“Cannibal Tours" dir. O'Rourke

November 13, 2007.

The ongoing colonialist ideas of the “Other” have been documented through an array of media and texts. Most recently, the Red Campaign, which seeks to raise funds for AIDS in Africa through Western consumerism, released its promotional ads that included the model Gisele posed with Masai, an African. The image of Masai as the stereotypical tribal African beside Gisele the “civilized” beautiful white model perpetuates ideas of the “Other, ” as Masai is only represented through a stereotype. The image gives no context to who Masai is. The Red campaign is problematic on many other levels but throughout the campaign there is a consistent usage of “othering” messages.

In the film “Cannibal Tours,” director Dennis O’Rourke confronts how the Western world has continuously exploited and “othered” certain groups that are considered primitive. However, what I really enjoyed about the film was that O’Rourke took a more complex approach then just demonizing the tourists who came to New Guinea. He showed both the tourists and the New Guineans in contentious positions. The tourists, in my view, were portrayed as dumb and silly. They were very much the stereotypical tourists, with their camera’s slung around their necks speaking in staccato to the New Guineans, in hopes they would be better understood. On the other hand, the New Guineans allowed themselves to be objectified and exploited by the tourists.

They performed their culture, exaggerating parts for entertainment and spectacle. O’Rourke highlights these problematic behaviours in his film. For example, before leaving the island, the tourists’ faces were “painted by Iatmul village men with designs traditionally used to decorate the skulls of their deceased ancestors, [then the tourists] are seen dancing in slow motion on the deck of the ship. We hear the music of Mozart in the background…” (Lutkehaus 428). This scene is especially problematic as it displays a kind of “blackface” or performance of the Black “Other” based on stereotypes. However as Lutkehaus continues, these acts allow people a “momentarily escape. It’s like erotica” (429).

The exploitation of those considered primitive is also discussed in the article “A World Brightly Different: Photographic Conventions 1950-1986”, which discusses how National Geographic relies on images of the erotic “Other.” Significantly, the author suggests that the Western world depends on these representations to define themselves (90). Furthermore, “the absence of violence or illness [in the National Geographic, help to] reflect back to Americans their own self-image as a relatively classless society…” (103). By shunning the poor, the ill and the hungry, those in first world nations are able to feel better about their positions in the world. This is particularly interesting in the case of the film; the New Guineans perform the images and stereotypes that are assigned to them by the Western world. By doing this, they receive a more positive response from tourists who are more willing to pay for pictures with the tribal-dressed people and buy cultural artefacts.

Despite the exploitation of the “Others” by the tourists, I really appreciated how O’Rourke portrayed the New Guineas with agency. One of the town’s elders, who speaks throughout the film, has several insights that would show that the New Guinean people knew that the way they were portraying themselves was for their benefit (in terms of money). When asked why they allow the tourists to come, he answers that it’s because they have money, they buy the carvings and they pay for pictures. However he also comments that when the tribe’s children go off to school, the children buy pictures of their own village (which have been made into postcards by tourists). Therefore, the New Guinean group has come to rely on the money made from their own exploitation; sending their own children to school is reliant on the revenues made from tourism.