Fond childhood memories horribly tainted.
Oct. 10th, 2005 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsThe MST3K of the weekend was Jungle Goddess, an offensive little hunk of tripe from 1948, three years after World War II. The plot should be enough:
One of our protagonists shoots a tribesman. She goes through the motions, as village goddess, of condemning him to death in eight days, "when the full moon rises." The other protagonist goes to her to ask what will happen, and she assures him that she has no intention of doing as the local laws allow. There's this unstated "He only killed a native, it's not like he killed a white man or anything like that."
A real piece of 1940's racism. And what annoys me most is that when I was young, like nine or so (that would be 1975), I loved watching those old Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies. They're much of the same flavor, terribly unenlightened products of a former age, but now those memories feel tainted and somewhat sickly.
When a plane carrying the daughter of a millionaire crashes in an African jungle, two pilots set out to collect the reward. They discover that she has become the goddess of a primitive tribe. An insurgent witch doctor and fierce wild animals make escape from the jungle difficult for the trio.Really though, that's not enough. Start with the idea that she's made a goddess because she's white. That's pretty rude, but then we get to her personality.
One of our protagonists shoots a tribesman. She goes through the motions, as village goddess, of condemning him to death in eight days, "when the full moon rises." The other protagonist goes to her to ask what will happen, and she assures him that she has no intention of doing as the local laws allow. There's this unstated "He only killed a native, it's not like he killed a white man or anything like that."
A real piece of 1940's racism. And what annoys me most is that when I was young, like nine or so (that would be 1975), I loved watching those old Johnny Weismuller Tarzan movies. They're much of the same flavor, terribly unenlightened products of a former age, but now those memories feel tainted and somewhat sickly.
