It may come as a surprise to some of my readers, given my interest in ancient history, that I never watched any of the Indiana Jones movies when I was a child. I was, of course, vaguely aware of them. I remember seeing advertisements for the VHS sets at the beginnings of some of the old VHS tapes of Disney films that my sister and I watched when we were growing up. I also remember watching the MythBusters “Indiana Jones Special” at one point. The first time I ever watched any of the actual films, though, was earlier this year.
Thus, even though Raiders of the Lost Ark came out eighteen years before I was born, by the time I actually watched the movie, I was already in college studying ancient history and had already taken multiple courses in real-life archaeology. The film is definitely entertaining if you’re looking for a cheesy, old-school adventure story and I appreciate how it has helped get people excited about archaeology. Unfortunately, it also promotes a lot of racist stereotypes and consistently fails to problematize the atrocious crimes committed by the protagonist.
You see, Indiana Jones is not just a terrible archaeologist; he’s also a despicable human being. He’s a criminal sociopath, a statutory rapist, a grave robber, a murderer, a destroyer of cultural heritage, and an enforcer of European colonialism. The only reason why anyone sees him as the hero is because his adversaries are literally insane Nazis who want to steal an ancient artifact and use it as a superweapon to commit genocide against the vast majority of the human race. Under any other circumstances, he would be the villain.
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