The subject is a name the fiancee and I we considered for our Guitar Hero 80s band. The idea would be an alternate story in which the Libyans actually took out the heroes of Back to the Future and went on to have wacky adventures in time.
The name was too long for 80s and I decided not to go with it for Rock Band because that whole scene was kinda problematic. Ezra Klein had a post upon praising Matt Duss’s analysis of said scene:
The year was 1985... and thus "Libyans" was offered as perfunctory shorthand for "villains." So as not to draw attention to themselves, the "Libyans" drive around wearing army fatigues and kaffiyehs. (You’ll notice, or maybe you won’t, that one of the clever "Libyans" is wearing a red-checked Jordanian kaffiyeh; is this intended as a disguise?) And then, of course, the "Libyans" are driving a VW bus, well known as preferred conveyance of your flag-burning, apple pie abjuring, third world liberation sympathizing hippie. And thus we have the marriage of two of the iconic signifiers of the betes noires of Reaganite Middle America. Unfortunately, the scene where the terrorists are reading Pravda had to be cut.
That said, the video includes a shot of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc: the whole gunmen versus a swordsman joke. The bit was originally planned as an actual sword fight, but after multiple filmings in the hot sun they decided to go with the easier joke. However, most of the Egyptians in Raiders are basically allies, notably including Sallah. By no means would I call it a highly enlightened portrayal, they definitely do treat the Egyptians as exotics, but some of that is always going to happen when you’re doing pulp in foreign locations (this includes foreign films set in the U.S. and even some filming in other parts of the U.S.).
On the other hand, I think you could fairly argue that Temple of Doom gives a fairly raw deal to India. There is the one good but troubled Indian village and some of the characters are under mind control, but all of the ’modern’ Indian characters either work for the Brits or are bad guys.
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