Raiders of the Lost Ark Movie Analysis

In the first opening scene we see is Indiana Jone's whip in his pocket. Then we see the hat from behind and that is when the die-hard Indiana Jones fans realize that they are witnessing the entrance of a great hero. The ordinary world for Indiana Jones is really not that boring at all. He is constantly hit on by many undergraduates that he teaches in his Archaeology class. A prime example being an extremely attractive undergraduate girl closes her eye lids to display the message "LOVE YOU."

Deep in the jungles of South America a man emerges from the shadows, a gun is drawn, and the hammer clicks back. Before the gun clears the holster, another man whose identity is concealed by shadow and the wide brim of a Fedora has already drawn his own weapon, a whip. With a crack like thunder the whip strikes the gun and it falls to the ground, Indiana Jones emerges from the shadows with a smile on his face. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is an action movie that was produced by Steven Spielberg in 1981. The film follows the adventures of Indiana Jones as he attempts to find the Ark of the Covenant before it falls under Nazi control. The first scene of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark introduces two main characters, Indiana Jones and Dr. Rene Belloq. Throughout the film these two characters compete to acquire the Ark of the Covenant, their actions all leading towards the final scene where only one man achieves this goal. Steven Spielberg uses techniques such as framing, visual effects, and lighting in the first and last scenes of the movie to develop the classic hero and villain archetypes for Dr. Jones and Dr. Belloq respectively.

Even today some American people have a strong biased towards Iranian and Muslim people based on their stereotypes as terrorist. The change in view point started in the 70s as Fawaz A. Gerges, Academic Journalist, states in his journal Islam and Muslims in the Mind of America that, “The 1978-1979 Iranian revolution and ensuing hostage crisis shocked many U.S. officials into viewing Islam as a threat to Western interest” (Gerges 70). The media also played a large part of the ways that Americans viewed Iranian and Muslim people. Cissy Shelton recollects her memories of media coverage by stating “The Iranians were always shown on TV as very angry there was always demonstrations they always were saying death to America they totally wanted nothing to do with America” (citation). She also argues that the coverage show on the television was also a reason why people have issues with Islamic people today: “And I think that’s why we have problems today with the Middle East”

By continually representing the Muslim or the Arab as the heartless villain, even cartoon movies contain a biased perspective against the Muslim image in America. All that glitters is not gold, and this is true for films fresh off the reels of Hollywood, as some contain an unfair perspective of Muslims.

Arab people stem from many different regions including 22 countries: Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen ("Arab American," 2014). The Arab culture include several ethnicities such as Shias, Sunni, Druze, Ismalites, and Nusayr (Matusiak, 2013). It is important to know Arabs are not a race, but a diverse culture ("Facts about Arabs," 2014). The Arab people are measured as being among the “most educated” population with a higher percentage of college educations than the American population (Matusiak, 2013). Family is important in the Arab culture. Many Arabs live within close proximity of family and have close relationships ("Arab American," 2014).

Anthropology is the study of humans in the past and present. Four subfields encompass anthropology; Archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Archaeology is the study of human cultures in the past through material remains. These material remains include artifacts as well as architecture. Archaeologist can focus in prehistoric, historic, or classical archaeology. Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, is an example of archaeology in film. It is not the best example since Dr. Jones does not carry the correct equipment with him in the field (notebooks, trowel, shovel) nor does he take any notes when removing an artifact from a site. However, the film does portray how an archaeologist would dig in order to recover artifacts, like when Indy and the team find the

In 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. This film depicts Jones as a professor, anthropologist and an archaeologist. The first scene of the movie places Indiana Jones in a tomb in order to get the small golden statue, before moving on to the next part of the movie where he’s teaching a class on archaeology. He is called to action later in the film when Jones is told that the Nazis are searching for something called the Ark of the Covenant; something that holds the key to humanity. Throughout this film, Indiana Jones is filmed working as both an archaeologist and anthropologist and though the movie series is centered around his profession, Jones is not actually practicing proper anthropology or archaeology.

Islam is portrayed and is commonly accepted as the most violent and largest direct threat to the West. This is a generalization made by most of the West, but it is not particularly the West or the Islamic people’s fault. There is constant turmoil in Islamic countries in the Middle East and these conflicts are what make the news in the West. The only representation in the media that the Islamic nation gets is that of war. Though most Islamic people are not violent, the select few that do participate in terrorist groups give the rest of the Islam nation a bad image.

The film, The Last of the Mohicans is a historical drama that takes place during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and is based on the remaining members of the Native American tribe, the Mohicans. The Mohicans are a peaceful and scarce group of Indians who have been living alongside the British colonies but want nothing to do with the war they are fighting in. Hawk-eye is a colonial settler who was adopted by the Mohican tribe and was raised as an Indian. Hawk-eye, Chingachgook, and Uncas are the lasting members of the Mohican tribe who have been asked to ally with the British colonies and eventually become a big asset to their defeat against the French. The French and Indian War soon became a combat of the British with the Colonial military and Mohican allies against the French military and Huron allies to decide who will control North

After several incidents that happened around the world, peoples view on Arabs changed. The media played a big role in “the stereotyping of Arabs”. It is one of the main reasons for people to think the way they are about Arabs. Many

Raiders of the Lost Ark is the 1981 film that follows renowned archeologist and professor Indiana Jones as he races against time and Nazis to uncover one of the greatest treasures believed to be in existence, the Ark of the Covenant. In this film, Indiana Jones fulfills the role of the hero and as such must fulfill certain tasks that will prove his heroic qualities. In "The Hero's Journey of Self-Transformation: Models of Higher Development from Mythology," David Hartman and Diane Zimbermoff explore the traits and characteristics that define a hero and demonstrate the transformation that his or her ego will undergo in order to become a more complete person.

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.

Syed Soharwardy asserts that “Media always tried to portray Islam as a religion of terror and all the Muslims as terrorists. The way the talk-show programs and news are produced and presented, it seems that the media has already decided the guilty verdict, regardless what would be the outcome of an investigation” (Soharwardy). So too do members of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee recognize the media’s predisposition toward bias, as is pointed out in this statement, found on their website: “Key industries of American mass culture, Holllywood and television, for decades have been bastions of anti-Arab stereotyping, and have consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee).”

"The US media has been clubbing together terrorism and Islam, influencing the American public to think that all Arab Muslims are "crazy and violent terrorists"… The American media has been a primary agent responsible for creating racist stereotypes, images and

How the has media poisoned peoples’ brains to think like this. Media has created this mental construct, in which all Muslims are the “bad guys”. Media plays a big role in a lot of different situations. Media mostly portrays African American as “thugs, and drug dealers”, media portrays Latinos as all being “illegal”. Media plays an essential role in the development of the young children, who’s brains are still developing. It really affects their world view.