Indiana Jones = Americanism

Does Indiana Jones embody Americanism? Historian Eric Rauchway seems to think so. Writing for The New Republic's website, he argued:

"Indiana Jones balances two of the essential American archetypes as defined by Constance Rourke in her 1931 essay "American Humor." With the broad-brimmed fedora, the bullwhip, and the six-shooter, he evokes the cowboy as frontier hero, the backwoodsman who stands casually ready to kill, if need be. Tall tales of frontiersmen erupted naturally from the American experience with the West. They were legendary figures like Davy Crockett, who boasted that he kept the sun in its path and rode the lightning. Jones's adventures feature a cascading top-this quality sufficient to rival any Crockett brag."

"At the same time, Dr. Jones evokes another of Rourke's archetypes, the savvy Yankee. The lean, shrewd bargainer, scholar of human affairs, he gets by because he knows more than you. Indiana Jones's hat and jacket may have become icons, but Dr. Jones spends as much time wearing spectacles and tweeds, stalking libraries and classrooms, as he does dodging the living dead." "When Rourke defined her types of American, she believed they had failed to merge into a single national character. The frontiersman's bravado remained distinct from the Yankee's shrewdness, and the sections of the nation from which they sprang remained at odds. But Indiana Jones gives us the pleasure of both American types in one character. He has his reckless, casually violent side, which gets him both into and out of minor scrapes: but he avoids catastrophe only because he values scholarly wisdom."

Full article.