Indiana Jones makes Russian communists see red

SIDENOTE: What do you think of this?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/n...najones_dc

By Denis Pinchuk Fri May 23, 4:21 PM ET

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russian Communist Party members condemned the new "Indiana Jones" film on Friday as crude, anti-Soviet propaganda that distorts history and called for it to be banned from Russian screens.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" stars Harrison Ford as an archeologist in 1957 competing with an evil KGB agent, played by Cate Blanchett, to find a skull endowed with mystic powers.

"What galls is how together with America we defeated Hitler, and how we sympathized when Bin Laden hit them. But they go ahead and scare kids with Communists. These people have no shame," said Viktor Perov, a Communist Party member in Russia's second city of St. Petersburg.

The comments were made at a local Communist party meeting and posted on its Internet site www.kplo.ru.

The film, the fourth in the hugely successful Indiana Jones series, went on release in Russian cinemas on Thursday. Russian media said it was being shown on 808 screens, the widest ever release for a Hollywood movie.

In past episodes Indiana Jones has escaped from Nazi soldiers, an Egyptian snake pit, a Bedouin swordsman and a child-enslaving Indian demigod.

RUNNING DOGS

"Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country," said another party member, Andrei Gindos.

Though the ranks of the once all-powerful Communist Party have dwindled since Soviet times, its members see themselves as the defenders of the achievements of the old Soviet Union.

Other communists said the generation born after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union were being fed revisionist, Hollywood history. They advocated banning the Indiana Jones outright to prevent "ideological sabotage."

"Our movie-goers are teenagers who are completely unaware of what happened in 1957," St Peterburg Communist Party chief Sergei Malinkovich told Reuters.

"They will go to the cinema and will be sure that in 1957 we made trouble for the United States and almost started a nuclear war."

"It's rubbish ... In 1957 the communists did not run with crystal skulls throughout the U.S. Why should we agree to that sort of lie and let the West trick our youth?"

Vladimir Mukhin, another member of the local Communist Party, said in comments posted on the Internet site that he would ask Russia's Culture Ministry to ban the film for its "anti-Soviet propaganda."

The "Indiana Jones" film is not the first Hollywood production to offend Russian sensibilities.

In 1998 the Russian parliament demanded the government explain why the Hollywood film "Armageddon" - which depicted a dilapidated Russian space station that blows apart because of a leaky pipe -- was allowed onto Russian cinema screens.

A government official at the time said the film, starring Bruce Willis as the leader of a team of astronauts sent to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, "mocked the achievements of Soviet and Russian technology."

Reuters/Nielsen

i saw this movie the other day and it really does perpetuate some pretty outdated cultural stereotypes.

BUT it does so in the very, very obvious context of being set in 1957, when things between america and russia were quite different.

i don't particularly like the fact that russia circa 1957 has to be cast as the 'bad guy' but this movie is number four in a series that is knownfor swashbuckling adventure, not for its cultural insights

I wonder how people of the Middle East felt after seeing The Temple Of Doom the first time.
[Edited 5/24/08 23:50pm]

I've lost count of the Russian-made movies I've seen in my +7 years here in Moscow that had an anti-US bias.

I've lost count of the Russian-made movies I've seen in my +7 years here in Moscow that had an anti-US bias.

** WARNING...SPOILERS!! **















Heh...this is the same movie where Indy survives a ground zero nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator and then goes on to survive falling down not one, not two...but THREE huge waterfalls in a DUKW vehicle. Oh...and Indy had a hand in that whole Area 51 thing too.

IT'S A MOVIE

Nikster...Nikademus...whatever, I'm still Nik

http://www.myspace.com/nikademus_1969

http://www.myspace.com/lesbiansoutloud

Poor little commies!

That's why I can't stand watching these films and don't want to see this one.

And I disagree with "It's only a movie" excuse. Movies are all about values and morals. Hollywood is America's most pervasive export worldwide. It's called cultural colonialism. It's time to see these things for what they are -- MUCH more than entertainment.

WellInever said:

mdiver said:

WellInever said:

Poor little commies!

How terribly enlightened of you.....

WellInever said:

mdiver said:

How terribly enlightened of you.....

Please.

Really?

Are they upset about Boris and Natasha too?

TonyVanDam said:

pplrain said:

eugnj420 said:

pplrain said:

pplrain said:

mdiver said:

WellInever said:

Please.

You know what a Communist is right?

You know that the Political situation in Russia and its former states is not Communist right?

That is a bit like calling Germany facist

viewaskew said:

It was in trouble for more than just that - the cult they chose, even though it was a cult portrayed in at least one other major movie, got some people riled up.

Too bad.

Between this and "Resident Evil 5" I wonder where the magical people exist that one can make up fictional stories about without pissing some of them off.

Cinderella clearly shits on stepmothers.

South Park stereotypes Colorado.

Live Aid portrayed famine victims as people that cannot fend for themselves.

I hope we can ban all of these and more.

Mars23 said:

WellInever said:

Mars23 said:

heartbeatocean said:

Mars23 said:

eugnj420 said:

On the surface, Hollywood is a liberal enterprise. But if you analyze its history and the formulaic text, it is actually reactionary, deeply enforcing values such as xenophobia, monogamy, homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. Action blockbusters almost always assert American dominance over the rest of the world and the very dialectic itself of good vs. evil, which the system relies upon, leads to superficial feel-good, we-are-in-the-right messages. These movies often display a hip mainstream critique (of materialism or war, for instance), dropping candies of political correctness, then end up reinforcing the very values it pretends to critique.

Of course, I am talking about Classic Hollywood Cinema and its offspring...though today the mix of independent vs. industry films is increasingly hybrid.

And it's interesting that several people on this thread have argued that Russians make anti-American movies, but how many of us have actually seen them? Are these movies exported worldwide raking in millions of dollars from foreign economies? We may label them propaganda, but is not Hollywood a form of propaganda, disguised in the form of entertainment?

heartbeatocean said:

XxAxX said: