Other films in the Indiana Jones series feature stock Muslim characters, including an obnoxious, fat Egyptian that is the comic relief, but Temple of Doom and its Oriental horrors say the most about Hollywood’s treatment of the East. As a trilogy, the three Indiana Jones films mirror the Arthurian form, “from a knight’s interpellation into the Arthurian court, through his demonstration of that interpellation by such actions as rescuing maidens and annexing kingdoms, to his final turning to the spiritual values of the Grail quest,” retold “as American history.” The Indiana Jones films are not the only creations of George Lucas that reflect both Orientalism and medievalism. The theme park is today’s equivalent of an eighteenth-century tour down the Nile. Disneyland’s Indiana Jones “Adventure” ride features a tour of Oriental horrors, including “caverns of bubbling death, screaming undead mummies, erupting lava, evil wraiths and giant snakes.”

XREF: Connects medievalist studies of the Arthurian tradition with postcolonial film criticism of Hollywood Orientalism.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 606