Mechanisms of Domination

by Amos Vogel

Raiders of the Lost Ark – one of the most widely seen films ever – provides an object lesson in how ‘escapist-entertainment’ masks ideological re-affirmations of dominant social value systems.

A deliberate, lovingly designed update of the basic conventions of Hollywood’s old serials, it succeeds more brilliantly than consciously envisioned by its highly professional creators: utilizing all aesthetic resources of a great art, it offers instruction in the value systems of contemporary Western civilization in the guise of ridiculous, breath-taking exotic adventure.

If the filmmakers want to refashion the serials without taking them seriously, why should we fault them for stereotypical characters and situations? The proceedings, after all, need not be considered more high-brow than those in a spy novel.

The plot of Raiders, however, is covertly permeated by a complex of implicit values that stream toward voluntarily vulnerable spectators whose viewing situation opens them to suggestion and manipulation. They have paid good money for the privilege of being invaded, their guard is down, and their reverent up-turned faces – eyes shining – are wide open to whatever will he beamed at them, particularly if the underlying values are ‘common coin’ and so widely accepted as ‘given’ that they have become invisible.

The basic plot situation involves an utterly preposterous struggle between Nazis and Americans for possession of the ‘recently discovered’ all-powerful sacerdotal ‘container’ into which God had placed the Ten Commandment tablets for Moses. How, then, are we to account for the huge audiences, their rapt attention, their outbursts and enthusiasms? What secret fantasies are being triggered by this ludicrous story?

The Hero is white, male, unscrupulous, decisive, risk-taking, aggressive, murderous, ingenuous, goal-directed; the eternal stereotype of masculinity. An archaeologist, he believes in science, not magic, yet soon discovers that the miraculous not only exists, but – emanating from God – is more powerful than anything else on Earth. The supernatural is not superstition, but truth. This truth is inexplicable to human minds and must be surrendered to. In defeat, the Hero will triumph only because God suddenly repossesses the sacred object in a furious climax beyond human comprehension which re-establishes what had been questioned; the domination of the Supernatural over mere mortals, be they Nazis or Americans. As the deliberately stereotyped dialog has it, there are indeed ‘things that man is not meant to disturb,’ a profoundly conservative summons to keep all of us in our places.

As in Superman, the hero becomes potent only when doffing his academic garb. The Force motivating him toward the hunt and, thereby, Greatness, is shown to be The American Intelligence Establishment. Principles, however, are disastrous; the one moment when the Hero acts in a principled manner – his wavering loyalty to archaeology rekindled by his cornered Nazi enemies’ deceitful appeal to it – he is thereby rendered impotent to destroy them; his defeat is reversed only through divine intervention. The impotence of humanity vis-à-vis the supernatural, the re-introduction of actual miracles (whether caused by God or Devil) is hammered home, as in The Exorcist and Carrie, in the guise of escapist entertainment and high adventure.

The world, in this film, is seen as a treacherous morass, filled with innumerable landmines and interminable traps. Murder, betrayal and horrifying death are our inevitable lot, only sporadically mitigated by feats of daring and cunning. Apocalypse and immense catastrophes tear the fabric of existence at frequent, inexorable intervals. In the struggle, nature is corrupted, colonized, destroyed. In best Hollywood tradition, exotic lands of antiquity – ‘primitive’ of course – are exploited as colonies physically (in the film’s actual production) and thematically (in the narrative’s progression), their real-life inhabitants appropriated (at union wages?) to play Stereotyped Natives.

These Natives are (weren’t they always?) Dissemblers, Thugs, Sycophants, Minstrels, Retainers Loyal To Death, patronized in this case by the White Hero-Fuehrer, an American Fascist pitted against Nazi-Fascist Opponents. In a revealing scene, one native, as a supreme reward, is kissed by the White Woman and promptly goes into ecstasy. To accurately recreate the old serials’ conventions inevitably entails a return to the blatant racism of the Stepin Fetchits and Charlie Chans; no matter. It also signifies the use of identical methods by the forces of good and of evil. The ancient problem of means and ends is finally resolved by eradication.

In fact, the Nazis are portrayed as ineffectual cardboard figures, ominous yet frequently ludicrous, with Intimations of the Keystone Kops; in short, an ignorant, unfeeling caricature of what they really were like. In a strange, ideologically revealing way, they come out second-best in every encounter with the Hero, who – in the cause of Self-Preservation and Righteousness – acts in as bestial a fashion as they do.

The Female (in a cynically commercial concession to ’80s feminism, no longer the passive sex object) has become an integral part of the wide swath of destruction necessary for living one’s life in a hostile world. She continues to appear, however, as a loyal appendage to the dominant male, obeying him in all crucial moments while offering support (with the same methods of brutality and cunning), comradeship and sex. The comradeship is bathed in blood; the sex is clean, mechanical, non-arousing and, of course, heterosexual. Visually and narratively, it is confined to the parameters of the film’s ‘PG’ rating, to conform to the Studio’s inexorable need for reaching the largest market possible.

There is a fear of the apocalypse – entirely consistent with a real world bathed in the fear of thermonuclear holocaust – but such fear cannot be averted by human action, only by the intervention of God. Despite innumerable human deeds of atrocity and gruesome sadism, God is free to choose the one particular moment best suited to his own needs to offer, at last, a ‘Happy End’: a pyrotechnic display of his power during which the limitless potency of the sacred object is literally sucked back into his Divine Being.

Meanwhile, the World Below is divided between Good and Evil. The Goodness of some is a given, as is the Evilness of others. No explanations are offered; only God knows; the world is his creation; and he exists, is real; Steven Spielberg proves it to us visually. Religion is acceptable in the hands of a Bresson or a Dreyer; it is blasphemous when cynically practiced by the ultra-sophisticated commercial ‘secularists’ also responsible for Jaws, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and that other ‘religious’ offering, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Particularly noteworthy is the resolution of the film’s conflict. In the hoariest tradition of human superstition, hero and heroine are saved solely ‘by not looking’ at the act of divine intervention (it is, of course, he who knows to tell her not to look), just as the name of God must not be pronounced, just as Noah’s wife should have heeded the warning.

In a further turn of the screw, the hero then abandons any further archeological research into the remaining artifact to the CIA. In exchange, the reward is the woman.

No matter. The audience is spell-bound, literally orgasmic with joy, fear or sadism; open-mouthed, screaming at the white screen with anxiety or pleasure, buffeted by John Williams’ powerfully manipulative, Dolby-enhanced score.

There is, of course, nothing ‘wrong’ with adventure films; our subconscious pleasure in vicarious risk-taking and ultimate victory over the forces of Evil represents a real human need, particularly in a world in which we feel impotent, fearful and know of the many victories of injustice.

But in the golden days of the Hollywood serials and adventure films, we had a choice; there were other types of films to see. Today, to a truly alarming extent, our choices are increasingly limited to space operas, gruesome thrillers, supernatural horror films; a vicious cycle, returning us to the empty and ideologically not innocent gut pleasures of Raiders.

‘Entertainments’ such as these act as safety valves against a truly hostile, unmanageable alienated real world outside; they mollify us temporarily; they distract from the real enemies and the real solutions. Raiders is a political work. Assured of top publicity, distribution and exhibition due to unimaginably huge production and advertising budgets, it will be integrated into the weak, already manipulated psyches of millions the world over to reconfirm existing value systems of impotence and repression.