This article was downloaded by: [Frank Tomasulo] On: 13 May 2014, At: 18:08 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Quarterly Review of Film Studies Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gqrf19 Mr. Jones goes to Washington myth and religion in raiders of the lost ark Frank P. Tomasulo a a Assistant Professor of Cinema , Ithaca College Published online: 05 Jun 2009. To cite this article: Frank P. Tomasulo (1982) Mr. Jones goes to Washington myth and religion in raiders of the lost ark , Quarterly Review of Film Studies, 7:4, 331-340 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10509208209361132 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. 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Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Mr. Jones Goes to Washington Myth and Religion in Raiders of the Lost Ark FRANK P. TOMASULO What gives the myth an operative value is that the quests of legend and holy writ—however, the specific pattern described is everlasting... This is made social end (as noted by Levi-Strauss) is directed clear through a comparison between myth and what toward the political sphere: the justification appears to have largely replaced it in modern societies, Downloaded by [Frank Tomasulo] at 18:08 13 May 2014 namely, politics. and reflection of the damaged social fabric of 1 an American society at a loss for real life super- —Claude Levi-Strauss heroes in the advent of the humiliating loss of the Vietnam War, Marxist uprisings in Nicara- Myth is a people's cultural story, an attempt to gua and El Salvador, Middle East oil embargos, express in narrative a people's own self-under- the year-long Iranian hostage situation, and, of standing. In contemporary society, where those course, the Watergate experience. It is per- "everlasting patterns" may be moribund, myth haps no accident, then, that the film's principal and religion often disguise, naturalize, or reify locations are Southeast Asia, South America, certain historically specific, crassly political the Middle East . and Washington, D.C. ideas. Just as myth served to order the chaotic Indeed, the film's concerns with domination experience of life for our primitive forbears, so and exploitation (especially of Third World modern cultural objects like films can be seen nations and nationals, women, and technol- to function as social acts, both concealing and ogy), the appropriation of religious artifacts revealing their production of social meaning (the quest is, after all, for the Lost Ark of the and ideological rhetoric at the same time. Covenant), and the adventures of the self- Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), for example, positing individualistic conqueror Indiana can be shown to follow the epic mode of clas- Jones put the film in the ideological position of sical myth, the oedipal trajectory of primitive spokesperson for the new Reagan administra- initiatory rites and rituals, and the religious tion's policies in the Middle East, Central and 332 QUARTERLY REVIEW OF FILM STUDIES / Fall 1982 South America, as well as the new regime's tion in the morphology of his thousand-faced positions on women's rights, laissez-faire capi- hero's adventures, the particular permutations talism, CIA covert operations, the Moral Major- used in Raiders may be accounted for in terms ity, and America's renewed stature in the of the historical specificity of 1981 America. world of nations. Like its British counterpart However, the underlying mythic grid mystifies Chariots of Fire (also 1981), Raiders of the Lost the film's ideology and its politicocultural con- Ark must harken back to a past era of national cerns: the crises of capitalism, religion, patri- greatness and achievement in the interna- archy, governmental authority, and militarism. tional arena in order to restore and dynamize a For instance, the very first diegetic image in cultural renewal in a nation beset with prob- the film is of a So,uth American jungle moun- lems foreign and domestic, political and eco- taintop, centered in the frame according to nomic. Karl Marx's principle of "conjuring up the "laws" of Renaissance perspective. This fits the spirits of the past to their service" appears rather neatly into Campbell's opening stage: to be at work in both these films; they both "a fateful region of both treasure and danger borrow earlier, more heroic images of national ... a distant land, a forest, a lofty mountaintop" life in order to "present the new scene in time- (p. 58). However, this mountaintop has actu- honored disguise."2 So, rather than reflecting ally dissolved out of the prediegetic Para- the culture it comes out of, Raiders all but mount Pictures logos in an exact match on rewrites the history of its epoch in order to form. Thus, this rather unconventional open- create what Frederic Jameson calls a new ing inscribes within the narrative the visual "national allegory."3 imprint of American corporate capitalism. The film can be shown to use its mythoreli- Paramount/Gulf & Western not only produces gious structuration to mask and efface its con- the jungle adventure to follow, it also domi- temporary ramifications. Indiana Jones, the nates the landscape. Shortly thereafter, Indi- putative hero of Raiders, follows the classical ana Jones appears on screen and eclipses our Downloaded by [Frank Tomasulo] at 18:08 13 May 2014 narrative trajectory of the mythological hero view of the mountain, thereby taking on, as outlined by Joseph Campbell in his book through a system of visual relays, the role of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell's secondary enunciator of the corporate dis- notion of the "Monomyth" involves a tripar- course. It is therefore not only the "brave" tite journey characterized by Separation, Trials exploits (and exploitations) of Indiana Jones and Victories of Initiation, and Return and being depicted on screen; it is also the ideol- Reintegration with Society. This structure is ogy of multinational corporate power and further broken down into a total of seventeen authority. Myth itself becomes commodified, discrete narrative units.4 Raiders of the Lost through this appropriation to the ends of cor- Ark can be plotted, point by point, along the porate capital. graph of this universal schema. Besides establishing the exotic locale, this first sequence also demonstrates "The Call to A hero ventures forth from the world of common day Adventure" and "Signs of the Vocation of the into a region of supernatural wonder; fabulous forces Hero." In this case, however, our hero's goal is are there encountered and a decisive victory is won; not some beneficial, transhistorical mission the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow human such as bringing fire to mankind; rather, it is beings. (Campbell, p. 30) the outright robbery of native cultural and religious artifacts and treasures. This class theft Although Campbell may be faulted for pos- and exploitation (Jones is seen bullwhipping iting a trans-historical mythos with little varia- the South American bearers) mark a return to TOMASULO / Myth and Religion in Raiders of the Lost Ark 333 the values of gunboat diplomacy and "Mani- the "born again" believer. It is of further note fest Destiny" for a nation which had just that, far from being "mumbo-jumbo," the Ark returned the Panama Canal (amidst consider- is desired less for its spiritual significance than able national debate). for its military capability ("An army which car- Jones's encounters with the Frenchman Bel- ries the Ark before it is invincible"). The Ark loq, however, do not feature this sort of racist itself seems also to have qualities comparable exploitation; rather, sheer competition be- in many ways to modern nuclear weapons tween nation-states is reified here and natural- ("leveling mountains and laying waste to entire ized as primal. If America can't or won't regions"), and the race to obtain it between exploit native cultures, someone else will. In America and the Nazis (read "communists" in mythological terms, Belloq serves a dual role: today's climate) is, in many ways, homologous he is both the Bad Father and the Doppel- to the race for nuclear superiority championed ganger. As a bad father, his initial dialogue by the current administration. with our hero exemplifies the position of The stained glass windows of the lecture hall power (especially with regard to the Mother) inscribe a visual imprint of religiosity over the noted by Freud in thefamily romance: "Again proceedings in this scene, which is furthered we see there is nothing you can possess which I by the lesson on Hebraic lore.