Audio Episode 04 - Indiana Jones and The Case of The Ancient Aliens
Vložit
- čas přidán 1. 01. 2022
- Listen and follow via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts (links below)
Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/2C6SdbT...
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Stitcher: www.stitcher.com/show/pop-cul...
Google Podcasts: podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
Our website: popculturedetective.agency/po...
Episode info:
In this podcast episode we deconstruct what is probably the worst Steven Spielberg movie - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We discuss the film’s misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples and dig into the ways that media tropes about ancient aliens and alien uplift contribute to the problem. Professor of literature and culture Dr. Felicia Lopez lends her expertise to this conversation.
Support Pop Detective:
All of our Pop Culture Detective media projects, including this one, are 100% funded by listeners and viewers. You’ll never hear ads and all episode will be made available for free online. So if you enjoy in-depth media criticism, please consider supporting our work over on Patreon.
PATREON
Support this media project on Patreon:
/ popdetective
PAYPAL
Make a one-time donation via PayPal:
www.paypal.me/popdetective
Fair use:
All multimedia clips included in this podcast constitute a ‘fair use’ of any copyrighted material as provided for in Section 107 of U.S. Copyright law, which allows for criticism, comment and scholarship. Learn more about fair use via New Media Rights!
Show credits:
Audio production: Jonathan McIntosh
Intro music: Simon Stålenhag
Outro music: Rick Lopez
I love how Felicia Lopez's specific knowledge base makes her the absolute person I would actually go to, in real life, if I ever had found an ancient relic and was preparing a daring adventure through the jungle.
Whereas in most films you have a bookworm who's incapable of interacting with any modern human being, let alone with the actual people and tribes they've studied for decades, when it turns out (spoiler alert for every jungle adventure movie) that these people are in fact alive in the 20th century despite everybody believing that they had disapeard centuries ago.
A thought experiment I may use in my next "turn off Ancient Aliens" argument: Imagine a Chinese movie studio produced a movie where an intrepid squad of Chinese archaeologists discovers that a famous European cathedral--I would use Notre Dame de Lyons because I love the cows, but Notre Dame de Paris works too--was designed and overseen by aliens. Or Irish fairies, because all European cultures are kinda the same, right? No, wait, ALIEN FAIRIES. And the movie was a giant hit and spawned a TV show where Chinese hosts run around attributing everything from Stonehenge to the Parthenon to these alien fairies. And people BELIEVE it. And that's all the rep European cultures get in East Asian media, and European tourist sites are flooded with tourists asking about alien fairies, and no amount of yelling from historians, Irish people, French people, or anyone else can dent this perception. The movie becomes a multi-decade franchise. Movie 4, it turns out the alien fairies built the Washington Monument. Movie 7, alien fairies made Mount Rushmore. This stuff ends up in textbooks, so soon the internet is full of people arguing with Chinese users that it doesn't MATTER what your history teacher said when you were twelve, THE COLISEUM WAS NOT BUILT BY ALIEN FAIRIES.
Wouldn't that be frustrating? Wouldn't you just want to scream?
Now imagine Chinese media is the dominant cultural force on the planet. People are born and die without ever being exposed to media that thinks Europeans built Notre Dame.
That's Ancient Aliens. Except Hollywood is the Chinese movie studio, and Tenochtitlan is Notre Dame.
(I know, I know, no analogy is perfect, but most of the ancient aliens people I know are barely aware that movies get made in languages that aren't English.)
Only clarification I'd make is that Ancient Aliens isn't made by Hollywood, though I doubt Hollywood is offended at all by their work. >_>
❤
"Now imagine Chinese media is the dominant cultural force on the planet" we don't have to imagine that, just take off the blinders.
To be fair to Stargate SG1, even the European civilizations were created by aliens, such as the Goa’uld (Greece, Celts and Rome), the Asgard (Norse) and the Ancients (Latin, Arthurian legend).
Excellent discussion. Strange as it may be, it was ancient aliens that resulted in me becoming an anthropology student many years ago.
It’s so weird that you’ve just uploaded these - I’ve literally come from listening to the audio version of this podcast and came here to continue listening to more content! 😂
People keep asking for CZcams versions of the podcast so I finally gave in to their demands. Ha. This channel will continue to be mostly used for video essays though.
@@PopCultureDetective however you decide to post this kind of content, I’m all ears - really insightful and informative discussions across all four so far - thank you so much, they’ve been a wonderful listen!
Somehow, I missed all of these audio episodes and, while i'm now thrilled to get to marathon them, I don't think that was supposed to happen.
My knowledge of the Indiana Jones franchise comes purely from my experience playing the two Lego Indiana Jones video games on Xbox
What gets me above all else, is how only MesoAmerican or early Egiptian practices and knowledge seem to get the ancient aliens treatment. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I personally have never seen it applied to ancient Greece, for example.
Not true. There's several connections actually also in other places throughout history and the entire world. India has a ton, Australia, China the list goes on
My boi dropping 3.5 hours of content in a day is... it makes up for the wait for the next vid, and then some
My dad’s side were completely brainwashed by the pre-2012-present History Channel programming. It’s hard to break through that shell of alien conspiracies
I'm literally playing Spelunky 2 while listening to this and feeling the connections, then you actually mention Spelunky :D
"Indy survives a nuclear explosion by hiding in a, refrigerator" amazed you didn't crack up saying that
I love those audio episodes, your guests are delightful and it's really soothing to listen to.
Is there any plan to keep making them, do you need support to produce more?
Where can I find more of Dr. Felicia Lopez, she said she has a podcast too?
Great conversation. As associated discussions, I recommend episodes 138 (Aryans in Atlantis) and 142 (The Ancient Alienization of the History Channel) of the Q Anon Anonynmous podcast, where they discuss in a debunking sort of way, the history of these things.
'If you put the acropolis backwards, people would notice'
Er... really? I mean, sure, some people would notice. Greek people would definitely notice. But the average American, from what they studied in school? I find the assertion pretty optimistic. XD
My first time listening to this podcast and I was not disappointed! Compliments to you guys
Haven't finished listening yet, but already I can think of several pieces of media that fall into this same problem, Stargate, TINTIN (One of the later ones, Flight something idk)...just subscribed, your channel is one of the best commentary ones to really break down a lot of topics that are not talked about enough.
Hi!! I've missed you so much! Glad you're back.
I wish you had mentioned some medias which are told from the perspective of natives, so we can reach to see the alternatives to what is portrayed by US/hollywood. Maybe even a whole podcast episode could be dedicated to expose us to such media? Recommendation of books, movies etc. would be great.
Would love to hear Dr. Lopez talk about the Onyx Equinox anime/cartoon and its depictions of pre-colonial people in mexico and their mythology
Eh, Onyx Equinox is not that good...
Besides the obvious ultra-anime influence & cringe, it falls on the pitfall of representing mesoamerican deities as "Beings" akin to the Greek Olympians or Norse Aesir rather than the far more abstract concept of "Deities as Processes, Cyclical Energies" that many scholars agree on, I'd recomend some readings of David Carrasco and James Maffe's Understanding a World in Motion if you're interested in the microcosmos that Mexica belief was amidst the centuries of rich mesoamerican culture beyond the Hollywood tropes of Blood & Feathers.
Thank you so much for this conversation! I've had the same arguments with friends and family who believe in the influence of alien life on ancient cultures.
Felcia was a great guest and id love to see the Eternals podcast!
I would be interested in a revisit to this in the context to the new Indiana Jones film and the virility of the flawed documentary 'Ancient Apocalypse'
I missed you, man!
weird that the only Indiana Jones movies I find myself constantly returning to are the ones with nazis.
I'm a big fan of the Eternals movie, but it's disappointing to see this alien uplift nonsense promoted so casually and almost like they thought it would be respectful towards indigenous meso-american peoples.
Can't wait for their Black Panther analysis, for both the Wakanda and Talokan societies.
Any indiana jones movie where he doesn't punch nazis isn't worth watching, honestly the nazi party had such an opposition to academia that it almost makes sense an archeologist and adventurer would be opposed to them, the conflict makes so much more intuitive sense
tbh I feel bad for Europeans b/c the aliens never wanted to hang out w/ them so all they got was Stone Henge and we got all sorts of cool stuff 🤷♀
My favourite absurd claim in Ancient Aliens was when they said aliens thought the Mesoamericans how to play the ancient Mesoamerican ballgame...
To write or present an adventure, it needs to be adventurous and hyperreal.
RIP History Channel as was during the 90s and 2000s
The irony is how many fake history videos I'm getting recommended in the recommendation section of this video with "alien" in its title... There must be a way to block them isn't there?
hi
I don't understand what the Dr means when she said the Egyptian pyramids had no interiors. Were they not built as tombs with various chambers for the king's soul to make use of in the afterlife?
She said that the pyramids in Mesoamerica have no interiors.
One of the ways this is damaging is you see this degrading of the culture. A colleague of mine is a college professor who teaches astronomy, and she often repeats this bonkers speech to her students: "There's something different about the European way of thinking. You look at all these ancient cultures and none of them have any myths or anything about the stars above them at nighttime. The greeks and the romans have these myths we use the name the sky, but you get nothing out of the asians or the indians[sic]. They didn't have any thinkers. It's like they were too dumb to look at the sky and think."
I can't hold a conversation with her anymore because there's this huge ingrained bias she refuses to address.
Another blatant and deeply, deeply racist example: the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. The ending not only is utterly ridiculous, it basically trashes the actual origin of humanity in Africa. Just vile, and no one, NO ONE talked about it at the time.
El racismo en los cómics: 250 cómics estadounidenses con argumentos prehispánicos.
El imaginario prehispánico en el cómic estadounidenses: racismo y neocolonialismo en viñetas.
So is that temple with the terracotta warriors doesn't have booby traps? I head we can't get it any farther because of these is that not real also ?
That's in China, not Mesoamerica. Also the tomb part hasn't been opened because of concerns over what air will do to the preservation of artifacts.