David Crane’s Pitfall & Colonial Imagery - A critical analysis

[Punished “Venom” pH]

I'm doubling down that we need a bait rating

I assure you, I am wholly sincere. Am I not engaging with intellectual honesty? Have the audacity to take me seriously!

 

[Gimmick Account]

the medium is the message.

I don't think this means what you think it means so stop saying it.

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

I don't think this means what you think it means so stop saying it.

I’m using it to communicate the difference between the media figure and the medium he appears in with this sidebar and to demonstrate a parallel track to his thinking, don’t deem to tell me what I do and do not know. I can be wrong, but don’t call me ignorant please.

 

[TFT-A9]

Okay but do you see the line of the hippo-hide whip being made to whip slaves -> Indy owning a hippo hide whip which is made by the same process? It’s not a bad reflection on Indy, it’s the same moral weight as wearing shoes made in China.

Without a clear intent by the costume designers/writers to evoke that (and how many people are going to take note of his whip's construction? A joke nobody gets is a bad joke) you're kind of searching for meaning where there really isn't any

Any time you get into the trap of "subtext" you need to establish that the writers etc. definitely intended for there to be such subtext, because otherwise you are inventing things wholecloth and then proceeding to claim you knew the creators' intent better than they did (which takes Death of the Author to its logical and frankly idiotic conclusion)

 

[The best and greatest]

Yeah and we're aware of this in the same way people going to the cinema in the 80s were aware that Indy didn't himself emerge fully-formed from the earth.

You say that, but the only reason I even posted at all was in response to this

The implication here is clear: Pitfall Harry, whether he is being sponsored by a government or corporation back in his homeland, is a colonizer coming to a land which has been devastated by the usual tools of the colonizer - superior forces of arms, deadly disease, and enough crocodile-hide whips to make sure the entire population is so terrified that they will work themselves to death before they rise up and challenge their oppressors.

The implication is clear: Pitfall harry is a colonizer looking to violently exploit and suppress the indigenous population of the land, and all of this is implied in the way he dresses and the tools he uses.

But if you said the same thing about Indy you'd say no that's not correct even though a lot of the same iconography is present.

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

You say that, but the only reason I even posted at all was in response to this


The implication is clear: Pitfall harry is a colonizer looking to violently exploit and suppress the indigenous population of the land, and all of this is implied in the way he dresses and the tools he uses.

But if you said the same thing about Indy you'd say no that's not correct even though a lot of the same iconography is present.

That’s why I didn’t say it about Indy, I said it about Harry?

Without a clear intent by the costume designers/writers to evoke that (and how many people are going to take note of his whip's construction? A joke nobody gets is a bad joke) you're kind of searching for meaning where there really isn't any

Any time you get into the trap of "subtext" you need to establish that the writers etc. definitely intended for there to be such subtext, because otherwise you are inventing things wholecloth and then proceeding to claim you knew the creators' intent better than they did (which takes Death of the Author to its logical and frankly idiotic conclusion)

Well, it’s up to you to read and decide for yourself if my logic is compelling!

 

[Gimmick Account]

I’m using it to communicate the difference between the media figure and the medium he appears in with this sidebar and to demonstrate a parallel track to his thinking, don’t deem to tell me what I do and do not know. I can be wrong, but don’t call me ignorant please.

Yeah but you are literally acting flagrantly ignorant right here in this post, and you're abusing an established idiom that means something else. Fuck off with this.

I know it sounds cool to say but you're just muddying the waters, dipshit.

 

[The best and greatest]

That’s why I didn’t say it about Indy, I said it about Harry?

But all you're going off of is what he looks like, which is all you have to go off of, because the game fundamentally is a dexterity challenge loosely dressed up in an action-adventure aesthetic but otherwise lacking context.

Its a huge reach is what I'm saying.

 

[TFT-A9]

That’s why I didn’t say it about Indy, I said it about Harry?

Harry's barely even a character, he was hardly even fleshed out beyond being a simplistic callback to Jungle Explorer-trope comics from yesteryear as a basis for a simple game until later installations of the Pitfall franchise on other platforms

You could really replace the theming in Pitfall with any number of other choices and there'd be no meaningful impact

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

Yeah but you are literally acting flagrantly ignorant right here in this post, and you're abusing an established idiom that means something else. Fuck off with this.

I know it sounds cool to say but you're just muddying the waters, dipshit.

Fair, I concede that I did use it incorrectly.

Harry's barely even a character, he was hardly even fleshed out beyond being a simplistic callback to Jungle Explorer-trope comics from yesteryear as a basis for a simple game until later installations of the Pitfall franchise on other platforms

You could really replace the theming in Pitfall with any number of other choices and there'd be no meaningful impact

Did you read it? What was your favorite part?

 

[TFT-A9]

Did you read it? What was your favorite part?

The callback to Hitler apparently carrying a whip in his youth was an interesting choice of a wild tangent given that to the absolute best of my knowledge the man never set foot on the African continent before WW2 and probably not even after that, and the Nazi regime's relationship with some African peoples/nations was surprisingly cordial and not generally adversarial or colonial/patronizing (and there were African natives who became adjuncts of the Wehrmacht if not full fledged members of the Afrika Korps) owing in no small part to Germany not even really having meaningful colonial claims in Africa after their losses in WW1 (and they were rather behind the colonial curve in Africa before that compared to other colonial powers)

 

[Bongocat]

I take back what I said, this thread is great.

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

The callback to Hitler apparently carrying a whip in his youth was an interesting choice of a wild tangent given that to the absolute best of my knowledge the man never set foot on the African continent before WW2 and probably not even after that, and the Nazi regime's relationship with some African peoples/nations was surprisingly cordial and not generally adversarial or colonial/patronizing (and there were African natives who became adjuncts of the Wehrmacht if not full fledged members of the Afrika Korps) owing in no small part to Germany not even really having meaningful colonial claims in Africa after their losses in WW1 (and they were rather behind the colonial curve in Africa before that compared to other colonial powers)

Stick to Shirer, kid

 

[Dom Cruise]

Why are you unironically posting Woke on Kiwifarms of all places?

The thing is you aren't technically wrong, does the whole archetype of the "adventurer in exotic lands" thing have it's roots in colonialism? Sure, but the more important question is, who gives a shit?

We are far enough removed from the roots of it that the archetype today is it's own thing which is fundamentally harmless, there's a lot of old ruins in the world, sometimes these ruins have valuable things in them and people try to get them, that's it, it's all so vaguely connected to colonialism today that it doesn't really matter, the vast majority of people would not make the connection unless it was pointed out to them.

Indie only robs graves that other people who're bigger assholes were going to rob first so that he can give them to the world so that everyone can enjoy them rather than letting private interests buy them up for personal collections. He also never raises a whip to someone who wasn't trying to kill him unless he was drunk on bloodwine. Indie was never a colonizer and was actually pretty worldly and tolerant of foreign cultures. he also fought and killed nazis.

Indiana jones is woker than you'll ever be.

It's funny how even back then they felt like they had to add that dynamic to the character to separate him from the idea of a "colonizer" but it goes to show that there's nothing wrong with that archetype at it's core, it can be made to be separate from the idea of colonialism.

 

[TFT-A9]

I take back what I said, this thread is great.

I'm bored and drunk, OK, cut me some slack. If I want to give the cow a little corn, it's not the end of the world, you can still milk it.

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

Why are you unironically posting Woke on Kiwifarms of all places?

The thing is you aren't technically wrong, does the whole archetype of the "adventurer in exotic lands" thing have it's roots in colonialism? Sure, but the more important question is, who gives a shit?

We are far enough removed from the roots of it that the archetype today is it's own thing which is fundamentally harmless, there's a lot of old ruins in the world, sometimes these ruins have valuable things in them and people try to get them, that's it, it's all so vaguely connected to colonialism today that it doesn't really matter, the vast majority of people would not make the connection unless it was pointed out to them.



It's funny how even back then they felt like they had to add that dynamic to the character to separate him from the idea of a "colonizer" but it goes to show that there's nothing wrong with that archetype at it's core, it can be made to be separate from the idea of colonialism.

I give a shit! I think it’s really interesting! I share because what I wrote is awesome and I think people enjoy reading awesome things.

 

[Bongocat]

I'm bored and drunk, OK, cut me some slack.

I just had an exceptionally grueling day at work to the point that when my friend told me he got a cockatoo I had to re-read it twice before realizing it didn't say 'cock tattoo' so I feel ya.

 

[TFT-A9]

I give a shit! I think it’s really interesting! I share because what I wrote is awesome and I think people enjoy reading awesome things.

It's the written equivalent of a Bridge to Nowhere.

 

[Absurdity]

Clearly, the red and white checkerboard pattern found on the floating disembodied Bob's Big Boy belly represents the colonizing white squares (freemason colonizers) positioning themselves next to the aboriginal red squares (Communist Native Americans) who then wrapped themselves around the globe in an imperialistic diarchic yin-yang dialectic. That the very image was generated using 3D computer graphics, whose component parts come from slave labor, is direct evidence the the author is experiencing the early stages of Kuru19 and must redistribute the brain matter of defeated tribal leaders through their own oppressive bourgeois cis-digestive system, which is in turn systemic oppression that leads to uncontrollable bouts of unsubstantiated pseudo-intellectual socio-hysterical critical theory 5th grade term papers.

 

[Punished “Venom” pH]

Clearly, the red and white checkerboard pattern found on the floating disembodied Bob's Big Boy belly represents the colonizing white squares (freemason colonizers) positioning themselves next to the aboriginal red squares (Communist Native Americans) who then wrapped themselves around the globe in an imperialistic diarchic yin-yang dialectic. That the very image was generated using 3D computer graphics, whose component parts come from slave labor, is direct evidence the the author is experiencing the early stages of Kuru19 and must redistribute the brain matter of defeated tribal leaders through their own oppressive bourgeois cis-digestive system, which is in turn systemic oppression that leads to uncontrollable bouts of unsubstantiated pseudo-intellectual socio-hysterical critical theory 5th grade term papers.

Cite your sources