Page 167 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

158 Shea Esterling

Raiders of the Lost Ark relies heavily on scenes that literally involve digging
up the world. In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones follows a map throughout to
the treasure of the Holy Grail and X does in fact mark the spot in one
memorable scene which involves a library in Venice at the start of his quest
where he looks for the tomb of a medieval knight; a large Roman numeral ten
or X literally marks the spot on the library floor!
Similarly, as regards cultural objects and their repatriation, these films
also present a mixed if not contradictory view through its representation of the
various treasures at the heart of these films and their final disposition. In
Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Ark of the Covenant is removed and taken into the
custody of the U.S. army for ‗safekeeping‘. Particularly ominous regarding the
fate of this object is the final scene where it is packed into an unlabeled and
non-descript crate in a store room filled with similar such crates, which
suggests that this among other cultural objects, belongs with Western/ market
states for protection and scientific study, regardless of the problems this raises
in terms of ownership and access by source states/peoples as well as
colonialist overtones of the need to rescue cultural objects from the Third
World for ―the greater benefit of science and civilization‖ [Shohat & Stam, p.
124]. In The Temple of Doom the entire focus of the film centers on Indiana
Jones‘s quest to and return of the sacred Shankar stones to an Indian village.
Similarly, in The Last Crusade, the Holy Grail remains in its resting place;
albeit as the result of mystical forces that prevent its removal!
The last step in a media semiotic analysis asks: why do these
representations have these meanings? Why does the Indiana Jones trilogy
collectively provide a contradictory understanding of the archaeologist, the
profession of archaeology and the repatriation of cultural objects? Ultimately,
these representations that a media semiotic analysis of the Indiana Jones
trilogy reveal have such meanings because they reflect the equally divided
nature of the professional community involved, including archaeologists,
curators and lawyers, and their research and proposed solutions concerning the
broader debate regarding the repatriation of cultural objects.
Since the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting the Illicit
Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property [UNESCO
Convention] and the UNIDROIT Convention, a clear and single legal
framework exists regarding the return of illicitly trafficked and/or stolen
cultural objects. However, due to the non-retroactivity of this legal framework,
most famous requests within the broader repatriation debate are left without a
legal claim. These include requests by successor states like Greece for the
return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum in London, as well as