#19: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Carl Jung, and the Power of Images

Indiana Jones, looking yoked at the film's climax.

It's become common knowledge that it's best to avoid Indian Death Cults. This knowledge has come largely in thanks to Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the second of four IJ films, and the first in the series' chronology. The film portrays Indian Death Cults as pretty bad things, activities that probably should not be practiced on a regular basis, lest you become like the guy in the picture below, wearing large horns and a shrunken head as a hat.

This film is dark. Extremely dark, in fact. So dark that Steven Spielberg, great director of Empire of the Sun, The Adventures of Tin-Tin, and The Terminal, has all but disavowed it. Nevertheless, we at General Snobbery greatly appreciate its darkness, darkness that does not exclude depicting the tearing out of human hearts and a fat man's consumption of live, slimy snakes. Thus, we give to you a lengthy consideration of the merits of this second Indiana Jones film, as well as an explication of how its horror depicted has had lasting impact on the development of our psyches. 

Just to be sure we got sufficiently pretentious, we entreat considerations of Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychologist/sage, explicating his theories on the power of images. We are certain that Jung, plagued by dark images as he was during his years of writing the Liber Novus, would have appreciated this film. We hope that you appreciate it as well, listener, and we thank you, as always, for joining us on this snobbing journey.

Malo Ram, wielding the heart of the poor human sacrifice in the background. 

#18: Gladiator and Bros

Gladiator (2000), directed by our favorite British-man, Ridley Scott, ushered in a new era of violence in the multiplexes. But, unbeknownst to Mr. Scott, Russell Crowe, or even Joaquin Phoenix, the film was destined to usher in a new era of something far more deplorable: a new era, of "bros." 

Maximus Decimus Meridius, looking like a standard bro. 

We all know "bros," and we all despise "bros." So why do "bros" still exist? In the eighteenth (!) episode of General Snobbery, we endeavor to answer that question. Using Gladiator, that depthless masterpiece, as a springboard, we travel into echelons wholly new, and for the first time, we leave you, listener, with a pressing moral prerogative. Together, let us do all we can possibly do to rid the world of "bros" once and for all. 

A special thanks to our Listener of the Week, Aaron Brunmeier, for providing us with such a grand question this week. Aaron, this snob's for you. 

Key Moments:
42:45: Transition from Gladiator to Bros
52:15: The two words that are destroying the human race
1:19:00: How to cure the world of Bros

 

#17: Snowden Corrupted Our Data

In 2013, Edward Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) revealed that we Amurricans are being tracked by our government. Thanks to the subtle encouragement of his mentor, Nicolas Cage, Snowden utilized established journalists to broadcast the terrifying messages at a large scale. Now, Snowden's father, Oliver Stone, has taken it into his hands to make the message more known than ever before. 

We at General Snobbery decided to see this new film, and in the wake of our viewing, we recorded our longest episode yet. The episode was filled with much Snobbery as well as many super serious reflections regarding the role of privacy in our contemporary era. 

But all was not right. Our Google Hangouts connection was disrupted multiple times, something that had never happened before. We sensed we were being tracked. Our One Listener, we intuited, was an agent at the NSA. And it turns out this NSA One Listener did not like our Snobbery, for that agent hacked into our files and destroyed our data. Our Snowden episode has been "disappeared", never to be reclaimed again.

We tentatively post this episode, Listener, in which we recount the frightening details of the first governmental hacking of General Snobbery. Chances are this episode will be corrupted as well, so listen as soon as you possibly can. If you never hear from us again, you know who is responsible.