Cannibal Women in The Avocado Jungle of Death - Allusions

Allusions

The film's plot parallels very loosely that of the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad as well as Apocalypse Now, the latter of which was based on Heart of Darkness. Both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now feature a character named Kurtz who has gone deep into the jungle to become the deranged leader of a group of "savages"; these peoples engage in barbaric rites as an alternative to the rigid and restrictive values of the outside world. The name of the character Ford Maddox, one of the men who recruits Margo to enter the jungle, refers to author Ford Madox Ford, who collaborated on three novels with Conrad (though not on Heart of Darkness). When Kurtz and Hunt battle with fencing swords, Kurtz is stabbed, and her dying words are: "You don't know what it's like, trying to face David Letterman with a book on male insensitivity... All right, I was exploiting the Piranha women. You don't know what it was like. David Letterman, God, the horror... the horror of that show... the horror." In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz's dying words are: "The horror! The horror!"

Cannibal Women alludes to and/or satirizes a broad array of literary and pop-culture phenomena, including:

• The Indiana Jones films - Jim dresses like Indiana Jones and, in his first appearance in the movie, wields a bullwhip (though very ineptly, and nearly strangles himself with it). Bunny brings on the journey an Indiana Jones lunch box.
• The Star Wars films
• Akira Kurosawa's films - The ninja Bushito offers to help Dr. Hunt if she needs to "attack an impenetrable fortress" (The Hidden Fortress), but upon hearing that she seeks the Piranha Women, claims that he has just remembered he has plans to see Seven Samurai that night.
• Disneyland - The trio, in a boat, are menaced by a Palm Springs hippo, and Dr. Hunt shouts, "This is not the Disneyland Jungle Boat ride! Get real, folks, we were almost killed!"
• Gulliver's Travels - the warring feminist tribes paralleling the conflict between the Big-Endians and the Little-Endians, and in the sacrifice scene the iconic image of Maher's character tied down like Gulliver.
• Cosmopolitan magazine
• Phil Donohue
• Alan Alda - This is a phrase the Donahue Men chant to placate women (along with other phrases such as "Walter Mondale").
• Consciousness-raising
• Feminism
• The film 10 and its use of Maurice Ravel's composition Boléro
• Playboy magazine - Shannon Tweed is a former Playboy model, and the character Bunny's name alludes to the phenomenon of the Playboy Bunny; also, Jim says that real men "believe that nature designed women to cook, nurture children, and pose for Penthouse magazine."
• The film 2001: A Space Odyssey and its use of the Richard Strauss composition Also Sprach Zarathustra which was re-written and arranged for the film (entitled 2000 1/2) by the composer, Carl Dante.
• The name of Col. Mattel, one of the men who recruits Margo to enter the jungle, alludes to the Mattel toy company.
• In a quarrel over gender-based achievements, Margo and Jim cite a score of allusions:

Jim: Let's face it, who could have ever invented, but a man, the '64 GTO? Or, for that matter, the Corvette Sting Ray, any year, any model. All you women have ever done is, what? Some French chick invented Kryptonite, or something. The important thing, like beer and meat, that was all men.
Margo (sarcastic): Yeah, it's hard to imagine a woman inventing nuclear weapons.
Jim: Exactly! And where would we be without them?
Margo: And the Nazi Blitzkrieg seemed like a male idea, not to mention South African apartheid. How about World War I? The Crusades? The Spanish Inquisition? The Rape of Shanghai?
Bunny: See, men have done a lot of things.
Jim: Uh, Elvis Presley.
Margo: Janis Joplin!
Jim: Patton.
Margo: Joan of Arc.
Jim: How about Tammy Bakker?
Margo: Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart!
Jim: Jessica Hahn, Fawn Hall, Donna Rice.
Margo: Joseph McCarthy. Richard Nixon!
Jim: Joan Rivers.
Margo: Joan Rivers? I like Joan Rivers. I think she's funny.
Jim: Well, I think Nixon's funny!