Indy -- a pinko?

The movie -- in which Professor Jones is put on administrative leave because the FBI suspects he might have collaborated with Soviet spies -- doesn't answer this question. However, certain clues that have come to light in the blogosphere hint at a surprising possibility.

Writing at the Globe's Movie Nation blog, recently, film critic Wesley Morris noted that when Jones is placed on leave, the head of his department asks him what he plans to do: "First, Indy says, he's going to London, then there's a job offer from the University of Leipzig he might well take. Leipzig is in what was then East Germany. Indy wants to defect!"

As if that weren't suspicious enough, Alex Golub, an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i Manoa, points out at Savage Mind, an anthropological blog, that in one early scene, Jones tells a student to read V. Gordon Childe. (Childe was an eminent British prehistorian whose Marxism got him into hot water in his native Australia; during the early cold war, he maintained contact with archaeologists in the Soviet Union.) "Would a die-hard anticommunist really recommend a Marxist archaeologist to a student?" demands Golub.

Indiana Jones -- a pinko? What a cliffhanger! Can't wait for the sequel.

UPDATE: There was a particularly good comment posted to a Boing Boing item making note of this Brainiac item. Here's an excerpt:

If one accepts "Young Indiana Jones" as part of the Indy canon... Indy is very well-travelled, and even had friends in Russia who were part of the Bolshevik revolution. Hatred of a culture is usually fed by ignorance of that culture; when one actually has or had friends who were part of it, one tends to be more ambivalent, even if one disagrees in principle. Indy, of course, is a man of many cultures.

The fact that his partner turns out to be a turncoat gets Indy in hot water (right after his post-fallout scrubdown, of course), and his whole past is brought into question --- in typical commie witch-hunt style. One may protest one's patriotism... but one may feel resentment toward this treatment that could easily lean towards distrust of the American government.

Indy is not a politician. He's an archaeologist. As such, tippie-toeing around political issues is not first & foremost on his mind. He's often been at odds with the government even as he's served it. (Think the final scene in "Raiders.") This does not make him a fascist, and it doesn't make him a "pinko." He may agree in principle with the ideals of communism, but he won't say so out loud, and he wouldn't care for the way the KGB turned out.

Furthermore, the University of Leipzig has a campus within walking distance of the French border --- in West Germany. (However, I don't know if this campus existed then, or was part of the University, so this could be irrelevant.)

Thanks for these insights, Boing Boing reader NDOLLAK!

UPDATE: Brainiac reader (and hotshot playwright) Jason Grote saw the Indy movie last night, and sent me his take on the Commie question:

I liked [the movie], despite a fair number of cringe-inducing moments and the vacuum-like charismalessness of Shia LaBeouf. But I gotta say that there was little to no crypto-socialism -- just your standard-issue cold war liberalism. There's plenty of Russo-phobia (the speechless heavy bears more than a passing resemblance to Vladimir Putin), and there are a few McCarthyite blocking characters, but the basic terms of the debate are such that McCarthyism is just bad anticommunism, and the more liberal style of Indy (a rugged FDR passing the torch to LaBeouf's JFK) is the best way to kick commie ass. The McCarthyites are more like stick-in-the-mud bureaucrats who prevent the real heroes from doing their jobs.

I also get the sense that anti-McCarthyism is an article of faith in Hollywood, at least among screenwriters; plenty of blacklisted screenwriters made their returns in the '60s and 70s and became active in the Writers' Guild and mentored a younger generation, and so on. This was certainly on display in the hand-wringing when Elia Kazan got his lifetime achievement Oscar. Most screenwriters are liberals, but there is also that "protest too much" quality about it -- that is, the job requires so many daily compromises of principle and integrity that the mythology of the (very real) blacklist is what people can hold on to.

In the final analysis, though, the real ideology of all Hollywood movies, from "It's a Wonderful Life" to "Rambo" to "Fahrenheit 9/11," is Hollywood.

Excellent stuff, Jason, thanks!

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