Why Indiana Jones is the Best Role Model Ever
I grew up in the 1980s… To put some context here, movies became pretty violent in the 1980s. Movies like Robocop, Rambo, and Commando were successful movies where a guy needs to mow down the population of a small town in order to save somebody. As kids we were enamored with the idea of these characters that shot M-60s from the hip. I was as well but there was a character that appealed more to me and still does today. Indiana Jones was the creation of George Lucas, under the direction of Stephen Spielberg, and brought to life by Harrison Ford. That, alone, is pretty awesome. Looking back on it, he was a great example for a young boy when everyone else was wielding a machine gun, Indiana had a whip and his wits. Here is why he is awesome:
He kicked ass.
Seriously. It was ridiculous how he jumped onto the scene. He walks into the creepiest cave I had ever seen, short of the one from Empire Strikes Back,and he has to jump over pits, deal with tarantulas, dodges arrows, escapes a giant rolling boulder, and a bunch of poison-dart-shooting tribesmen. He does more in the first five minutes than most people do in a lifetime. He did this throughout the Indiana Jones movies and he took pain like a champ. By the end of each movie, he was cut, bruised, dusty, and covered in cobwebs. I absolutely loved the fact that he didn’t has a body builder’s strength or the speed or the deftness of a martial artist. He just endured the events of the movie and just kept going. I like that. It is achievable but unachievable at the same time. Life will give you a beating and he was an example of just enduring it without giving up.
He was well educated.
All of this action was driven by his own intellectual capacity. If he wasn’t classically educated and really knew what he was talking about, he wouldn’t have even started on the adventures in any of the movies. He understood history, anthropology, orienteering, languages, etc. If you take any aspect of this away, you don’t have Indiana Jones. This goes against the typical routine of a hero of moderate intelligence competing against a villain that was a mastermind of sorts. Indiana was always smarter than the villains. Despite all of the shooting, punching, and swinging from whips, it was always his knowledge of the artifact at hand that allowed him to win and survive. The villain’s hubris, on the other hand, lost to intelligence every time. Knowledge and wisdom are traits that take longer to build than any muscle and I respect that concept.
He was cultured without being pretentious.
Two things really set Temple of Doom apart from the other two movies. Obviously, he wasn’t fighting Nazis. They are great, intolerant, and straight evil bad guys. The other thing is that the other movies use Judeo-Chistian theology as the backdrop with the Arc of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. These ideas were easier for a western audience to wrap theirs heads around them. Temple of Doom flipped the script in that he was fighting against a fringe cult but instead being some righteous christian warrior that conquers evil using the home team, he actually gets to know the local people, history, and religion. He shows an understanding of foreign culture, poverty, how to be a respectable guest, and makes decisions based on the betterment of the local people as opposed to personal “fortune and glory.” Indiana Jones showed that one can still maintain their own personal belief system while respecting another belief set. This is probably something that we could all do a little better nowadays.
He had panache.
James Bond has style. Indiana Jones has panache. I value the latter more. Style has a level of conformity whereas panache is a flair unto its own. Indiana Jones always had a certain air about him that was really cool. Whether it was the hat, the whip, or the flying by the seat of his pants approach once the plan went to crap, he was just cool. He wasn’t wearing all of the fashions of the time. He was a semi-nerdy professor by day and a larger than life adventurer by night. He wasn’t cool in the traditional sense. He was cool because he was different but still himself. Seriously, what has more panache than a whip? I think, we all want to be cool but without changing who we are. He made me think I can be whoever I am and be cool with it.
No matter your background, I think we can all be a little braver, smarter, more understanding, and more authentic with a little flair. I hope for that in any son or daughter. You should too.
