*spoiler alert for Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull*
For me, I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was 2005’s King Kong. Before then, I’d certainly noticed that the jungle people in these “explorer” movies were, brown primitive savages, while the heroes were always white men, but it had always just been some short “hmm,” footnote in the back of my mind.
I don’t know what is was about King Kong in particular that made it click (maybe it was the fact that they pulled out all the stops to make the natives look extra extra “tribal”), but the whole primitive savage thing in that movie quickly wore thin and just thoroughly pissed me off.
