“We’d have to change the name from ‘Jones’ to ‘Joan.’ And there would be nothing wrong with that.”

Do I really have to say this? Apparently so.

The culture wars are exhausting. The best parts of life once meant to be an entertaining escape are now plagued with revisionary idiocy. Not even Indiana Jones is safe.

In a recent interview about his newly released flick, Ready Player One, Director Steven Speilberg was asked if he’d consider making Indiana Jones a chick (in so many words).

“We’d have to change the name from ‘Jones’ to ‘Joan.’ And there would be nothing wrong with that,” he said.

From The Sun:

The director knows he would risk fan fury by casting an actress in the role made famous by Harrison Ford, 75, but he believes it is time the explorer took “a different form”. In an exclusive interview, Spielberg nodded when asked if this new-look Jones could be female, and added: “We’d have to change the name from Jones to Joan. And there would be nothing wrong with that.” The 71-year-old has been a vocal champion of the Time’s Up campaign for gender equality in the movie industry — and is no stranger to powerful women. His mother Leah, who died last year aged 97, raised him and his three sisters almost single-handedly because his workaholic engineer father Arnold, now 101, was rarely around. And he has been married to actress Kate Capshaw, 64, since 1991, after meeting in 1984 when she starred in the second Indiana Jones film in 1984. He said: “My mom was strong. She had a voice, she had a very strong opinion. “I have been very lucky to be influenced by women, several of whom I have just loved madly — my mom and my wife.” Filming for the fifth movie in the Indiana Jones franchise is due to begin in April next year. But Spielberg said: “This will be Harrison Ford’s last Indiana Jones movie, I am pretty sure, but it will certainly continue after that.” That is when the director will decide on whether to go ahead with “Joan” — and once again lead the way in putting words about Hollywood equality into action.

Is there anything neo-feminism isn’t ruining? Is it too much to ask that we are allowed to enjoy watching a rugged, handsome antiquity-saving professor always clumsily in over his head without the storyline being hijacked in the name of equality? Because it’s not equality. It’s whiny, sad, and unoriginal. Equality? Why not remake Wonder Woman with a male lead? If it sounds plain stupid, that’s because it is.

Not to mention the fact that in the storyline, Indiana Jones eventually marries Marion Ravenwood (first seen in Raiders of the Lost Ark), one of the scrappiest, stubborn, amazingly independent women in adventure filmdom.

And Lara Croft (new Tomb Raider film coming out this year). Remember her? A brilliantly buxom antiquity-protecting badass. She’s constantly warding off cis, white, patriarchal figures who try to kill and manipulate her in order to save priceless pieces of history. Did I mention she’s saved the world more than once? And bonus, she has her own film franchise.

I have tremendous respect for Spielberg and I love his Indiana Jones series (minus the fourth installment), but leave Indiana Jones alone, dammit.



