Dennis O’Rourke’s experimental documentary film Cannibal Tours (1988), may (as the ambiguous title suggests) tell us more about the western tourists who consume and acquire indigenous culture (as they imagine it to be) at camera-point than it does about the ways that indigenous peoples really lived or live. A decade after the film’s release, O’Rourke wrote an intriguing essay titled “On the Making of Cannibal Tours“. Excerpted below are a few passages to guide your own reflections:
As my film evidences, modern-day tourism is, in a sense, the successor to the colonial expeditions. It is interesting to note how tourists from countries, which had colonies, tend to favor their former colonies as holiday destinations. This could be due to the fact of a shared language and some inherited practices – like the baking of baguettes, but I feel it is more due to nostalgia for the “romantic” colonial era. There is a nostalgic wish to revisit “the scene of the crime”. As the German tourist says in the film, “I met a native man who was something like a mayor, he explained how his village had been under the control of the Germans, and what a good time it was!”
I like to think of Cannibal Tours not so much as a film about the negative effect of mass tourism on fragile cultures, which should be obvious to everybody; but more as a philosophical meditation set in the milieu of this kind of tourism. The film is much more about the whole notion of “the primitive” and “the other,” the fascination with primitivism in Western culture and the wrong-headed nostalgia for the innocence of Eden.
It is this nostalgia which fuels the “Noble Savage” myth. I think it stems from our quest to conceive and define that pristine state of existence we intuitively feel that we once enjoyed and have now lost. I believe that this nostalgia is inseparable from our pessimism, religious, sexual and otherwise. I believe that we all have a particular longing to be elsewhere, to be alive in a timeless past.
And the film is about voyeurism and the act of photography itself. This is described in both the acts of the tourists and in my acts of photographing.
This documentary was incredibly uncomfortable to watch. In my eyes, it depicts the process of westernization in the mid-20th century and how tourism destroyed local economies and cultures towards the end creating dependency on a racist and classist global economic system, to sustain that very system.
I find their definition if a more evolved life to be very disturbing. it is not only that they look down on the others way of life, it is that in order to sustain their extravagant, wasteful, and indulgent way of life the others must be destroyed. The resources, labor, and space required to upkeep that way of life is only possible for a very few number, on the backs of the many. The racist ideology depicted in this is a necessary component of the conditions required to build the capitalist and consumerist society we live in today. It emerged in the west, and was forced onto all other people, not to benefit them, but because it was the only way to satiate their indulgent desire engrained into them by western philosophies and ideologies.
How did these western ideologies prevailing over all others? by means of violence. but it is justified by covering up that past and claiming that it HAD to be this way, that it is the BEST way, that it is GODS way. it is the CIVILIZED and EVOLVED way and that all others are lesser.
It makes emotional in so many ways.
The film Cannibal Tours (1988) presents an unsightly yet genuine perspective on tourism. I completely agree with the description of how tourists view their surroundings as primitive and others. Western tourists hold a belief that they are owed this tour experience because this is how they believe they used to live. However, these same tourists would never desire to spend the rest of their lives in these indigenous spaces.
Furthermore, within the film, the Western tourists consistently display ideals of ownership. They own things through pictures, buying materialistic goods, and turning someone else’s life into a film for profit. Ownership is shown through improper portrayal of the different villages and people of Papua New Guinea. With minimal evidence of distinctions between the peoples. Their attempt at representation was listing the names of the villages included in the documentary, but this was easily sullied through their word choice. The directors thanked the people of Papua New Guinea for their cooperation. Language connotation maintains a serious impact on perception. The use of the word cooperation and not collaboration implies that the indigenous peoples were simply following the rules and catering to the request of these tourists, without any of their input.
The behavior of the tourists in the film Cannibal Tours (1988) while extreme is still present today. While walking through La Noche Blanca people were lined up to pose with people in “exotic” wear. This film opened my eyes and changed my perspective on tourism and this study abroad experience.
After viewing the film Cannibal Tours (1998), it really puts into perspective how tourists can behave when visiting a place that is foreign to them. Given that the film depicted interactions between indigenous groups and western tourists, it really shows the complex power dynamic between the two.
A scene that stood out to me was when the old man from an indigenous group was talking about how the tourists have so much money, yet they have the audacity to bargain by asking for a second, even a third price. This gives the connotation that the tourists feel so superior that they think the people they are buying from are going to take however much they can get, no matter how little because they know that their money is “needed.” This superiority also displays itself when the tourists paint themselves as indigenous people symbolizing that they can take whatever they want as they please because they “have the means” teetering between the lines of appreciation and appropriation. Additionally, the scene where the indigenous woman was frustrated at the tourists because they do not buy any of their products that show off their skills and cultural and traditional aspects, and contrasting that with tourists paying to take photos with the indigenous peoples gives the impression that a photograph proving that they were there, experiencing this tour, is more valuable that actually learning about the craftsmanship and meaning of these items.
This film definitely made me think about how I act as a tourist and made me become more self-aware of how I present myself and how I act while studying abroad. I make sure to properly digest all the information we’re taught on the several tours we’ve been on and try to immerse myself in the experience as best I can. I do not want the people around me to feel like they have to cater to my needs just because I am a tourist.
What a disturbing film!! With so many things to discuss about the film, I’ll just approach it by addressing the role photography played in the film. As the director O’Rourke wrote, the film was “about voyeurism and the act of photography itself” —voyeurism in the context of tourism which subjects those in the visited country to the imperial power structures that have colonized the global south. The act of the camera in this film seemed to me to represent the way these Western powers—Germany, Italy, the United States, etc—who became rich off their imperial crusades, still practice control over postcolonial countries/nations through their unique expressions/uses of capital. In the film we see the funneling of capital (that we must remember only “belongs” to these tourists as a consequence of their respective countries’ imperial/colonial projects and the wealth that subsequently accumulated in their economies) into the fetishization of those previously colonized peoples. To them, Papua New Guinea is no more than a zoo, a playground, a vacation.
Photography has bared witness to this dehumanization for decades and photos taken by German colonizers (see link below) during their occupation are eerily similar to those taken by the tourists in this film. The look on the faces of those benefiting from colonialism are blissful, carefree, because they refuse to recognize the way their occupation (yes both that of the German colonizers and the contemporary tourists in the film) neglects the autonomy of the people of Papua New Guinea. Even after the occupying German forces left, they remained dependent on foreign capital by design. Independence here is thus a double edged sword as Papua New Guinea thus had to abide by the rules of the global economy. The country remains a plaything for foreign actors, subjected to their whims and tied down by their manufactured need for capital. The colonial project in Papua New Guinea, as in so many other postcolonial nations, is here evolved, not gone.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/20/australias-ignorance-about-papua-new-guinea-is-a-loss-for-both-nations
The film Cannibal Tours(1988) really showcased westernization and how tourism as a whole had shifted in the late 20th century. The actions of the tourists really set a tone of superiority amongst the villagers. They completely lacked any respect for the locals and treated them as if they were things. One scene that stood out was when a white lady sat down to take a photo with a few of the children from the village, she did not want them getting too close. They (the children) were simply artifacts in her picture. Also the children she chose to be in her picture were unclothed and much younger, when we could see in the background that there were clearly other better dressed children that she could have chosen to take a picture with. This gave the impression that she wanted her picture to be more representative of the ‘primitive’ ways that the tourists believed the villagers lives in.
Another thing that I found interesting was the fact that throughout the film, multiple villagers spoke about their take on the tourists/tourism. Many stating that while they dislike that they have money and how they behave towards the villagers, they understand that they need them to buy their goods so that they can have their own money, as their economy is based on the tourism to their village. But what I did not see was the tourists ever reflecting on why the economy is the way it is or why they behave in such a pompous way; asking for second or third prices because they know that they can. In fact, there was a scene when a villager had asked them that sort of question and not sure if the film was edited like this purposely or if this was their real response, but the tourist had just changed the subject about the artifact he was interested in buying.
At the end of this film, it really put into perspective my role as a tourist as I continue to travel to different countries and immersing myself into new cultures. Also taught me to be more self aware, to make sure that my privilege (if any) does not show in my actions when abroad.