So, I know we’re all very excited about this:
Yes, it’s natural to be thrilled, in these morally and politically complex times, about a return to the classic square-jawed Nazi-busting heroism of bygone days. But, we have to ask, is that truly what the Indiana Jones films promote? With our nation’s moral credibility on the line, can America truly afford to look up to a man like Indiana Jones? Let us take a trip down memory lane: Captain America #268 (1982), by J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck, finds Steve Rogers and girlfriend Bernie Rosenthal emerging from a showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark and having this conversation . . .
God bless you, Captain America, you magnificent, unbelievable stick in the mud. My lord you were square. We miss you.
Captain America would like to give you a lecture about a little thing called “class”:
Oh, Steve, ever the schoolboy. Didn’t he and Bernie then retire to her apartment for some premarital relations?
Captain America has never had sex. Sharon Carter’s baby is the result of an immaculate conception during a Yankee Doodle Dandy marathon on Turner Classic Movies.
While I maintain that Raiders is my favorite movie ever, I always thought the Indiana Jones franchise was about moral relevatism that comes from a capatalist system that, on the surface, eschews the greed that powers it. That the intention of good was at least better than the intention of evil.
That, and undeniable effectiveness of whip prowess in luring the opposite sex.
And if Sharon decides to give the baby her last name, and names it after Steve’s good friend James “Bucky” Buchanan, you know who will makke his official comic book debut, right, Proff?
Wait, he’s amoral?? How so? It ain’t stealin’ when it’s STEALIN’ FROM NAZIS!
I guess I don’t understand what Prof Fury/ Capt America are saying here. Is Jones amoral because he isn’t comfortable with American ownership and dominance of the ark and its power? Are you saying that his classic refrain, “it belongs in a museum,” frustrates our desire to see him as a partisan for the American cause…whatever they may be in the Speilberg/Lucas formulation because prefers that supposed scholarly objectivity over government/ military control? Did he, in other words, need to wave the stars and stripes at the end of the film in order to satisfy Capt Amer?
Because, if that’s the case, I think we’d all be uncomfortable with that. Part of the reason that the final scene in Raiders is mysterious and a little creepy is that we’re not exactly sure whether or not it’s a good thing that the American government/military has control over the Ark.
Then again, we do have top men working on it right now.
Top men.
Smile.