"Tribal wives" - Pseudo-anthropology by BBC?
The BBC has sent six British women to be “second wives” to so-called “tribesmen” in - according to the BBC “some of the world’s most remote communities". “Any anthropologist feels pleased when the hidden peoples of the world get a chance to appear on television, but the BBC series Tribal Wives is misleading", anthropologist Michael Stewart comments in The Guardian.
The tv-programm, he writes, gives us “a romantic notion of a Shangri-La", based on the idea “that we have lost something that only the “savage” can teach us". This film claims to be a window on another world, but we mainly learn about what it means to be a westerner in that situation.
Steward watched the episode about a British woman who spent a month with the Huaorani in Ecuador. Their village is far from isolated. It is a well-known eco-tourism destination with an airstrip in the middle of the village, according to the anthropologist.
>> read the whole comment in The Guardian
In a comment on the Survial International blog, Guy Edwards writes that the “overall impression was that of a circus where Huaorani culture was portrayed as simple and backward” and adds: “The BBC and/or the other production organisations involved should apologize and compensate the Huaorani for any damages.”
For more info on the programm, see UK women to become ‘tribal wives’ (BBC 10.11.06) How the Waorani tribe made me relax (BBC 24.6.08), Mudhut life for Lana enough to drive her away from drink (Evening News Edinburgh 2.7.08) and a more positive review in The Times by Caitlin Moran Tribal Wives - the acceptable face of reality TV from the BBC
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This entry was posted by admin and filed under indigenous people / minorities, Us and Them, Native American, media. 3 comments
Comment from: yidaki53
They have a similar show in Sweden, where Saami-wives go all the way from Lappland in the north of Sweden to the middle of Africa to live with Massaj-tribesmen. It’s supposed to show the differences and similarities between the family-lives in the Saami and Massaj communities.
It’s interesting, although very shallow. It shows for instance, more of a clash between intersubjective life-worlds then ethnocentricity. Interesting(!) how they view the existential subject differently.
Comment from: lorenz
Yes you’re right Alexandre. But it is a global trend as Robin reminds us of (similar shows in Germany as well). Media has been commercialised and as a friend who works with such kinds of shows says, their job is to entertain, not to educate, they are interested in promoting the stereotypes and not in challenging them
I tend to react pretty strongly to these things, on a personal level. It really does make me cringe. It’s a knee-jerk reaction. A gut feeling.
The anthropological reaction comes later, when I realize that I need to reassess how different groups of people commonly perceive one another.
The typical relativist, I try to put these portrayals in perspective. Regardless of how distasteful these examples of ethnocentrism may be to some of us, they’re pretty much expected in just about any context. The BBC is high-profile and British society is still dominant enough that we probably tend to side with the people who are misrepresented by the programme. But we can probably all think of cases in which our own cultural contexts have been completely misunderstood by people from just about any other cultural background.
Besides, is the BBC simply “giving people what they want?”
Sure, it’s a way to play devil’s advocate. But that’s part of our job, right?