by André Singer
It has been a momentous few years for representations of anthropology on television. When in the 1970’s we thought Disappearing World would be a pioneering experiment aimed at popularizing the discipline and in turn providing visual insights, it was not universally welcomed by anthropologists. Over time, I think it is fair to say that the ouevre of more than 50 films that formed that series became more and more acceptable and set standards that lasted for decades. For many years up to 2004, the demands of UK television have consistently blocked the production of many new series as other disciplines (history, science and always, natural history) became broadcaster and audience favourites. Then came Tribe. It was with some misgivings that I acted as consultant to BBC Wales when they proposed this project, but their willingness to listen to objections from anthropologists, and their wish to treat the film subjects with respect and sensitivity, won the day. What was unforseen was the impact of that series on broadcasters desperate for popular formats and ideas in a television age where so-called reality television ruled. Tribe spawned an endless array of derivative programming much of which not only used indigenous goups for pure entertainment but also could be seen to put vulnerable peoples at risk.
Out of that morass, there are two areas that this blog could fruitfully tackle. The first is to see what anthropologists feel about all or any of the many series that have crossed our screens in the past few years/months. The second is to discuss the ethical impact of fim crews chasing stories in every accessible village or community in order to feed television’s voracious hunger to take things a step further in the name of entertainment.
simone | 23-Oct-08 at 7:33 pm | Permalink
I’d like to make the first point here, to argue that series like the Tribe do not represent anthropology on TV. On the contrary, they demonstrate a severe lack of anthropological insight or knowledge, and this is the core criticism that can be made against them.
So although you argue that the makers of Tribe treated their subjects with respect, the finished programmes really did revive a boys’ own fantasy world of exotic adventure, which I personally found extremely shocking. So unlike Andre, I don’t think it innocently opened the door for less reputable shows, but actively developed an exploitative mode of representation.
I’d be interested to hear how people think that anthropology informs broadcast media, as I suspect we will not find this influence in the obvious places – exotica – but possibly in other areas.
simone | 24-Oct-08 at 6:13 pm | Permalink
Laura Rival comments:
I amnot hostile to Bruce Parry. tribes, Amazon, etc. But like all these TV programmes, they make think appear in a very distorted light. It is like with gardening, house renovation, property buying programmes. It seems so very simple to do on the screen, but any DIYer or builder (the experts, the professionals) will tell you that what they do on TV is not possible in reality, would take much more time, more funding, etc.
With these pseudo adventure/ exploration/ anthropological programmes, they make the spectator think that they can have these wonderful experiences, be welcome open arms, etc any time they are going to show up in a remote indigenous community. That they are going to be entertained, looked after as VIPs, etc. NO! Why should they?
The programmes are better than most reality shows because they are actually based on good research, and the TV starlets have actually bothered to read, and tried genuinely to understand what’s going on. For this reason, I like them, they are more educational that the scandalous crap that was served to the audiences by Channel 4 in particular from the late 90s to the early 2000. The same problem, however, applies here. Viewers are not told about all this background research based on years of fieldwork by anthropologists. It’s like if Bruce Parry had absorbed it from the air or the water. It devalues, as a result, all the work anthropologists do. It gives the misleading impression that travelers/ explorers can reach anthropological understandings effortlessly, just being there for a few days!
jpostill | 26-Oct-08 at 12:26 pm | Permalink
Although I am an anthropologist specialising in contemporary media I must confess I only saw two of Bruce Parry’s programmes (incl. the one about the Penan of Borneo; my own PhD fieldwork was among the Iban of Borneo) and even more of a painful confession: I actually enjoyed most of what I saw. This could be partly to do with the fact that when I’m watching TV or consuming a McHollywood film I tend to switch off the critical areas of my brain so I can enjoy the show, or at least try to.
Bruce Parry is clearly an empathetic person who seems to connect well with the people he works with. That said, I did have a problem with Bruce’s ‘discovery’ that the Penan he spent some time with were struggling to maintain a nomadic lifestyle in the face of mass logging and other outside pressures. There was a missed opportunity here to contextualise this better politically and historically so the viewer unfamiliar with the region was left with a sense of historical inevitability and political impotence, when in reality there are a number of organisations in Malaysia and abroad campaigning for the rights of indigenous Borneo groups such as the Penan, not least their land rights.
A final note: I think anthropologists should make much better and frequent use of the new Web technologies to present alternative accounts of these peoples. Web content works in mysterious ways, but it needs to be created first and put up there, and this ASA Blog is part of this growing effort that we need to make as a discipline.
Andre Singer | 26-Oct-08 at 6:00 pm | Permalink
Sorry to have been away from the blog for a few days – all in the name of progressing anthropology on TV for the future I assure you.
Although every anthropologist I have ever met has an opinion on what is happening in broadcasting with the discipline, I see the comments are thus far slow in coming in. Partly I feel this is because of a confusion about trying to define what in fact should be regarded as anthropology on television and what is in reality just exotic entertainment that happens to use tribal society as a backcloth. Both Simone and Laura Rival are ambivalent about where Tribe (for example) fits – largely coming down on the side that it is not anthropology. On the other hand for the many millions ( and we are talking about in excess of 20 million people worldwide) of viewers this is quintessentially what anthropology represents; and there lies it’s inherent danger. All these programmes pay lip-service to a warm understanding of the values of the peoples visited by the Western protagonist; they all pour out clichés about respect, us learning from them, their deep wisdom, etc. etc. yet I fear that the apetite they are increasingly having to whet is for greater and greater ‘exoticism’ and danger. The recent editions of ‘Last Man Standing’ are exactly that.
So I find myself in the forefront of this whole issue by on the one hand having helped, advised and promoted attention to anthropology from the broadcasters; but on the other, finding that the earlier aspirations of wanting indigenous societies to have their own voice seems, in a global communications world to be being sacrificed to a debased and voracious need to entertain rather than understand. Perhaps that is just the nature of changes in the Reithian aspirations of modern television, but I suppose a question that needs addressing is how badly is this television appetite affecting the societies that are coming under gretaer and greater scutiny by our cameras? We are already aware from Rodriguez’ excellent report how dangerous such aspirations have already proven to be in Peru, but it is not just the ethical issues about intrusion that should concern us – essential though they are – it is how much of a distorted image about other societies is being projected on Western consciousness through popular television? I fear I am throwing out more queries than resolutions at the moment but I do feel this is a vital area that anthropologists find too amorphous to want to tackle and yet need to address. Perhaps that is the beauty of the blog culture!
Magnus Course | 04-Nov-08 at 5:46 pm | Permalink
I quite agree with Andre’s statement that anthropologists have far more opinions about popular anthropological films than they do suggestions for how to improve them. I would further suggest that this relates to our rather uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the ‘exotic’. We are quick to criticize any exoticizing tendency, either in academic writing or popular ethnographic film. At the same time, however, we’re acutely aware that a perennial fascination with exotic others is pretty much the only reason anthropology in any form ever makes it on to televission (or, for that matter, why any students take our courses!) The beauty and dignity of earlier ethnographic films made for television, including many of the Disappearing World series, is in my opinion rooted in a careful balance of similarity and difference. The subjects of these films are allowed to be ‘exotic’ but on their own terms and in ways which were carefully contextualized. The end result was many films which a popular audience found interesting (primarily because of perceived difference) but that simultaneously convinced viewers of a shared humanity. The problem at the heart of the debate therefore, is why the current batch of TV ‘anthropology’ fails so miserably where it’s predecesors succeeded? For me at least, the great difference between what I will call ‘current’ and ‘classic’ anthropology for television is the role of the presenter. Take, for example, Tribe. Each episode is primarily about Bruce Parry, and only secondarily about the unfortunate group he happens to have descended upon. This structure has to be the case, as the hook for each piece is Parry’s struggle to make sense of his exotic hosts. Their exoticism is thus necessarily the key trope of each episode. Our engagement with the subjects of each film is now mediated by the presenter in a way which occured in a far less obtrusive fashion in earlier attempts at popular anthropology. This mediation disconnects the viewer from their own attempt to understand and make sense of the exotic others presented to them. The exotic remains, but the shared humanity seems to have been reduced, as Andre points out, to a series of cliches. It is falling victim to the cult of the presenter which seems to me to be the primary failing of the new wave of ethnographic film. Once again, the subjects have lost the right to speak for themselves.
Daniel Rodriguez | 06-Nov-08 at 4:39 pm | Permalink
I think that it is important to position anthropology as a discipline in relation to these emerging television trends. Looking back to the Disappearing World series (mentioned by Andre and Magnus) is a good starting point because in that case the involvement of anthropology and anthropologists in television was a clear one. However, in the new context at hand the anthropologists and anthropology have been largely excluded from the ‘picture’. Television has established a relation of its own with classical anthropological subjects. As a result I think that in this case, the loyalty is not anymore to the ‘ethnographic’ but to the ‘real’; not to ‘objectivity’ but to a self-proclaimed ‘authenticity’.
In this sense, following the reflections of Laura on the new ‘parasitic’ nature of the relationship between anthropology and television, I would further argue that these television series are not only based on the ‘exotisation’ of indigenous peoples but in a significant degree on the ‘exotisation’ of the practice of anthropology. The televised representation of participant observation tends to be a fairly frantic and irreflexive one. Sparing the quotidian ‘boredom’ expected in fieldwork, westerners are commonly seen ‘real time’ for the camera trying to make sense of intensely chaotic or shocking difference. In some ways giving an allegoric image of Ash and Chagnon caught in the midst of “The Ax Fight”.Hence, although anthropology may have been excluded from television, the ‘anthropological’ has remained to serve the purpose of legitimising a new ‘tribal’ imaginary.
Magnus reference to the central figure of the ‘presenter’ and its implications in preventing audience’s ‘understanding’ is a fundamental one. However, beyond the mere presence of the ‘presenter’ I think that it is also important to pay attention to the kind of interactions that this figure promotes. This ‘presenter’ is a different one than that “audience’s representative in distant lands” mentioned by Paul Henley (1985: 6) and popularized by David Attenborough. The distance between the new ‘presenter’ and the ‘indigenous other’ is not that clear anymore, as the audience appeal of these programs is largely based on the ‘presenter’s transformation in ‘indigenous’. Moreover, in this new approach the interaction with the audiences is largely mediated by the body of the presenter experiencing the alien culture. In this sense, the basic aim seems to be to engage audiences not so much in the ‘understanding’ but in the ‘feeling’ of otherness. This contributes further to set anthropology and television in separated domains.