Cannibal Tours (1989) is a shocking documentary capturing wealthy tourists in Papua New Guinea while also capturing the perspectives of local indigenous people. The filmmaker Dennis O’Rourke writes: “…modern day tourism is, in a sense, the successor to the colonial expeditions,” as the most powerful nations of the world have shifted from directly creating a power dynamic in which the colonized are actively exploited, to passively exploiting through neocolonialism through cultural and economic dominance. Tourists essentially act as voyeurs with cameras in a zoo as the native people are treated like objects, such as when a woman in the movie took a picture with local children and didn’t want to get too close to them. As wealthy tourists approach new cultures as an “us” and a “them,” this also creates a power dynamic especially with local vendors selling souvenirs as they rely on the tourists for income, even though they’re commodifying their culture while the wealthy often suggest lower prices. A local woman in the documentary is rightfully upset as there is no way to end this system of capitalism and consumption. Tourism is a double edged sword with the boat tours bringing money for the local people, but they’re forced to work in a system that doesn’t serve them.
The attitudes of the wealthy tourists, especially seen through dialogues of on the boat tour, is complex to say the least. The tourists see the native people as primitive and needing help from western countries to get “pushed in the right direction of development,” while also viewing them through a lens of innocence, thinking “they don’t know any better.” They treat native people as lesser than while also infantilizing the whole culture because it is seen as undeveloped. This is a larger global issue, but the least we tourists can do is to support local crafts and lose this view of western superiority while being mindful of our consumption patterns.
