Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Hungry for Something Hawaiian.
Let's try something new....
I'm obviously a reality t.v. show junkie and admit that reality t.v. is my biggest guilty pleasure. The MTV show, Maui Fever, is an unfair, digressive, bad, sickening representation of Hawaiians and Hawaiian culture. In the words of spoken word poet Bao Phi, "What up with all these damn movies about white people in Hawaii? Can't the indigenous islanders get some love?" That about sums it up.
But I can't leave readers hanging ten (hah, okay, that was a really bad pun!) like that.
Everyday interactions and the governmentality (government technologies) that instill certain values in everyday people. Yes. This is what I really want to talk about. Or, more about the everyday commercialization of 'Hawaiian goods' and culture.
Hawaii is more than a vacation spot known for its beaches, beautiful people, luaus, surfers or clear blue waters. All that is just an image. But the power of image is so crucial and substantial that we seldom look at exactly what it is that we are looking at. Here's a crash course of the facts that play into our perception of Hawaiian tourism:
Hawaii was colonized. Along with the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba, Hawaii was colonized as a result of American imperialism and industrialization. When white settlers moved to Hawaii, they explored the land and dominated agrarian industries. Settlers also brought with them their Western ways and began to Westernize indigenous Hawaiians. Disease, European culture, views of the New World came along with settlement. The ways of the settlers, foreign to the Hawaiians, became institutionalized and therefore normalized. Hawaiians lost aspects of their culture, religion, government, and land in the early 19th/20th centuries. Haoles (foreigners) took over trade, established plantations (where Native Hawaiians became slaves) and inevitbaly claimed Hawaii as a part of the U.S. sphere of influence. Thus, the birth of capitalism on the Hawaiian Islands took place.
"Capitalism, in other words, relies on and encourages inequality and greed. Unlike the capitalist society driven by profit, Hawaiian culture places deeper value on land, history, and nature. Originally, Hawaiian society shared communal land, property, and wealth. If one person was poor, the entire community was poor. Hawaiians do not support capitalism, and therefore, do not like tourism. This creates a discourse that reflects and stresses these values. The result is two distinct discourses that have different perspectives on issues and establishments like tourism...Hawaiian culture existed long before tourism and has been exploited by tourism in the form of advertisements and items such as postcards. Along with the violence, endangered environment, and poverty, this exploitation is what the tourist industry does not want to show." (source)
Perhaps it'd be best to think twice about the content that pervades our t.v. sets and our minds.
x_magsalita.
You wake up on a hot summer day. You get up, brush your teeth, shower (if you haven't already), throw on that shirt with the hibiscuses and palm trees all over it that you've been eyeing all winter, step outside in your new Rainbow flip-flops and feel the breeze. 'It feels like paradise,' you think to yourself. Since it is summer and all, you wake up early at noon and head over to your friend's luau-themed barbeque. You're chillin in your new overpriced board shorts from Roxy or Quiksilver, whichever gendered clothing brand with which you identify. You wish you could go surfing like you were in Hawaii, but you can't because .... well, you live in the city. So you fulfill your craving for Hawaii with the food served at the barbeque - some L&Ls Hawaiian Barbeque and pizza with Hawaiian toppings (pineapple pieces & ham) along with a soda that comes with a cute, tiny umbrella that you swear only exists to keep you from actually consuming the beverage. But hey, it looks cute, right? Then, the entertainment comes out. Your friends graciously hired a halau (hula school) to come and perform for the guests. The hula dancers - clad in their coconut bras, kukui shells, flowers behind their ears and green leafy leis tied around their hips and neck - look just like the rest of the girls at the party. But you know these girls are especially particular because they're browner than everyone else. Even their hips, shadowed by their sarongs, say so. At the end of this 30-minute cultural presentation, one of the dancers (that you swear looks like a real life Lilo from Lilo & Stitch) picks out one of your homeboys during the audience participation part of their performance. Attempting to teach the basics of Tahitian/Polynesian dancing, you see your homeboy actually agressively pressing himself up against this dancer. It's funny though, because he's known to be the clown, so you don't say anything. The dancers leave, and the rest of the party people start to tone down, by playing with hula hoops, watching The Disney Channel's Johnny Tsunami and drinking coconut juice. After an overdose on 'Hawaiian culture,' you're tired of the girls' crimped hair, mellow music and head home because everybody jumped into the pool and you weren't ready because you didn't have your bathing suit on. I guess you didn't get that memo, because everyone just assumed that it was part of the luau theme. You make it home with enough time to go and hang up the colorful, plastic leis you've collected throughout the day and place them with the dried flower leis and money leis from your high school graduation before your favorite new reality t.v. show, Maui Fever, comes on. What a day.
I'm obviously a reality t.v. show junkie and admit that reality t.v. is my biggest guilty pleasure. The MTV show, Maui Fever, is an unfair, digressive, bad, sickening representation of Hawaiians and Hawaiian culture. In the words of spoken word poet Bao Phi, "What up with all these damn movies about white people in Hawaii? Can't the indigenous islanders get some love?" That about sums it up.
But I can't leave readers hanging ten (hah, okay, that was a really bad pun!) like that.
Everyday interactions and the governmentality (government technologies) that instill certain values in everyday people. Yes. This is what I really want to talk about. Or, more about the everyday commercialization of 'Hawaiian goods' and culture.
Hawaii is more than a vacation spot known for its beaches, beautiful people, luaus, surfers or clear blue waters. All that is just an image. But the power of image is so crucial and substantial that we seldom look at exactly what it is that we are looking at. Here's a crash course of the facts that play into our perception of Hawaiian tourism:
Hawaii was colonized. Along with the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba, Hawaii was colonized as a result of American imperialism and industrialization. When white settlers moved to Hawaii, they explored the land and dominated agrarian industries. Settlers also brought with them their Western ways and began to Westernize indigenous Hawaiians. Disease, European culture, views of the New World came along with settlement. The ways of the settlers, foreign to the Hawaiians, became institutionalized and therefore normalized. Hawaiians lost aspects of their culture, religion, government, and land in the early 19th/20th centuries. Haoles (foreigners) took over trade, established plantations (where Native Hawaiians became slaves) and inevitbaly claimed Hawaii as a part of the U.S. sphere of influence. Thus, the birth of capitalism on the Hawaiian Islands took place.
"Capitalism, in other words, relies on and encourages inequality and greed. Unlike the capitalist society driven by profit, Hawaiian culture places deeper value on land, history, and nature. Originally, Hawaiian society shared communal land, property, and wealth. If one person was poor, the entire community was poor. Hawaiians do not support capitalism, and therefore, do not like tourism. This creates a discourse that reflects and stresses these values. The result is two distinct discourses that have different perspectives on issues and establishments like tourism...Hawaiian culture existed long before tourism and has been exploited by tourism in the form of advertisements and items such as postcards. Along with the violence, endangered environment, and poverty, this exploitation is what the tourist industry does not want to show." (source)
For the show’s MTV cast of seven 20-somethings, it seems like either booze or hookups will do the trick. Mix the two and you’ve got a sure-shot remedy for MTV ratings during the off season from another of its reality series “Laguna Beach” with a hot copycat show that focuses on beauty and sex in paradise.That’s the premise behind the premiere of “Maui Fever”: attractive young adults turning up the heat in an already warm climate.
The show aired Wednesday, and some Maui residents are wondering how to rid the island of “Fever” altogether.
“I couldn’t even stomach the first few minutes,” said Darcy Orosco, a Kihei mom who noted she was most bothered by the episode’s sexual content. “I thought I would give it a chance. I thought it would portray our island in a beautiful way. It’s just horrible for Maui – it’s embarrassing.” (full article)
Perhaps it'd be best to think twice about the content that pervades our t.v. sets and our minds.
x_magsalita.
// posted by Janice @ 12:13 AM 
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