Tomaselli

Loizos’s points on ethnographic film and the ideaThe Tomaselli article is the one that stuck out to me the most. Because it points out the interesting juxtapositions found in anthropology. The second we go to study a culture for academic purposes, even worse for more commercial purposes like tourism, the culture is influenced and changed. If the Bushmen were put in park-lands, they would be required to wear loin-cloths that they normally did not wear. They also were a nomadic people and this would mean they would be confined to one area. They would have to adjust to this change, resulting in a change in who they are really.

The part of the article where they agreed to wear loin-cloths distributed by the film-makers was really jarring because these people acknowledged what these filmmakers were doing—portraying this culture inaccurately—but also acknowledged that they couldn’t do anything about it because they needed money and these loin-clothes symbolized future income for them because the public would want to buy them. So again they are sacrificing who they are or their integrity to make money.

We saw the same struggle with the film we saw on African Art. The Africans who were Muslims were the traders of the art—art which they saw as “pagan.” They would hide the art from their kids because it was seen as mysterious and bad, and yet one could say that their lives revolved around it each day to make money. This was all because they knew a profit would come out of it. They are sacrificing their beliefs, and in the San’s case their integrity, to conform to our currency.

We see the same thing with Body Shop’s recurring return to Kayapo to learn about their natural health products. Everytime they visit, their influence slowly grows. They saw our cameras and now use them to defend their culture and authenticity and yet somehow they are compromising a piece of their “authenticity” in the process.

This notion of objectively studying another culture can’t really exist because we will influence in one way or another and change them. We also saw this when Mead filmed the trance dance in Bali. They included women in the ritual, shortened it, and performed it in the day. These things done all for the purpose of academia had a consequence and influence on that culture. The women were then on included and played a more important role in that culture then so gender role slightly changed.