Mary Sue and the Crystal Skull: Part One

A literary term has been floating around lately… Mary Sue. Some grumble about it’s use. They say it is derogatory. A term meant to belittle characters. A term that is misogynistic--although it was created by a women. So what is a Mary Sue? It is a seemingly perfect character who can perform tasks beyond one’s experience or ability. Why are Mary Sues created? At times, a creator wants to shed a super positive likeness of unto a character, usually to because this character matches what he or she wishes to be.

But, I also think there is another reason writers create a Mary Sue, because they are afraid that if they add flaws to particular characters, some people may denounce such portrayals. “What? You don’t think so-and-so can do such-and-such?!” Thus, at times, female characters both receive the Mary Sue doctoring treatment, and the brunt of the Mary Sue criticism (even when the character is not a Mary Sue). I am not ready to go into that dark cave of analysis.

Yet, there are still clearly gobs of male Mary Sues--or as some people call them, Gary Stus. One such specimen is Indiana Jones in the movie Kingdom of The Crystal Skull. The movie did not bode well with a lot of Indiana Jones fans (I still like it, but it is not the same), while there are gobs of reasons, him being a Mary Sue was a contributing factor. Indiana Jones did not feel right in the movie, because he did not feel like Indiana Jones.

First, when Lucas and Spielberg approached the character, they knew Ford was quite up there in the years. So, in order to recapture the magic, they knew they had to fudge a bit to make Jones look great. They didn’t dare tarnish an icon. I think they went too far. And, that is so often how Mary Sues are born.

With age comes wisdom, they could have made Jones wiser. That would have been a great character choice. They could have made it so he had to rely on his wits to get out of situations. Which they did, but I think they went overboard. For instance, the opening scene, he is recruited to find for the Russians a certain box. Jones speaks how the government grabbed a bunch of really smart people to do research on an alien box. Why did they grab Jones? Why pick an archeologist to research an alien craft? One--because plot--so that the Russians would grab him and make him find it. Two, this establishes how super intelligent Jones is. Following that logic, why would the Russians grab him to find this box? Why not a wimpy nerdy guy? Because plot?

That alone may be fine, but then you get to the place where his physically and mentally bests the Russians, and escapes. While doing so, he has his first fight with Big-Russian-Man, and he keeps up in the fight. At least in this fight, it was a bit of timing and luck that got him out. I will comment more about this Mary Sue aspect when I talk about their second fight.

He gets away, survives a nuclear explosion--which might be a Mary Sue moment in it’s own right, but yeah… I’ve talked about that scene before in my post about Spectacle. Next we find him in an interrogation room, where the CIA suspects he may be in cahoots with the Russians. This is where his general friend lists gobs of crazy secret missions he had done in the past. Missions that have nothing to do with the previous movies. Missions that feel forced, and out of character. So, not only was he so smart that he took part in alien research, he was a spy? An operative? And a gob of other things? A man in the movies before who was about seeking artifacts?

In Kingdom, Indiana Jones was set up to be a nearly perfect man (yes he got captured… And, we were ham-fistedly reminded that he was old--not shown he was old). We were beat over the head with how great he is. But what was his goal in the first action set scene? To escape. What did he do? He escaped.

Now, the other Indiana Jones movies set up a man solely focused on artifacts. Yes, a man who is brilliant in his field. We are subtly shown what he is good at. More like suggested. We are smart enough to see these attributes. And his skills are all introduced to us with such style. Now this doesn’t mean a character can’t be really good at things, and even a lot of things. A Mary Sue is just a person with seemingly no flaws, whose experience and abilities don’t match those skills.

In Raiders, we were introduced to a super intelligent character. Who knew his craft well… But, did he know his craft best? Ultimately, he was outwitted by another archeologist. In Temple, he was shown as a shrewd businessman, yet he was outwitted by Lao Che, thrown into a plane that started the journey. And in Crusade, Jones was chased down and caught by a rugged, fedora-topped, leather-jacket-wearing man. A man who inspired him… Sometimes people who best us, best teach us. All these opening scenes highlight failure. In fact, I’d argue the three original movies all end in failure too. His goal in each was to get the trinkets. He didn’t get them. Ok. Maybe I am stretching the goal of the third movie… But hey, I’m Mary Sueing my point. Yet, his goal in the fourth movie was to rescue Oxley, and eventually Marion. He did that.

Making characters perfect will not tell a perfect story. Lucas and Spielberg felt the need to overcome an actor's obvious limitations, in order to get us to believe Indiana Jones was still great, but they overdid it. They did not make it feel believable. They did not have confidence in their character. Or, an audience’s willingness to say, “Yeah, we know Ford is old, but we still love Indy.” Next post, I’ll delve further into why Indiana Jones from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a Mary Sue… or Gary Stu.