One recent day, a postcard advertisement for a new anthropologic-ethnographic film by Rina Sherman crossed my desk. I visited the promotional web site (D.E.R.) selling the new documentary -- for a cool $225 each to institutions. And there, as much as I have championed anthropological film theory, I was stunned by this documentary's (promotional) corpus of deeply intimate -- borderline pornographic -- content. Pornographic? Shouldn’t I pull that punch a bit? I don’t think so; because things have changed. Although maybe not enough, since this documentary distributor promoted Sherman’s film with the few bits of video content I have appropriated here. Why do this? (Are these the ‘juiciest’ clips that sell best?)
(Note: The sorry reason I have seen so few anthro-ethnographic films to date is exactly this... because access is so restricted and so expensive.).
Then, after ripping and editing these ‘representational’ promotional clips to build an argument, I also mixed in a growing genre of “Caribbean Pornography” to create a deeper provocative contrast. My point? Take your pick: Plump fulsome, explicit porn... or tacit, exotic, scholarship porn. There is little difference to me between these kinds of video ‘monetizations’?
Today, marketing cultural intimacy (ethnography) is as pruriently profitable as sexual exploitation. In our mediated world all cameras, even our anthropological cameras, can ‘kill’. Think about that for a minute. Britney Spears has; and so have her ‘supporters’. We live in a new visual reality where our constant visualization borders on voyeuristic perversion. Indeed, it often crosses that border. And here, in Sherman’s anthropological film/promotion we find much more than mere salvage.
Anthropological film has a long, important history: Malinowski, Flaherty (Nanook), Margaret Mead (+) Sol Worth, Jean Rouch, David MacDougall, among so many others. Indeed, much of the visual field of anthropology has embodied the camera for recording the exotic-other. But that was then; it is time to reconsider this practice in a world of camera-ubiquity, social-intimacy and global visuality.
In the recent past, ethnographic film has faltered around debates of reflexivity. When, and how, and how much should the filmmaker rightfully position themselves inside their constructions before crossing into narcissism? Today, an equally large question should trouble visual anthro-socio-cultural studies: Why must we photograph everything? When is enough images? Why must we, whether we are invited or not, continually record the most precious, private, intimate moments of others? My personal struggle with image “taking” began here. So, I have put my camera away for good... preferring instead to mash existing content into socio-cultural theory instead.
The boundaries between ‘prurient’ anthropology and pornographic explicitness are blurring. Isn’t there enough female imagery already available for study? Aren’t there enough ways to ‘record’ other cultures without shooting their most intimate moments with cameras and selling it globally for profit? Must we always stalk for one more ‘exotic’ picture? At what point exactly does anthropology with its endless hunt for meaningful imagery end and pornographic paparazzi begin? I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.
Or... just in case you are still wondering if critical reflexive media production matters: try this...
Leave Britney Alone 2008 (6:15)
