In
“The Sacred Idol,” the Shrinkies (Ted Eccles, Susan Lawrence and Jeff Mackay),
take a raft downstream in the jungle and encounter a primitive tribe dwelling
there. The tribe worships a stone idol
and statue.
Unfortunately,
Dr. Shrinker (Jay Robinson) now controls the stone statue, and makes the
natives do his evil bidding by pretending to be a God. His control is actually accomplished
by Hugo (Billy Barty), who operates a remote control machine some distance from
the village.
The
Villagers come to believe that Gordy (Mackay) is a benevolent God, but to prove
his worth, he must gain control of the same statue.
And
then, he must fulfill an ancient prophecy about retrieving an emerald from a
serpent’s lair.
“The
Sacred Idol” is the weakest Dr. Shrinker (1976) episode of the three
I’ve watched so far. The ideas in the episode are incredibly hackneyed, not to
mention culturally insensitive. To wit: an
indigenous population in the jungle is so superstitious that it can be manipulated
by a super-villain with a remote control, and only three other white people can
set things right for them.
Ah,
the white man’s burden…
Now
-- it’s true -- I teach Intercultural Communications at a college level, so
perhaps I’m hyper-aware of this kind of thing (though I don't think so...), but the assumptions that
underline this episode's narrative (about the inferiority, both mental and religious, of
non-western cultures) are really pretty amazing and backwards.
It’s hard to
believe stories this hackneyed and culture-centric were still being produced in the 1970s. That was, after all, the
great age of tolerance, before the push-back of the 1980s.
Next
week, we move on to a different Saturday morning series.
I wonder if this is mostly a product of lazy writing... Perhaps they just ripped off the older stories whole cloth and didn't pay enough attention to realize how backwards the attitudes were. I like the way The Venture Brothers show has taken this sort of thing on humorously in a couple of episodes.
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