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From May 2002 Anthropology
News
Surviving “Survivor”
in the Marquesas
Kathleen C Riley
Johnson State C
Following Sept 11, Mark Burnett decided to relocate the setting for
his next “Survivor” TV series from Jordan to Nuku Hiva,
a remote Polynesian island that his viewing Americans could idealize
as peaceful and plentiful. Having done fieldwork on this island, I was
quick to imagine not only how the producers would exploit indigenous
imagery to promote the “tribal” drama of the show, but also
how te ‘Enana, “the people” of Nuku Hiva, would
negotiate this use of their land and culture.
Te ‘Enana and the West
With a population of 2,500, Nuku Hiva is the administrative center
of the Marquesas, renowned in academic circles as a typical colonial
nightmare—95% of the indigenous population killed off in less
than a hundred years and most practices of cultural saliency “silenced”
by French Catholic administration. Before this occurred, Melville had
put the Marquesas on Western pop charts with Typee, portraying
Marquesan society as a hotbed of cannibalism and unbridled sexuality;
painter Gauguin did little to transform these images.
“Survivor” has erased
the human component altogether. The jungle-shrouded peaks are digitally
mastered to obscure all signs of prior habitation. The island’s
husbanded animals and produce appear to exist as natural resources available
for easy trapping and plucking. The most we see of “the people”
are a few quick shots of statuesque, tattooed warriors cut in to mark
commercial breaks.
Nonetheless, cultural paraphernalia
serve as survival props and backdrops. Laid down as background music
are traditional chants synthesized into world music by Rataro, a musician
from Ua Pou. Motifs, crafts and practices are worked into the “challenges”
the “tribes” engage in: the contestants struggle to ingest
fafaru, a fermented raw fish dish considered unstomachable by
Westerners. When voting each other out, the players write each other’s
names on tapa and put them in a carved umete, and the
immunity trophy they fondle is the type of wooden tiki sculpted
for the tourist trade.
First Impact
Burnett first arrived in French Polynesia on Sept 14 and met with President
Gaston Flosse the next day. By mid-Oct, the production crew of 230 arrived
in Nuku Hiva and began constructing buildings, roads and the “tribal
council” (a pseudo-Polynesian structure of coconut pillars and
palm frond roof). On Oct 31, the French Polynesian Council of Ministers
declared four valleys off-limits from Nov 4-Dec 23. Filming began on
Nov 12.
Right from the start, the producers
met with official and local resistance. On Nov 19, during a meeting
with the TV producers in Nuku Hiva, the French Polynesian vice president
claimed to have invested $460,000 on the promise that the publicity
would reinvigorate tourism in French Polynesia. Now, they were asking
that a “Tahiti Mystic Island” logo and website address be
broadcast as part of the program’s credits. No accord was signed.
Once the production was complete,
the cruise ship on which half of the production crew had been housed
was detained by customs in Tahiti. According to the minister for the
economy and finances, the producers had not made the necessary arrangements
with the government for using the ship in this way, and a tax of $444,000
was levied.
Local Reception
On Oct 2, the people of Nuku Hiva were reported by Tahiti Presse
to be “delighted to see the project come true.” But by Oct
11, “financial and technical” difficulties had developed
between the population and the producers, and there were rumors that
“Survivor” would leave for Fiji. Minister of the Craft Industry
Pascale Haiti, one of the major mediators of these tensions, explained
that it is normal for ‘Enana to “test first-time visitors.”
Next, four families who owned
land in the valleys already reserved by governmental decree for the
filming took their discontent to court. Katupa and Tekuataoa lost their
case and were required to pay Burnett’s legal fees. Another plaintiff,
Bambridge, requested and was granted a cash settlement of $23,000. In
the third case, all that Goltz, the owner of the land on which the “tribal
council” was built, “won” was the right to have this
structure dismantled at the end of the game.
The most evocative story is that
of Daniel, the 74-year-old caretaker of the cultivated valley of Hakatea,
whose house, dock and plumbing system were bulldozed to make the valley
look uninhabited. Although a prefab was put up for him elsewhere, he
was not thrilled: “The Americans are quick and rich. . . . We
didn’t want to move, but there was strong pressure.”
Nonetheless, a number of factors
won at least some of the population over. First was the idea that the
show would attract tourists. Another immediate plus was the offer to
hire nearly 400 locals, including 170 “hunters” and “fishermen”
to help guard the valleys from security breaches, as well as drivers
and other assistants for wages that are extremely high by local standards.
Finally, the production offered
“the people” the chance to reverse the normal vector of
TV transmission (since the late 1980s, they have been ingesting American
programming) and to broadcast the marvels of their henua “land”
to Americans. As one resident of Taiohae put it, “‘Survivor’
is the chance of a lifetime. From now on, people will know what the
Marquesas islands really are.”
Long-Term Repercussions
As the production got under way, grumblings were heard: fishermen were
unable to fish in their waters; prices went way up. Even those employed
by the production were ambivalent. Drivers were happy to receive good
money for the use of their vehicles, but were frustrated by having to
wait around all day at the producers’ beck and call. One of the
“hunters” said, “They pay me for doing nothing. They
are crazy, those Americans.”
Moreover, I doubt the tidal wave
of American tourists ever will arrive. Not only is the nono (the biting
fly that causes itchy, infected welts) bad press, but the difficulties
and expense of visiting the Marquesas remain insurmountable for the
average tourist.
Meanwhile, Burnett decided to
thank “the people” by granting Tahiti Nui Television the
right to broadcast the show from May. I suspect the response will be
in equal measure hilarity at the Americans’ foolish attempts to
survive their own machinations, distress that the production has left
the Marquesas so little in the way of economic benefit, and finally
indignation that ‘Enana have been dispossessed again of the chance
to represent their own culture to the world.
Yet, ‘Enana have managed
to “outwit, ouplay, outlast” the French for more than a
century and a half. This bit of American television ephemera will not
do them in. As my friend Moi told me, manihi’i “foreigners”
come in like refuse on the beach, but are swept out again by the next
tide. By contrast, ‘Enana remain, strong in their resilience.
Kathleen C Riley (kriley@together.net) did her fieldwork
in Nuku Hiva from 1992-93, and returned again in 2000 as a guest lecturer
on the Aranui, a cargo/tourboat that supplies the Marquesas, and to
do three weeks of follow-up research in Nuku Hiva.
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