These images are a 3-part ad for a Discovery channel reality show. The first page had the guy with his face being painted and says “Live like a tribesman.” The second page had him running and says “Train like a soldier.” And then, as you can see in the previous post, they show him wrestling with a black African “tribesman,” I guess. It appears this is a reality show where we see if a white guy can learn to be a primitive tribesman and show his superiority to the actual “tribesmen” (I’m not sure how I feel about that term).
Comments 2
Luey — August 15, 2009
It's been awhile since this show came out, so you may already know what the premise of the show actually is: six British and American athletes (including one black man and another of indeterminate race) travel around the world, live with tribal groups, and learn their style of fighting. Their skills are exhibited as the athletes then compete against the natives and against each other. From the shows I saw, the athletes won fairly often. They tended to be taller and more muscular than their opponents, and because they were chosen for their athletic ability, they did well at learning the new fighting styles.
The athletes were honored to be included in the tribes (many episodes included an "adoption" by tribe members of the athletes, which may or may not have been staged), and honestly respectful of the cultures they encountered. The show was not "a reality show where we see if a white guy can learn to be a primitive tribesman and show his superiority to the actual “tribesmen”" (btw, not sure how I feel about that term either). The show WAS about competition, but I never felt that the tribes were being marginalized or put down for their efforts and skills (and as an anthropologist, I have a fairly fine-tuned sense of outrage about that kind of thing).
But as a sociological images study, the fact that Discovery chose to use only the white athletes in their ads is interesting. Maybe they were afraid that people wouldn't get it if they used the black guy. Anyway, I was terrified that the show would be awful, and ended up enjoying it. Although it wasn't perfect from an anthropological sense, it was better than the norm, and showed non-western culture in a pretty good light.
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