KEY POINTS:
The release of the latest Indiana Jones film this weekend has got me thinking about everything I would like in a man. This is not a new occurrence.
Many of my daily activities from ordering a coffee at Dizengoff, to watching Simon Dallow on the news, have the power to get me thinking about what I would like in a man.
Of course, being a fairly representative sort of woman, the sorts of qualities I look for in a man are unreasonable and impossible to expect in an average human being, not to mention wildly contradictory in the mix I desire.
He must not be shallow, but rather thoughtful, and focused on a higher plane. Of course I wouldn't look at him twice if he wasn't wearing nice shoes and didn't take my number in a Moleskine with the right sort of pen. He must enjoy the finer things in life. Yes, and be happy to eat KFC and watch Shortland St with me when I feel like it. He must take an interest in my friends, and be nice to other people's children. But be perfectly happy not to have any anytime soon. He must be witty and articulate and love talking. Except when I am. And so on.
A friend and I went so far as to make a list about it one drunken night last Christmas. According to that document, we're both after a tall, discreet, sociable, tea drinker who likes country music, is a tidy eater and has respect for the elderly. I won't be holding my breath.
Lists, of course, are the bane of all relationships, however nascent or established. When you find yourself dividing the page into pros and cons and weighing up her thick ankles against her great laksa, you can safely bet it's going nowhere fast, unless you don't mind cankles or really like laksa. And yet, we all do it. Carry around a private checklist of the qualities we would glow to see in a prospective mate. Likewise we have deal breakers, the lower reaches of human taste and behaviour past which we will not go.
Mostly these are rubicons of physical appearance, and the reason why Birkenstock-wearing boys with hairy backs and a penchant for fork licking don't tend to pair off until they've made their first million. And then there are those blessed few who are so perfectly composed of all the physical, temperamental and sartorial elements one could wish for, who so completely embody your ideal other half, that the list goes flying out the window and spirit sings in rapture to kindred spirit. That's when you recognise your match, your heart's desire, your perfect mate.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you, Dr Henry "Indiana" Jones.
It was a slow burn. Indy had actually been wielding his bullwhip for quite a few years by the time he came to my attention. I was but a babe in arms when Raiders of The Lost Ark came out in 1981. It was actually Harrison Ford's other legendary alter ego, Han Solo who first caught my eye. Han Solo with his leather waistcoat and his wisecracks and his crooked smile. My little sister went ga-ga for Luke Skywalker, but I spurned the whitebread charms of the young Jedi in favour of the raffish wiseguy who took the Millennium Falcon for a joyride and won the heart of Princess Leia along the way. Even the lightsabre wasn't enough to sway me. Skywalker and his whooshing neon column was no match for Solo, with his wise-ass ripostes and his twinkly grin. Luke might have been the hero but I knew who I wanted to travel with to a galaxy far, far away. Solo set 'em up, and then Indy came and knocked 'em down.
How to explain the charm of Indiana Jones? Well roughly speaking, it's exactly the same as the charm of of Han Solo. Harrison Ford isn't an actor known for his range ... And George Lucas is a director who knows a decent archetype when he finds one. He freely admits that Indiana Jones as a character isn't anything new.
Indy, and Solo before him, are examples of a well-established type of movie man. "The freelance cynic who eventually comes round" is how Lucas describes them. You know the ones; Clark Gable's Rhett Butler before he met his Scarlett, Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade before he met a blonde who could make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. The wisecracking guy who eventually knuckles down and saves the world/girl/day as played by Will Smith in just about every movie he's ever been in. Brad Pitt will never play one, nor will Tom Cruise, no matter how many Mission Impossibles the Emperor of Crazy goes on. George Clooney would do a better version if he wasn't so damn handsome. They're the Everymen; not too pretty, not too blessed, just smart and wry and usually in exactly the wrong place at exactly the right time. Guys every man can relate to, and every woman wants to cuddle down beside, but only once the job is done and they've succeeded in beating the bad guys and saving the world.
The wardrobe helped of course, with Indy. There's the bullwhip obviously, the leather jacket, the battle-scarred chinos with plenty of room to pack a pistol. Indy's bad-guy proof ensemble is an integral part of his appeal, rendered as it is in a palette of stained creams and dusty khakis all the better to showcase the good professor's blood, sweat and tears. And then there's the little round glasses he wears on campus, signifying his other incarnation as the bookish Dr Jones. A neat demarcation of superhero and alter ego that owes a hefty nod to Clark Kent. Of course, our enjoyment of one is made all the more pleasing because of our knowledge of the existence of the other. It's that duality that makes Indy the man for me.
Who wouldn't swoon over a guy who's just as comfortable discussing Carolingian history as he is dodging giant boulders and dispatching hordes of Nazis by harnessing the power of ancient religious artefacts? He's the academic who packs a mean punch. Who flies by the seat of his pants and escapes by the skin of his teeth, but always makes time to rescue the damsel along the way. Who, somehow, without being especially built or ripped, much less superhuman, manages to satisfy all of our desires and tick off all of the crazy, fantastical and just plain unreasonable demands made on the lists that single (and taken) women carry around in their heads every day.
And a note to all the men reading this and hating him now; take comfort from the fact that really, he's just like you, and if George Lucas is right, one day you'll end up in the wrong place at the right time too.