Page 165 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

156 Shea Esterling

demonstrating that popular culture ―constitutes an overarching system of signs
that recycles meanings within Western culture, subverting them to commercial
ends‖ [Danesi, p. 23]. With its focus on quests for treasures, the Indiana Jones
trilogy recycles the cultural concept of cultural appropriations which has deep
roots ―springing from European mythology and story telling as evidenced in
tales such as Beowulf, the Volsung Saga and the Mabinogin‖ [Hall, 2004, p.
164 citing Pearce, 2000, pp. 48-59]. Specifically, media semiotics involves
studying how the media creates or recycles signs for its own ends through a
three step process of asking: a) what something means or represents; b) how it
illustrates its meaning; and c) why it has this meaning [Danesi, p. 34].
Turning to the step of enquiry regarding what something means or
represents, this analysis focuses on two signs or representations included in the
text of the trilogy. In the case of Indiana Jones, he represents both the
archaeologist and the broader profession of archaeology while the various
treasures and their ultimate disposition represent cultural objects and
repatriation. So how do these representations illustrate these meanings of the
archaeologist, the profession of archaeology, cultural objects and repatriation?
As regards the archaeologist, these films present a mixed if not contradictory
view of the role of an archaeologist. This depiction of archaeologists
corresponds to wider analysis, of archaeologists as ―primarily white, male,
heterosexual, ‗able-bodied‘ individuals [which] serves to alienate experiences,
identities and individuals that do not conform to this model of the ‗ideal
archaeologist‘ [and ultimately has] a detrimental effect on both the real and
perceived accessibility of archaeology to individuals and communities that are
not represented by this ‗ideal‘‖ [Fraser, 2003].
Indiana Jones frequently advocates the position that the cultural objects he
and others acquire should go to a museum. For instance, The Last Crusade
opens with a young Indiana Jones in a struggle with a group of treasure
hunters over the fictional treasure of the Cross of Coronado. In an exchange
with these hunters, the young Indiana explains that the cross belongs to
Coronado. The lead hunter replies that Coronado is dead and so are all of his
grandchildren to which Indiana Jones responds: ―then it belongs in a museum‖
[The Last Crusade]. On the other hand, Indiana Jones recognizes situations
where objects should remain with source peoples. As regards the latter, the
Temple of Doom focuses solely on his quest to and return of a set of stones
known as Shankar Stones to a village in India from which they were removed.
This dualism that typifies the trilogy‘s depiction of an archaeologist is
paralleled in its depiction of the profession of archaeology. On the one hand,
the trilogy portrays archaeology as a serious academic discipline characterized