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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, JUNE 29, 1984
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. If violent action and gore is your cup of tea, IN
DIANA JONES is your type of movie. Here is what the National Coalition on
Television Violence, in a May 28 news release, had to say about this latest
effort by the venerated team of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas:
The National Coalition On Television Violence (NCTV) is pro
testing the very high level of violence in the new
movie,
INDIANA
JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM and its PG rating. NCTV reports that
the two-hour movie contains 215 acts of violence, or 108 acts of
violence per hour. NCTV monitoring noted 39 attempted murders,
33 of which were by the evil villains. However Indiana Jones
manages to kill 14 villains. A boy hero and a group of children
kill 5 more villains.•.•
NCTV is protesting what it calls "extreme and gruesome violence
produced to excite and bring laughter to young audiences." NCTV
calls the PG rating totally inappropriate and says that an X
rating or at least an R rating with warnings would be more appro
priate.... [Paramount Pictures, distributor of the film, in fact,
warns in its newspaper ads: "This film may be too intense for
younger children."]
NCTV says the film contains extreme sadism including explicit Sa
tanic human sacrifice, gruesome evil including the display of
bloody human internal organs, the eating of live snakes, beetles,
eye ball soup and monkey brains for dessert, extreme gore with
the heart ripped out of a man's chest followed by his incinera
tion in molten lava before he can die, the drinking of human
blood, voodoo murder attempts, a man crushed by a rock smasher
transforming him into only a smear of blood and grit, and croco
diles eating people alive.
NCTV Chairman, Dr. Thomas Radecki, M.D., psychiatrist at the Uni
versity of Illinois School of Medicine, told reporters, "INDIANA
JONES is the romanticization of intense and gruesome violence.
Non-stop combat and murder is made thrilling and fun for children
and adults. Killing is shown as exciting and as something that
works very well for the good guy. There is no doubt that this
movie is another step in desensitizing a whole nation and world
to murder and violence-.- There is no doubt in my mind that this
movie is highly successful at increasing the likelihood that one
will use violence when confronted with a difficult situation.
The role model of 10-year-old children in the film murdering vil
lains, obviously placed in the movie to appeal to a young au
dience, is very objectionable...."
Radecki explained that, in the movie, Indiana Jones falls from
the sky into a village in India beset by famine, where the chil
dren and the sacred rock of the god Shiva, have been stolen by
worshipers of the evil god, Kali. Although Jones was fleeing a
Shanghai gangster and had jumped from the plane to save his life,
the Indians explained to him that he was actually sent by Shiva
to save them from evil. Jones then goes to the evil palace, wit
nesses the Satanic human sacrifice, fights and murders many evil
henchmen. In the finale, Jones calls out to the great god Shiva,
as he struggles with the evil high priest, throwing the high