Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Spielberg, Steven

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a movie with many under lying factors that when looked at more closely show many signs of how the East is portrayed in the United States. Moreover, women have become increasingly more respected over the last few years, yet this movie is riddled with sexist and feminist views. Throughout the movie we are provided with evidence showing how women are seen as lower class citizens. This is confirmed in the scene when Indy (the white American savior), willy (the dumb white American female) , and Shorty (the young Korean sidekick) are all travelling to the temple by way of elephant. We see that Indy is at the front on the biggest elephant followed by Willy who rides the behind Indy on a smaller elephant. Last and very much least we see Shorty who is on the smallest elephant. This is just a small example of of how Spielberg wants his audience to view America as the leader ahead of women on the power scale, moreover, ahead of the rest of the world.

A Wild Sheep Chase

Murakami, Karuki. A Wild Sheep Chase

A Wild Sheep Chase is an outstanding novel that does exactly what the title suggests. Murakami leads us on a wild chase throughout the novel just like in many hard boiled (detective) novels and films. The main difference, however, lies with the reader acting like a detective trying to figure out the mystery, that in this case would be the case of the wild sheep. Moreover, the novel continuely probes into the mysteroius lives of all of the characters, who's names we are still unsure, most imortantly the boss who seems to be the direct link to the sheep. The Boss is mentioned in the earlier stages of the book and repeatedly keeps cropping up and we still dont know much about him. Only that he is right wing, could be right wing, might not be right wing. . .the mystery continues. He has a tumor, which should have killed him, yet he still seems to haunt us. He has so much power for reason(s) unknown. I suppose the burning question that we are all thinking; Is The Boss man a real person or a super hero?

Bride and Prejudice

Gurinder Chadhaa, Bride and Prejudice

Bride and Prejudice is a Bollywood movie based on the Jane Austin's novel Pride and Prejudice. The plot of the movie has many references to the novel with many of the characters names remaining the same. Bride and Prejudice is an example of the East versus West cross-cultural model. The main comparison of the movie and the novel is the similarity of class. The main focus of the Bennett's and Bakshi's is for the marriage of the of their daughters as if offers an escape from the surroundings that they have become accustom.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Rushdie, Salman. Haroun and Sea of Stories

Many of Rushdie's novels are about concepts of fantasy that are mixed bewteen Eastern and Western cultural traditions. However, the mixing of these cultures does not mean that there is a contrast between the two. Moreover, they complement each other, which ignites the imagination. The intertexual elements, from Haroun and the Sea of Stories, refer to texts that are about other childrens texts, such as Alice in Wonderland. An example of this can be found when looking at the dream aspect of the novel. In the novel, Alice in Wonderland, Alice awakes at the end of the book to find that it was all a dream. In comparison, Haroun also awakes only to discover that his entire adventure had taken place whilst he was sleeping.