40 years on from the release of Indiana Jones Temple of Doom - we need to talk about that era of film
Yeesh, it was..A Time.
“Do you eat monkey brains?” a concerned friend once asked me. I immediately knew what she had watched and at the young age of 10 (the film was the same age as me) I knew she watched it on TV the same time I did.
It had already been aired a few times, but we were too young to watch it — or care for it. But, when mum recognised Bollywood legend Amrish Puri on one of its screenings, we highlighted the TV guide next time it was on and made a family night out of it.
And…I…loved it! What a fun, silly and nonsensical journey this square-jawed professor went on! The cute sidekick, the screaming blonde love interest, the Bollywood star, the…monkey brains?
“Indians!” we would scream, like the Goodness Gracious Me skit, every time we saw a turban or brown face, and this film had us screaming throughout. How wonderful it was it see so many Indians. Or Indian-presenting? Indian-fishing? Indian…appreciating? I’m not sure to be honest, but how wonderful.
But, they didn’t make me feel like I was on screen — I couldn’t relate to any of them. They looked kinda like me and my family, but they did not act like anyone I knew. It was merely exciting for the concept of Indians becoming mainstream, popular and dare I say, desirable that excited me.
“Ewww”, the young friend laughed, unable to wait for a response — her question was merely asked so she could react to what she saw, she didn’t care about what I ate, unless of course I smelt of it.
I laughed back ‘Nooo ewww!’ and I went silent, while a part of me wondered…‘do we…?’
I learnt from a conversation with my very annoyed parents, that we in fact, do not.
BUT multiple indigenous communities who live off the land eat various things we may react to like this Becky did. And I know this is why the focus of Indians eating monkey brains came from — colonialists discovering land, seeing how people live and making blanket assumptions.
Then they turned those assumptions into a film that has a heavy Orientalist gaze, creating Temple of Doom.
But back then, we saw multiple depictions of people of colour in a similar vein.
We have the 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s where Mickey Rooney plays the bucktoothed, heavily accented Japanese landlord Mr Yunioshi, in a grotesque stereotype.
1962 there was Laurence of Arabia, which had brownface and negative stereotypical portrayals of Middle Eastern people.
Sixteen Candles in 1984 portrayed an Asian exchange student as Long Duk Dong — whose name sounds like genitalia, with a heavy accent, mocked by the others and with a gong sound ringing when he appears.
And we have an old favourite of young Sharan — Romancing the Stone. There was love, suggestions of sex, violence and swearing. For a PG film, I was enthralled. But like all films I enjoyed as a young girl, this was too full of harmful stereotypes of Colombians men, who were depicted as violent, corrupt, and dangerous.
There’s too many of course to list, but the point is that back then, the portrayal of people of colour was for the benefit of white audiences. And, importantly, to comfort any guilt of colonial histories.
Because, if people of colour are violent, stupid or chaotic, then white people are absolved of their crimes.
It’s not like things are perfect since.
Gods of Egypt.
Prince of Persia.
Aloha.
Homeland.
Scarlett Johansson.
I 100% still watch Temple of Doom — as an Indian person, I don’t see myself in it, so I’m not overtly offended. But that’s not the experience of those who don’t really know or understand Indian culture.
They are the ones who come up to me with a screwed up face and ask loudly whether I eat monkey brains on my own doorstep.
I think we just need to acknowledge and be aware of these issues in film. I’m hoping this awareness will just help stop future filmmakers from casting white people as people of colour, with heavy accents and too much tanning lotion.
Because I never want anyone to make an assumption about me or my culture, just because whiteness can’t admit its history of genocidal and mercenary invasions.