Page 174 - Courting the Media Contemporary Perspectives on Media and Law

Indiana Jones and the Illicit Trafficking and Repatriation… 165

CONCLUSIONS. ABSURD AVOIDANCE, STIFLING
REPRODUCTION AND CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE

An examination of the Indiana Jones trilogy in relation to the broader
debate regarding the illicit trafficking and repatriation of cultural objects
reveals patterns of contradictions and synchronies, both between the
relationship of such informal, cultural material, and formal legal sources on
the same subject matter. The cultural representations are often motivated by
gaps in legislation, in this case in international law. In areas of security and
terrorism, disaster, refugees, government and democracy, climate and human
rights, one can expect film to take up themes and discourses especially where
there are limitations and complexities in the drafting of treaties and
international laws. Throughout the arms race and Cold War, films continued to
explore and mediate public opinion on international issues, such as arms
control, that have proved intractable for formal legal or political resolution. Al
Gore‘s ―An Inconvenient Truth‖ motivated much of the public discourse that
has led to the agenda for international legislation on climate change. It is likely
to expect further cinemagraphic and narrative works, even in areas of cultural
appropriation. It is too easy to dismiss the Indiana Jones trilogy as commercial
entertainment. It is more significant to regard it as a seminal media study in a
problematic area that will require complex and unknown forms of national and
international decision making and legitimation. It is possible that the
imperative and agenda for formal solution to many international problems will
continue to be aided and even discovered through informal sources of popular
culture. Films reflect and reiterate complexities, such as the ideological
paradox of national and international, yet in doing so offer a continued source
of informal, narrative driven discourse of intractable and outstanding
questions. Media and semiotic analysis of a non-conventional source thus
provides an important even essential tool for the study of sources that can be
intrinsic to the development of more conventional sources. The issue is not
one of mass media representing decisions and processes already expressed in
the law, but hypothetically responding, along with the law, to issues of
national and international importance whose solution remains prospective.
Examination of the Indiana Jones trilogy demonstrates how legal scholarship
benefits from engaging with popular culture by revealing the real challenge
that lies ahead for this area of research regarding the broader debate
concerning the illicit trafficking and repatriation of cultural objects [Davis, p.
281].