex and that he statutory raped her.
Everything I could find in the original marketing and reviews
of this movie referred to them as former lovers. I
think it's safe to say that's insane. I was. I
was so ready to give a little leeway. God, God,
George Lucas, you fucking freak. So this is horrifying this

(01:00:23):
once you realize this, because it recontextualizes their whole relationship,
because we realize that Indiana Jones is a statutory rapist
and that he had sex with a child, and she
is the love interest for the rest of the movie.
She agrees to keep hanging out with her rapist. And

(01:00:45):
then this is a trauma. This is literally a trauma
victim who he shows up after ten years and burns
her building down. So, okay, recontextualize. This is a full
on nightmare. Yeah, where you're your rapist shows up after
ten years. Now he's a successful archaeologist, he's learned to read.

(01:01:09):
He and then he refuses, like if someone you've raped
is kidnapped by Nazis and you're the only one who
can save them, save them her own rape, hast refused
to save her from Nazis. Yeah, and and schoofy is Okay.

(01:01:30):
She cares for him and kisses him and they are
in love at the end. And the end in the
fourth movie, The Fucking Piece of Ship that is a
Kingdom in the Crystal Skull, they get married at the end. Okay, Yeah, this,
uh who Okay, So the child line was red flag,
but I I sort of instinctively gave it a pass

(01:01:50):
of like she was she's clearly younger than him, but
I didn't think it was a literal rape situation. I
thought it was like she was. I. I mean, I
guess I'm giving Georgia the costumes credit and like she's
between the ages of like seventeen and twenty one where
she's naive, but it's not a crime. She was a
consenting party to this. But that is not well shit wells.

(01:02:15):
And here's what is also extremely upsetting to me that
as a kid who's watching this movie all the way
up until I would say a few years ago, the
implications of that conversation did not even register with me.
So no, I didn't. I bet that with most people
they did, it wouldn't. Yeah, I didn't notice them as

(01:02:36):
being probably like that whole conversation. Didn't notice it as
being problematic until probably like four years ago, and then
I was like, oh my god, Indiana Jones, my hero
is a statutory rapist. And I didn't think anything of
it until recently. Sentence that, Yeah, that is very that
is bone chilling, and it just goes to show how

(01:02:58):
strongly ape culture is ingrained in just culture everything, and
how movies like this reinforced and normalize rape culture, and
and and and that conversation alone should be like studied
because it's so it's such a weird enabling conversation where

(01:03:18):
Lucas is clearly the one pushing the narrative of like,
no younger, younger, younger, and then the other guys are like, well,
maybe like older, and then he's like, nah, not legal though,
and then by the end they've sort of become complicit
of like, okay, not legal but not eleven. Like it's
just such your duds enabling other dudes kind of conversation

(01:03:40):
where yeah, there's one guy who's clearly the wrongest. Damn
George Lucas, Holy shit. I mean, I knew you wouldn't
allow more than one woman to appear in your movie
is prior to two thousand and fifteen, but this is
a this is a loop. I am deeply disturb by this.

(01:04:01):
So all of my just for clarity, all of my
notes on Marian were taken without this clear knowledge. Yes, right,
but that's sort of how I experienced this movie. I
think a lot of people experienced this movie where you're like, oh,
you know, he's he's condescending. He might neg her every
now and then, and we know that there's some history

(01:04:22):
to their relationship, but overall he's punches Nazis, so he
can't be a bad guy. And then you find out
about this conversation and then you realize that she's intended
to be probably fifteen at best, and the Indiana Jones
is a statutory rapist. Can we talk a little bit

(01:04:43):
about the Indiana Jones school of masculinity? Yes, Um, it's
weird because I don't think that his character brings anything
to the table of toxic masculinity that is necessarily new
or even unfamiliar to most of a movie audience. Um,
but it really does hit all the points where he

(01:05:05):
has his no home a moment, a staple of toxic
masculine characters. He has a moment where he outright refuses
to be emotionally vulnerable in front of both a woman
and a male friend, which I think is like a
quality of toxic masculinity that isn't spoken frequently enough about.

(01:05:26):
Of like he can't even be honest with his own
male friend because he's just so whatever. There is countless
moments where he's straight up the game, nagging, nagging, nagging,
and it works. It happens even worse in the second
movie and Temple of Doom. Well, and that the second
movie is the one where his love interest tries to
leave at the end and he whips her. It is

(01:05:47):
like no, and she's like, I love you. One of
the most most insane. I haven't seen that full movie.
I've seen that scene a million times and it hurts
my feelings. I feel personally attacked by that scene. Yeah,
I mean it seems subtler in this but all the action,
like nothing is subverted by Indiana Jones. In terms of masculinity.

(01:06:10):
It sounds like maybe some action hero tropes are subverted
by him at this time in history. I would say
the main one is that he's also an academic, so like,
you know, he's he's a he's a rugged. Well here's
he like makes mistakes. That was something that I read
was like that he doesn't do everything perfectly every time.

(01:06:30):
It makes some more relatable. Yeah, like, for instance, he's
a rapist and you know he's imperfect. But that's the
thing though, like he is so many people's idea of
what like an awesome male hero is in a story
to the extent that I did kind of a little.

(01:06:51):
I sourced it out to Facebook and I said, what
are your thoughts on Indiana Jones as a character, especially
earlier in your life? And I had to respond is
from people saying I had the biggest crush on him.
I wanted to be exactly like him. I studied archaeology
or anthropology in college because of him. I went to

(01:07:12):
the University of Chicago because he went there. I but
he is such an iconic hero to so many people
because he is sort of like the height of He's handsome,
he's got a cool outfit. He punches people, and he
whips his whip around. He rides horses, he drives trucks.
You know, he's doing all this stuff. But he's also

(01:07:33):
he cleans up real nice and he's a professor. He
can self puzzles. He's pragmatic, you know, so it's like
all these he has a sense of humor. He's very
smooth with women. Think this exact same conversation with some
small alterations apply to har and Solo, where it's the
same like rugged, constantly nagging women hero and again I

(01:07:54):
think that part of the reason these characters get away
with being the way they are outside of clearly the
time they were written in is because the villains are
so egregiously bad that you don't notice, like you'll you'll
give the hero a pass on literally anything if they

(01:08:15):
defeat War two Nazis, like, yeah, of course we're going
to root for someone to punch Nazis. However, because the
bad guys are so bad, I think that it just
conditions and audience to not examine the hero really at all,
or like let him get away with far more than
if you know. And these aren't my favorite movies either,

(01:08:39):
but like the Nolan Batman movies, you think more about
like is Batman actually that good of a guy because
he and the villains he's up against are more frequently
his equals and have more nuance, And when both sides
are you know, presented with nuance, you will examine your hero.

(01:09:00):
But that's not the approach this movie takes at all.
This movie doesn't really want you to examine the hero
too much. He looks nice and he punches Nazis and
that's all they need you to know. So that realization
really puts a damper on how much you can really
like Indiana Jones as a character. So there's a lot

(01:09:22):
to reconcile with this for me, and I would hope
for other huge fans of this movie because on the surface, it,
you know, just seems like a cool action movie where
there's this like this rugged, handsome guy who's punching Nazis
and and he's saving the world and all this stuff,
and then is a red flag if he's in the

(01:09:44):
movie in a leading role, it's a red flag. And
especially we refer you to the pop culture detective video
essay entitled Predatory Romance and Harrison Ford Movies, which examines
how people specially young men watching primarily I believe Star Wars,
Indiana Jones, and boy Bade Runner. But those are three

(01:10:08):
huge fucking franchises that are to some extent all still
around today, and Harrison Ford is still involved in all
of them and no one cares. So that's fun and
I love that. Shall we Shall we talk about the
use of brown face in this I hear and I

(01:10:30):
wonder if you can confirm this for me that this
movie of the three is not the most egregious one correct,
That would definitely go to Doom. We would need to
do an entirely other episode on Temple of Doom just
to unpack every horrible, problematic, racist thing that happens there.
But this movie, which I also didn't quite fully realize

(01:10:53):
until watching this on Amazon Prime, and it does that
fun little thing where like the actor who's in the
scene will pop up and it shows what character they're playing,
and then you click on that that guy and then
you see, oh wait, this person he's white and he's
not playing a white person. The same for I believe

(01:11:13):
he's credited in the movie as Arab swordsman. Yeah, that
is also a white man in a very egregious instance
of brown face. Let me just kind of quickly go
through the different locations and the racist stuff that happens
at each one. So characters who are not white in

(01:11:36):
this movie are either usually played by white people or
are just background extras. They're not given any significant screen
time or characterization or anything like that. Um, And nearly
every scene in this movie takes place in a country
whose population is made up of mostly non white people.
So keep that in mind. So first we open, We're

(01:11:57):
in South America. What country in South America? He doesn't
give enough to tell you it doesn't care. The presentation
of and I'm pretty sure they are referred to as
natives in this scene is ridiculous. It's like, it's just
they go to such lengths to make the indigenous people

(01:12:19):
of they don't care what country, seem like they don't
have minds of their own. They will do whatever. The
first white guy who comes along says, they're they're made
to be dumb. They're made to stylistically look very primitive
in a way that even forties is not at all.
I mean, I guess we don't know where we are,
so how could we know? It could be deep in

(01:12:40):
the Amazon where you know, Western culture hasn't reached this tribe,
but they're made to seem like there. It's it's it's
glorified set dressing, which comes up again and again in
all movies. But like, yeah, like the indigenous people of
wherever we happen to be are largely treated as set dressing,

(01:13:04):
as people to be killed by Indiana Jones. Boy does
Indiana Jones kill a lot of brown people in this movie.
Blankets stated, not even getting into brown face. It's awful,
and also his whole objective is to take something from
their culture and bring it back to Western white America.
So then we are in Nepal and all of the

(01:13:28):
native Nepalese characters are in the background. There are no
major speaking roles for them. All of the major speaking
roles are relegated to white people. There is a character
who is credited as Ratty Nepalese. Awesome. He is played
by a white man named Malcolm Weaver in Yellow Face Better.

(01:13:50):
There's also a character called Mean Mongolian. He I didn't
do enough research on that character, but the fact that
there's a character called mean Mongole what else do you
need to know other than it's It's just I mean.
And then his best friend Sala is one of the
most agreed to choices, playing a Welsh white man named

(01:14:14):
John Reese Davies. Um. He later plays Gimli. That's true,
literally gimlely playing a non white character. Awesome. Also, don't
forget he made a bunch of anti Muslim remarks in
two thousand four. He is also a Brexitter, so he

(01:14:34):
and then we've got the Arab swordsman. Um, I'm sorry
really quick for Salau. The John Yes, Darby Dave Davies.
John Es Davies keep trying to not say that, and
I said it. John Reith Davies was not the first
choice for Salo. Do you know who the first choice
for Salo was? Was it another wiker? Daniel de Vito

(01:14:57):
was the first choice for Salo loss for the culture? Um? Yeah,
And then there's some confusing ones. I think alf Molina
exists in an uncanny valley of this world where he
is of Spanish Italian descent, but you know he's playing

(01:15:18):
a South American character, so you know he's still of
exclusively European descent, and the character he's playing seems to
be a native of South America, I think, without a question,
and is also falling into sort of that trope of
like the selfish, tricky native who he is presented as

(01:15:40):
a guide, a subordinate of Indiana Jones. And then the
first chance he gets, he's he's a liar and a
cheat and he's going to sneak off and he'll be
punished and killed. And that is exactly what happens, just
for a moment of levity. For Millina was born in Paddington, London.
I know he said it before. It's worth repeating, Wait,
I didn't know that he really, he's frosts are past.

(01:16:04):
It's part of why he's so pure. Oh my god,
born in Paddington. But Alfred Molina loves marmalade sandwiches. I
get along really well with geminis. This makes so much
sense anyways, So I do feel a little better after
saying that out loud. So if you yeah, the situation

(01:16:25):
with Alfred Molina, it would appear that he is in
brown face as well. I would. I would argue he
is in brown face. And that seems to be almost
a blanket rule of this movie, with possibly a few
small exceptions of brown people of often unclear. We don't

(01:16:45):
always know where we are when we do people that
are actually from there, our sidelined and brown people was
speaking roles are white people in brown face? Correct? Uh?
And then in the scenes in Cairo especially, there's a
whole fight that breaks out where a bunch of Arab

(01:17:08):
people are attacking Indiana Jones for reasons that have never
entirely been clear to me. Yeah, but it makes it
seem like, oh, the people are just so violent that
if they see a Westerner they're just going to freaking
try to hit him right, which is another like common
I think that even goes back to like a stereotype

(01:17:29):
that's referenced in at and like the first line of
Aladdin where it's like where they cut off your ear
if they don't like your face. Just irrational violence, which
is just fearmongering for Western white America is Indiana Jones
is justified in stealing from these people and killing these
people and ruining their history because they're bad and they

(01:17:53):
are stupid and they don't know what they're doing. It's
bad because then we cut to the scene where they're
as a character who is credited as Arab Swordsman and he's,
you know, slinging a sword around. We're saying the one
who gets shot. He yeah, he gets shot because Harrison
Ford had diary at that day and couldn't do the
fight choreography movie Magic. I hate it. I hate it

(01:18:16):
so but hey, you guessed it. That character of the
Arab Swordsman is played by he's white white guy named
Terry Richards. One of the only non white characters who
speaks is Katanga, who, for Harry Potter fans also plays
Kingsley shock Ball. Yes he dies. I didn't put that together.

(01:18:39):
But totally um, well worth noting about that is that, yeah,
so they're on the boat. We see several black Africans
on this boat. They are the few people of color
with speaking roles. But guess what they're pirates are They're
still bad guys. I mean, I mean, yeah, pirates, you know,
the ones known for raping and stealing. Uh. Not to

(01:19:02):
be fair, Indiana Jones is known for those two things
as well. Uh so really, perhaps they're just cut of
the same cloth. But yeah, it's like, Okay, these are
only these are the only non white characters that we
were allowing to speak, and they're like, hey, let's sell
the only female character into prostitution. Well, yeah, you know,

(01:19:27):
I can't remember when I was like there's some nuance
to this. I honestly no longer feel that way. Yeah,
feel that way that I've got. Really there's a there's
a storm brewing in my head about I mean, yeah,
I I mean, and I have no attachment to these
so it's yeah, yeah, um. A few lost things I

(01:19:48):
wanted to bring up is that, as with many action
movie franchises, the hero gets older, but the love interests
stay the same age or in some case as they
get younger. So talking strictly about the actors that play
the female leads in these movies, so not the character's ages,

(01:20:14):
but the actor's ages. At the time Raiders of the
Last Arc comes out, Harrison Ford is thirty nine years old.
Karen Allen is thirty not the worst, not not too
big of an age difference, a nine year age difference,
not not too bad. Now in Temple of Doom, Kate
cap shot thirty one. Um, but Harrison Ford is forty two,

(01:20:39):
so he's now eleven years older than her. Here's the
real kicker, Alison Duty actor who she plays the female
lead in The Last Crusade. Now she eleven or she's twelve?
She is was never clear. Harrison Ford is forty seven hot,

(01:21:00):
Alison Duty is twenty three. So oh I, I'm exhausted.
The one exception is in Crystal Skull when Karen Allen
reprises her role as Marion raven Wood and she and
Indiana Jones get married, and that is that. But um,

(01:21:22):
sure there's I mean, we don't have time to talk
about all the problematic elements of the other Indiana Jones movies.
Rest assured there are many, and I don't know, if
we'll do episodes on them in the future, we'll see.
But there's a lot to unpack there as well. Yeah,
this so overall, I think, honestly, like the discussion of

(01:21:43):
this movie has made me like it less. I started
off on the fence, and now I'm off the fence
on the side of I don't ever want to see
this movie again. Well, that's what happens because when you
just watch something at face value and you forget about
all the problematic things that go into the development and

(01:22:05):
the making of these movies because you're not aware of
that because you're just watching the movie. You're having a
good time. There's punching, and there's action scenes, and there's
big step pieces, and it's a story that I would
argue is fairly well crafted. There is, you know, the
cinema thought was put into it. I mean it was like,
how old was the character when Arison Ford first fucked?

(01:22:26):
Or was she eleven? Or was she twelve? There's a
lot of stuff to unpack. George Lucas is known for
his world buildings, so this level of attention to perverted
detail really admirable. I want to throw a brick at someone.
I'm like, what the fuck, dude? Yes, so happy one
episode we started in such high spirits. Okay, let's does

(01:22:48):
it pass well real quick? Uh, A few last things.
If anyone who's is paying attention to the anagrams of
of my name, Caitlin Durante, I've got a few relevant
ones for this movie to just to bring some levity
back to the conversation. So for this one, you have
to suspend your disbelief for the spelling of the plural

(01:23:11):
of the word tarantula, and you have to assume that
it's tarantula laid on me. If you recall the scene
where Alfred Molina is covered in Tarantula's um, just consider
that the name Caitlin Darante anagrams too nice tarantula D.
So yeah, some tarantulas. We got some good dick out there,

(01:23:31):
and they're they're so okay. So that trrent okay, So
we're okay, Yeah, we should be acknowledging tarrant D. Yeah,
tarrantual i D. And then even more relevant is the
fact that Caitlin Darante anagrams to Indiana clutter. So there's

(01:23:52):
a whole clutter of problematic ship that happens in Indiana Jones.
Perhaps more pertinent than everything is that this movie does
not pass the battle test. No, it comes closer than
I thought too, because there is a quick scene where
Salah's wife says to Mary, his wife, his wife, they're

(01:24:16):
at Salah's house. There's a monkey there. Marian says, what
an adorable creature. Sala's wife says, then it shall be
welcome in our house. Marian says, no, you don't have
to keep it here just because of me. The thing is,
we do not learn Sala's wife's name, so that conversation
does not pass. I checked. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's
a miss. Honestly, I would be more upset if it did,

(01:24:39):
by you know, the skin of its teeth. I think
that it's it is for the best that it doesn't,
right because there are so The only scene where you
see a clutter of women, if you will, we move
in clutters is the scene at the very beginning when
he is in his classroom, and because he's such a
man's man and a ladies man, the only people taking

(01:25:02):
his class are a clutter of women, and one of
them even has I Love you written across her eyelids.
So um, it just it's like, Oh, look, how cool
Indiana Jones is he? I wonder if he ever abuses
that power dynamics. Oh wait, I guess. I guess. Also,
there is a queer icon in this movie, and that

(01:25:23):
is boy who gives Dr Jones and apple as he's
dismissing class. So I think queer icon boy that he
moved on doesn't doesn't pass. Honestly, I'm glad it doesn't pass.
I wasn't tread. I'm not trying to give this movie
any more points. Well, speaking of, let's write, all right,

(01:25:44):
the hundred nipple bestow upon. Okay, I'm gonna give this
one quarter nipple if you just isolate Marion's character. And
we say this for a lot of action movies where
if you isolate the one female character, she seems fairly
smart and competent and capable, and if she was given

(01:26:07):
her own movie that she was the hero of, she
could probably do a pretty good job. However, because she
is a grape victim and framed pretty much only as
the romantic interest with no other real involvement in the story,

(01:26:29):
Because she is put in situations where she has damseled
several times, you know she's she's held captive and she
has to be saved, and the few times we see
her doing something active in the story, it doesn't really
make that much of a dent because it's usually Indiana
Jones pushing the story forward. And the fact that when

(01:26:51):
the people who were developing this story thought that she
should be eleven whenever Indiana Jones had sex with her
and then completely ignored the fact that it's so obvious
that men wrote this because yeah, they don't even consider
that she is a rape victim who then, according to

(01:27:11):
the story, later goes on adventures with him and then
later marries him. I have an ulcer like I I can.
I can no longer endure what this movie is foisting
upon us. Yeah, it's real upsetting, and the fact that
there's just so much brown face and yellow face and

(01:27:31):
the way that indigenous cultures and the way that non
white people are treated in this movie is just horrendous.
And this, honestly, I love us. I love our show.
I love the hundredth episode. I feel like kind of
sick to my stomach right now. This makes me genuinely

(01:27:53):
like it's it's just so frustrated how little so many
cultures have to latch onto as media that they can
stand by with a clear conscience. Uh, and that's sort
of what our show maybe, I mean, I guess we're
ending kind of on a somber note. I'm giving it,
I'll give I'll give it a quarter nipple as well.

(01:28:15):
Uh for letting a woman exist within very specific parameters
that white female, hetero rape victim can exist in this world.
But that aside, and I'm giving it to the tarantula. Uh,
but that aside, I mean, or a hundredth episode. On
a somber note, it really is like some some days

(01:28:37):
it's it sucks just to think of I mean, and
it is fun and at least interesting to navigate. Okay,
this is for you. I mean, this is a piece
of media that meant a lot to you and influenced you.
I think I became as interested in anthropology as I
am because of these movies. There you go, and so

(01:28:58):
it's like, there are you can race positive effects that
this piece of media has had in your life, and
that is like worth exploring. And and so it's kind
of impossible because media shapes who we are so much.
It's it's it is impossible to completely divorce yourself from
a piece of media, because it's already shaped who you
are in some ways. And then like looking at in

(01:29:21):
the face is super important and we need to do it.
But sometimes it's just like I need a mice hard lemonade,
which I didn't mean what if this was an ad?
This is just a two hour way down That's what

(01:29:41):
I grab. You know what a world too? Oh I do?
I feel a little bit sick. It's just it's upsetic.
Everyone has so little to feel good about, and the
things that we turn to to feel good about are
also bad. So cheers to a hundred. Maybe this is

(01:30:03):
the burden we bear though. As the host of the
Bechtel Cast, puke, We're we're going to get more golfs trivia.
I'm going to cause plays, Luke. So I'm gonna I'm
gonna go full Paris tonight. I'm gonna be just gonna
be like on it. I'm gonna be a student. I
love my homework. Let's get out of here, honestly, thank

(01:30:23):
you for listen. We love our We love you guys. Oh,
I guess let's send the episode as we normally would. Yeah,
let's okay, let's take a deep breath everyone with us,
And yes, there's a lot to be upset about, especially
in regards to this film that I unfortunately still enjoy

(01:30:45):
and we'll watch, but because it's like it's a part
of you, it's a part of me. But I guess
feel comforted in acknowledging and recognizing how problematic it is.
And I hope it didn't shape me for the worst.
It's kind of hard to tell sometimes the impact that
media has on you. I did take four anthropology classes

(01:31:07):
in college because I loved these movies so much. But
I it's listen. I mean, Tanya Harding is my hero,
used to be my hero, and she's like, alt right,
we all have our crosses, she's not she's all lives matter,
she's whatever. Whatever. Everyone has these things, and it's just

(01:31:30):
we encourage you to just have conversations about it and
don't feel guilty or like you have to bear the
burden of something that shaped you when you were very young.
It's understandable, it happens to us all. But also don't
shy away from having the discussion. And uh, you know,

(01:31:50):
if if you're not sober and you're you're you're willing
to uh you know, crack open a Mike's hard when
you have these discussions, we we hear the battle can't
occur to that enough. This is a whole two hour
episode has been an advertisement for my talk Lemonade. Thank
you so much for listening to the backtel Thank you.
You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at
betel Cast. You can rate and review us on iTunes

(01:32:14):
or wherever you get your podcast. You can go to
our website becktelcast dot com and we would highly recommend I.
If you enjoyed this episode, if you enjoyed just the gals,
the gals kicking it and unpacking some stuff, we encourage
you to sign up for our Patreon ak Matreon that
is Patreon dot com slash becktel Cast. For five bucks

(01:32:36):
a month. You get too full sized bonus episodes with
just Caitlin and myself in a more kind of like
chill format. It's cash usually we're literally so it's also hot,
so when you think about it, you're silly not to
sign up. That's so true, Jamie. And also we are

(01:32:58):
going to be doing a couple live shows on the
East Coast coming up. We're gonna be doing a mini
East Coast tour starting with Saturday, November three, We're going
to be in Philadelphia at the Good Good Comedy Theater.
Then on Sunday, November four, we're going to be in Washington,
d C. More details to come with that show. And

(01:33:21):
on Monday, November five, we are going to be in
New York City as a part of the New York
Comedy Festival. We're doing a show at Baby's All Right
in Brooklyn, So we'll be posting updates and ticket links
on our social media and on our website Backtelcast dot com.
Go to the live appearances tab and we will have
more details posted there. Also, we have another live show

(01:33:44):
in Los Angeles at The Ruby on Saturday, November ten
at nine pm, so keep abreast of the information via
I did via our Twitter and Instagram. We will post
the updates there. And I'm going to be in Boston
doing stand up from October seventeenth through the two so

(01:34:07):
check out my website Caitlin n dot com slash shows
for more details on that. I'm also going to be
teaching a screenwriting workshop on October at Improv Boston, so
come on down to that if you want to learn
from someone who does have a master's degree in screenwriting
from Boston University. But again, I hate to bring it up.

(01:34:28):
Check that out. Check out our live shows if we're
coming to a city near you and we would love
to see you there. Yeah. I think that about does it. Also,
one last thing, go to our merch store t public
dot com slash feedback doecast. You can buy and send

(01:34:50):
us your picks. We love seeing your picks wearing the march.
That makes us very happy. Yes, we love. We love
posting it to our indeed, so yeah, grab your feminist icon, queer, i,
et cetera, shirts, notebooks, phone cases, mugs, anything you want
on TI Public and Jamie, thank you so much once
again for being here with me. Thank you for being

(01:35:14):
my friend, and thank you for helping the world navigate
through this hellscape with your many pages of notes and
your color coding. And I love you. I love you.
Let's go to Gilmore Girls trivia. Do it right everyone, Bye,

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