The movie comes out tomorrow, but I have a bone to pick. I have watched the previous 3 films and liked them all. Of course I was younger then, but know as I reflect on those movies something has started bothering me. Do Steven Spielberg and George Lucas think that black people only exist in the future? I 
don’t recall any black people in any of the films, and I don’t think there’s going to be any in tomorrow’s release. Given, Spielberg directed Amistad (after having his arm twisted by Debbie Allen) and Color Purple (trying to get an Oscar); I also know that Lucas brought us Lando Calrissian and Mace Windu, but they were both in futuristic context and major plays by Lucas to pull in African-Americans to his movies. But, Indiana Jones is the ultimate white male fantasy, minus the chicks. The ultimate man’s man who’s smart, adventurous, and gets out of every bad situation with quick wit and athleticism. However, these two giants of film couldn’t throw us black people one bone. Not even a side character or an extra. (To be precise, I am talking about African-Americans, not African tribes) Just more white guys. At least Sulla was a minority. I guess in their idealized past, black people just didn’t exist. Thanks for nothing guys.
Posted under Movies
This post was written by Jarrell on May 21, 2008
6 Comments so far
it would seem that the recipe of a good Indiana Jones film would be 1 part Nazis and 1 part Biblical Artifact… the Soviet army does a pretty good job of replacing the Nazis, but the other ingredient…
I think the Matrix triology is a perfect example of diversity.
If you learned most of your Black history form what they teach in schools. You jump from Slavery to Martin Luther King . Black people didnt exist between those two events.
Now that I think about it the Jones films fall in that range. Let me do some quick math…… Black people will show up in Indiana Jones VI we should have gotten to MLK by then.
I think comments made recently by Spike Lee concerning the lack of african americans in Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers is valid on this point. Hundreds of blacks particpated in the battle for Iwo Jima but yet he failed to portray any of them in the movie. I think this goes to show that as Blackfanboy put it, black people didn’t exist between 1870 and 1954. Spielberg also didn’t include them in Saving Private Ryan.
It should bother us all that no one seems to want to acknowledge that the african american culture is basically ignored for the better part of the 20th century. And this has bleed over into Hollywood as well.
You never really watched Raiders, did you? Simon Katanga was the captain of the smuggling vessel, the Bantu Wind. His father was an engineer aboard a Liberian ship, the Golden Sun, where Simon was introduced to the ways of the sea as a cabin steward. He eventually worked his way up to first mate of the Bantu Wind, and took over the ship when the previous captain was mortally wounded in a gunfight during a smuggling run.
In 1936, Katanga agreed to transport Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood—along with their cargo, the Ark of the Covenant, across the Mediterranean. The boat was overtaken and boarded by René Belloq and his Nazi companions, however, and despite Katanga’s efforts to intercede, Ravenwood, Jones, and the Ark were taken.
Later that year, Katanga was reunited with Indy at the Panama City jail, where Katanga was being held on rum smuggling charges. Indy arranged for bail and chartered the Bantu Wind for an expedition to the Aleutian Islands, where Indy suspected to find an ancient Chinese temple, predating the Eskimos. At the temple, Katanga and Indy were confronted by a crew of pirates led by Emerelda Vasquez. Emerelda commandeered of the Wind, stole the Chinese treasure and demolished the temple, leaving Indy, Katanga and the ship’s crew for dead. Katanga’s team was able to sneak aboard and assume control of Emerelda’s submarine, and at the end of the naval battle that ensued, Katanga was once again captain of the Bantu Wind.
Don’t go to the movies to count the number of black people in them, go to have a good time, guy.
Katanga was Liberian, not African-American.
Jar Jar Binks was a brother.
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