Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 119

Museums of Imperialism

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display leads to a process termed “museumification”, which subjects that culture
to western control (Ames 23). There is no doubt that nineteenth century and
twentieth century museums made major contributions to the education of citizens,
but they also served to reinforce both racism and a hierarchy of social order.
Knowingly or not, the purveyor o f these trinkets is the roaming
archaeologist-as-hero. Often at the forefront of Western expansion, the archaeologist
(or anthropologist) is an adventurer in the “classic” sense. He or she sees what we
do not and writes about it is a way that makes it seem exotic (Fjellman 405).
Today, after independence, many formerly enslaved or colonized peoples have
challenged the assumptions and findings of archaeologists digging in their ancestral
lands. The interpretation and publicizing of new histories, often contradictory, are
attempts to redress centuries of wrong. Yet the archaeologist-as-hero remains an
impressive figure, especially as brought to life by Harrison Ford. Dashing,
intelligent, and noble, it is hard to imagine him as other than than a brave,
enthusiastic mischief maker.
Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism is applicable here. In defining
Orientalism as a “western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority
over the Orient”, this allows the West to “manage and produce the Orient politically,
sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively” (Said 3).
The archaeologist or anthropologist “comes up against the Orient as a European or
an American first, and an individual second” (Said 11). As such, there is a history
of cultural hegemony in place aided and institutionalized since ancient times. This
historical and cultural “baggage”, a product that gives rise to assumptions of
superiority, is dependent on “Oriental precedent, some previous Knowledge of the
Orient,” on which the archaeologist or anthropologist relies (Said 20). The power
that is acquired over time is concomitant with the rendering of the distant into the
familiar. The threatening “Otherness” becomes a stereotype (Said 21). Said feels
that the mass media have taken academic, scholarly and literary representations
and have honed and intensified the standardization. What results — this power —
is a picture of individuals who are in every way opposite to the “clarity, directness
and nobility of the Anglo-Saxon Race” (Said 39). This is particularly pronounced
in The Last Cnisade, by casting Sean Connery in the role of Indiana’s father, and
playing up the mythological antecedents of the story of the Holy Grail.
The settings of the Indiana Jones films are often places that were former
colonies, or countries that were once rule by Western powers. The time-frame in
which the films are set is the 1930s, the days when the final traces of the British
Empire were flickering and a new power, the United States, was starting to test its
strength in a forceful manner. To give the films the most authentic flavour, vestiges
of imperialism and touches of colonialism are sprinkled throughout all three films.
The hero is given power through his position in the service of the United States.