Page 163 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

154 Shea Esterling

of cultural objects has not extended its use of non-conventional sources to
include those of popular culture. This chapter will now provide a semiotic
analysis of the Indiana Jones trilogy, which in chronological order includes
Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of
Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The use of the Indiana Jones
trilogy as the focus of a semiotic analysis stems from its ready classification as
an Adventure film or more specifically its sub-genre of a Treasure Hunter
film.
Derived from the French word for kind or class, the term genre is widely
used in film studies to refer to a specific type of text. For the purposes herein,
genre is understood in the way it traditionally has been understood ―for most
of its 2,000 years… [as] primarily nominological and typological in function‖
[Allen, 1989, p. 44]. Fiction and non-fiction serves as the basic distinction in
film genre. Beyond this, comedy and melodrama provide a further sub-
division with the latter including the genre of Adventure films and its sub-
genre of Treasure Hunter films [Sobchack & Sobchack, 1980, pp. 203-40]. Of
course this use ignores the greater complexities that the term genre entails,
such as whether genres exist independently in the world or are merely
constructs of analysis, is their taxonomy finite or infinite and are they culture-
bound or trans-cultural among others [Stam, 2000, p. 14].
Specifically, it is this genre and its textual features that most closely touch
on those issues raised in relation to the research into the illicit trade and
repatriation of cultural objects such as the role of the archaeologist, the nature
of the discipline of archaeology and most directly how to treat the object at the
center of the treasure hunt. In addition, as Treasure Hunter films go, the
Indiana Jones trilogy arguably stands out as among the most well-known. A
1994 survey in the United States revealed that only 10% of respondents
indicated that they had not seen any of the Indiana Jones movies while 60%
answered that they had seen all three [Mackinney as cited in Holtorf, 2008a].
More recently, in 2008 the trilogy continued to occupy three of the top five
spots of top grossing Treasure Hunter films [Box Office Mojo, 5 May 2008]. It
is not surprising then that Indiana Jones has entered the collective popular
culture consciousness and parlance, as evidenced by widespread reference in
diverse everyday situations. For instance, a BBC news article discussing
Michel van Rijn, the rogue Dutch art dealer who went from smuggler wanted
by Scotland Yard to working for them, is quite simply titled, ―The ‗Indiana
Jones‘ of Chelsea‖, with no further explanation [Bell, 22 August 2006].
Similarly, in a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement news
release discussing the seizure and return of a pre-Columbian Mayan artifact to