Indiana Jones has gotten a lot of press lately. And not because of the upcoming Oscars or the fifth instalment of the mega film franchise, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which is due out in June 2023.
The press I’m talking about is something you may not have noticed. But I sure did. When the New York Times released an article called For U.S. Museums With Looted Art, the Indiana Jones Era is Over back in December 2022, I read it with interest but not with surprise.
The piece is about the long and messy tradition of museums acquiring collection objects through questionable practices. But, for me, the title of the article touched upon something I’ve thought about for a long time; how the public perception of museums is shaped by popular culture.
Museums in popular culture
Museums are constantly thinking and talking about their public image. What do people think of them? Why do visitors come or not come? What do people like or dislike about them? Like any typical middle school student, they are reliably insecure despite constantly reminding themselves that they are “among the most trusted institutions in the US”. Museums eagerly produce surveys and evaluations, compile data, and leave out books which invite people to leave comments.
What museums may not realize is that popular culture provides an important, self-reflective window into exactly what they’re so eager to know. Namely a representation of how many people think about museums and what they do.
Annie Lundsten
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for understanding audiences better, but what museums may not realize is that popular culture provides an important, self-reflective window into exactly what they’re so eager to know. Namely a representation of how many people think about museums and what they do. And whose powerful, often unconscious, messaging museums must strive to both meet and overcome.
The ways in which museums are represented in popular culture–and specifically film and television–are myriad. That said, the majority of depictions I’ve come across tend to revolve around a few less-than-flattering tropes.
Museum as victim
My guess is that one of the most common associations with museums in the movies is their representation as the victim of theft. Museums have beautiful, valuable things and the idea of stealing from them has fed many a glamorous mystery plot.
The Thomas Crown Affair, first released in 1968 and rebooted in 1999, is perhaps the most famous example of a museum (in this case The Metropolitan Museum of Art) targeted by a clever protagonist. National Treasure, likewise, features the titillating heist of a famous object from a Fort Knox-like museum setting.
Many of us in the museum field chuckle at the absurdity of these plots but should we? Depictions of this kind in pop culture make museums look both unrealistically secure and outrageously inept. They also propagate the simplistic view that museums are innocent, honorable keepers of cultural heritage… Never thieves themselves.
Museum as snob
When Black Panther was released in 2018, many of us in the museum world took particular notice of one short scene towards the beginning of the film; the one in which Killmonger steals a Wakandan mask from a museum (widely presumed to be The British Museum).
The scene definitely turns the museum into a victim of theft but more critically it relishes turning the museum into a self-important (and likely racist) snob. When the white museum curator approaches Kilmonger, she does so in a way that is deeply condescending. And, let’s be honest, we all recognized her attitude.
Night at the Museum flips a comedic switch but Ricky Gervais’ museum director is no less snobbish. We feel a sense of comeuppance when Killmonger successfully gets away and the museum guard ends up being smarter than his highfalutin boss. Why? Because we don’t like the curator and the director. And, in both these cases, the characters represented in these pop culture scenes are the museum. Ouch.
Museum as idiot
One of my favorite museum staff people represented on film is Indiana Jones’ good-natured superior, Marcus Brody. Marcus is rarely at the heart of the action. His role is rather to cheerfully send Indy off to pillage the cultural heritage of the world and then buy the spoils for the imaginary museum they both work for.
Though Marcus is often welcome comic relief, he is, in every sense, a clueless idiot. In The Last Crusade, Indiana Jones famously tells his father “…you know, Marcus. He got lost once in his own museum.” I laughed the first time I heard this, but I’ve known more than one museum director to whom this has actually happened and that has made the line far less amusing over time.
Just like the snobs, characters like Marcus come to embody the museum itself for the larger public. They speak ancient Greek, yes. But do they know how to do anything else?
Museum as bore
We come at last to one of the most damning and universally acknowledged tropes about museums from popular culture. The fact that they are boring. Jim Gaffigan’s six-minute standup on the topic reaches its culmination when, in the wake of being invited to become a member of an art museum, he states “I think I can only pretend to be interested once.”
Mr Gaffigan’s everyman bit hilariously lays bare a common truth that while people often feel obligated to visit museums, they’d rather be doing something fun. Museums would do well to remember, in the midst of talk about scholarship and learning, that they still have significant work to do in overcoming the perception that they are yawn-inducing snooze fests.
These appearances of museums in pop culture are far from universally representative. But they do suggest a thing or two about public perception and they likely do have an influence on the thinking of potential visitors. Museums ignore them at their own peril.
Top image: screenshot from Night at the Museum, Fox Family Entertainment