Curses and Colonizers in “The Mummy” (1999) – Part 2

The very apparatus of the mummy’s tomb—his body locked in box upon box, his organs apportioned to canopic jars, hieroglyphic inscriptions on every surface—suggest the complexity of the undertaking. What might these two strands of the mummy’s DNA—in Shakespearean terms, part-Antony, part-Cleopatra—reveal about the relationship between colonizer and colonized, and about our own desires, fears, and guilt? Wes & Erin continue their discussion of the 1999 film, “The Mummy.”

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Transcript

0:12 Erin: Welcome to part two of our discussion of the 1999 masterpiece, The Mummy, directed by Stephen Sommers, who is obviously, you know, the Orson Welles of the 90s

0:25 Wes: and also known for such movies as Van Helsing.

0:29 Erin: That's also a movie.

0:30 Wes: I like the Mummy Returns and Odd Thomas and GI Joe.

0:38 Erin: Oh, there it is.