Boy Movies #37
Leah Williams on Indiana Jones
You’re reading Boy Movies, a weekly newsletter. Consider a subscription, tell a friend, share far and wide — you know the drill.
A quick word from Allison
Look, let me just be honest: I have not yet seen the -enheimer half of Barbenheimer. I know, I know! The biggest weekend for the concept of boy movies and girl movies in recent memory, and I didn’t even do my job. I can only hope none of my beloved readers decides to stage a coup. In any case, if you’d like to hear me go deep on a boy movie from the year 2012, real life bestie and Boy Movies board member Cassidy Olsen and I returned to the great podcast institution Exiting Through the 2010s to discuss The Place Beyond the Pines. You can listen to that now.
Anyway, today we close out Blockbuster Month with a super fun guest post from Leah Williams. Some time ago, she pitched the idea of a salute to the women of Indiana Jones, which delighted me, as Indiana Jones is one of my biggest boy movie blindspots. I like this piece as a bookend to my month-long celebration of bigass movies, as latest film in the series, Dial of Destiny, was something of an anomaly in terms of summer 2023’s blockbusters; it didn’t make the money it was expected to make, and Harrison Ford’s de-aged visage was quickly overshadowed by the likes of Tom Cruise, Cillian Murphy, and a bleach blonde Ryan Gosling. Leah’s a video and social manager at TV Insider, and she and I have been Twitter (RIP???) mutuals for a long time. I had a blast reading this, and I hope you do too.
On Indy Girls
A friend recently texted me, “How deep you go on Indiana Jones? Is that too boy?” I went very deep on Indiana Jones as a kid. My brother and I were beyond obsessed with the adventure series, starring Harrison Ford as the titular archaeologist. (Sidenote: we should bring back the adventure movie! Men don’t go on adventures like they used to!) But it is, I think, definitely a series of boy movies. After all, I did watch them with my brother, and he was the one with the novelty Indiana Jones hat he wouldn’t take off, even at a family friend’s wedding. This, plus the release of a new Indy movie, got me thinking about the women of Indiana Jones. They’re a little like Bond Girls; they’re beautiful, typically only appear in one movie, deliver one-liners, need saving, or ultimately betray our hero. Indy Girls, as I’ve decided to call them, are less iconic than Bond Girls as a unit, but I’m of the opinion that the individual Indy Girls are more memorable than individual Bond Girls. That may be a result of there being fewer Indiana Jones movies, or it could be a result of me having watched the Indiana Jones movies repeatedly and having watched each James Bond movie exactly once, but I digress.
Raiders has hands-down the best Indy Girl. Karen Allen is so gorgeous and charming as Marion Ravenwood. Notably, she’s the only one that’s ever brought back, in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny. Sean Fennessy recently said on a recent episode of The Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast that they never top her in subsequent Indiana Jones films, and I agree. She’s Indy’s Cool Girl. The first time we meet her, she’s winning a drinking contest in the bar that she owns in Nepal. She punches Indy in the face, hard, within minutes of seeing him. Every time I think “Indiana Jones,” I hear it in her cadence. She fucking rules. She’s one of the best parts of Crystal SkulI, a movie of which I am firmly not a defender (it’s kind of boring, and I am tough to win over when aliens get involved in a plot). Indy and Marion’s reconciliation in that movie is lovely. People refinding the loves of their lives after years apart is nice, okay?
She’s also got the most troubling history with Indy. Her father was Indy’s mentor, and it’s implied that she was too young for Indiana Jones the first time they got together, before the events of the movie. She says, “I was a child. I was in love. It was wrong and you knew it!” To which Indy replies, “You knew what you were doing.” I, like most Indiana Jones fans, largely choose to ignore this. If you ever decide you want to be a little uncomfortable every time you watch Raiders, look up the 1978 conversation between Steven Spielberg, Lawrence Kasdan, and George Lucas brainstorming Marion. It’s pretty gross!
People hate Temple of Doom’s Indy Girl, Kate Capshaw’s Willie Scott, but I like her. She’s shrill and ill-prepared for an adventure. She’s annoying. She screams a lot. She does not like being trapped in a room full of bugs. She’s just like me, fr. The difference between Willie and other Indy Girls is that she doesn’t volunteer to go on an expedition with Indy. She’s a victim of circumstance, dragged along after leaving her cushy job as a Shanghai showgirl. She almost gets her heart ripped out of her chest in an (alarmingly racistly depicted) religious ritual! I simply can’t find it in me to blame her for complaining throughout the entire movie. Spielberg ultimately married her, and I totally get it.
I recently learned that Alison Doody was only 21 years old when she played Dr. Elsa Schneider in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and that is completely bonkers to me. How did she have time to complete a doctorate? I know she was probably playing older, but I am very hung up on this. She’s Indy’s only femme fatale, a Nazi sympathizer. Though she says she’s only in it to find the Holy Grail, hanging out with Nazis to get it makes her a Nazi in my book. It’s revealed that Indy’s dad, played by Sean Connery (bringing it full circle back to Bond), knew that she was a Nazi. How, you ask? “She talks in her sleep,” quips the elder Jones. (Connery apparently ad-libbed that line, and it rules.) Elsa is sort of a forgettable Indy Girl for me, but it’s fun that she slept with both Dr. Joneses! Points docked for being a Nazi.
I feel about Dial of Destiny the way I felt when I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: It’s not that good, but it’s nice to spend time with my old friends again. In Dial of Destiny, Indy is separated from Marion after their son Shia LaBoeuf was killed offscreen in Vietnam1. Sad! Phoebe Waller-Bridge appears as Helena Shaw, Indy’s goddaughter and the daughter of his friend Basil. Basil appeared in no previous Indy movies, which I think is silly, because Indy has loads of friends they could have given this daughter, but whatever. I think Helena is fun! She’s stubborn and smart and slippery. I like her pseudo-father/daughter relationship with Indy, and Waller-Bridge and Ford play well together. I missed him having romantic and sexual tension with someone, but I wouldn’t have wanted that someone to be Helena. Mostly, it made me want to watch Waller-Bridge lead a screwball-y rom-com. Luckily, Marion shows up at the very end and they reconcile. Yay!! For me, Indy’s reaction to seeing Marion was Ford’s best bit of acting the whole movie, and made the previous two hours and fifteen minutes worthwhile. Sorry, I’m sentimental about Indiana Jones! The best Indy Girl is back, and so am I.
Leah is the video/social manager for TV Insider, standup comedy producer, and pal based in Hoboken, NJ. Follow her @leahgwilliams on Twitter (X?), @leah.gayle on IG, or visit her website leahgayle.com. Don’t follow her on Letterboxd, she just uses that to keep track for herself.
Allison here: This blew my mind. What the hell is going on in the damn Indiana Jones movies.