Too many crimes to list etc.
The academic journal Postcolonial Studies recently published an article by Assistant Professor of Hispanic studies at Pepperdine University George Arthur Carlse, PhD. in which he analyzed the 2016 surf film Um Filme de Surfe, starring CT surfer Yago Dora, Yuri Gonçalves and Lucas Silveira.
In the film, which refers to itself as a cliché in the opening scene, the three surfers go to Indonesia to surf perfect waves with no one out.
A short blurb by Surfer editor Garrett James, here, describes the film as “mixing equal parts foolery and play with high-action shredding,” which “can erase the seriousness that accompanies professional surfing nowadays.”
In contrast, Dr. Carlse feels that “The surfers engaged in racist, Orientalist hijinks, that reinforce the fratriarchal aspect of their constructed identities.”
There is a lot to unpack in there, as they say, but it seems his main beef with the film is a scene where the surfers perform a Polynesian war dance.
According to Carlse, the scene establishes the superiority and condescension felt by the visitors towards the locals. Carlse says it reduces the complicated cultural interactions of all surf travel to the idea of Westerners finding clueless locals living without any knowledge of the value of their own waves or even of the modern world.
It also highlights race as a factor in the hegemonic relationship between visitor and local, positioning the light-skinned Brazilians as modern, translocal Westerners as they play-act being timeless island ‘savages’ with darkened skin.
From Carlse’s paper:
In Rule 4, the narrator states, ‘You weren’t the first person to arrive in the area, so pay respect to the local traditions’ (translated in the subtitles). In this sequence, Leandro Dora, his face caked in mud and wearing a coconut husk for a hat, mimes teaching the boys a Polynesian or perhaps Maori war dance with a large stick. The surfers all wear crude grass skirts over their board shorts and their faces are again painted with mud. They stand at attention and then repeat their instructor’s slashing movements as if they were in savage military training. The scene is reminiscent of military recruits learning to fight from a boot-camp instructor mixed with exaggerated nonsensical shouts that are meant to seem Polynesian or Maori. Dora shouts in a fake primitive accent, Aki nóis é malaco, nós não arranha carro porque não tem carro, só pode chamar us guerreru (‘Here we are hotshots, we don’t scratch up a car because they don’t have a car, you can only call us warriors’ – author’s translation). When Leandro Dora says they can’t scratch up a car because the locals don’t have one, it suggests that, on this imaginary island, locals could never have cars because then they would not be ‘savages’. Talking about not seeing cars to scratch highlights both the pranks the surfers might engage in and the relative poverty of the region. Then Dora leads his students in repeating gibberish and shaking their staffs. In a later cut between surf footage, Gonçalves is shown, still in his mud mask and grass skirt, holding a stick between his legs doing pelvic thrusts.
In this scene, ‘respecting the locals’ is done through a transposition of Polynesian stereotypes onto their Indonesian locale. The surfers elide their own particular coastal Brazilian, upper-class, light-skinned cultural identity in favour of the ‘translocal’ surfer identity and they orientalise the specific local island identity by ignoring it. The actual rural, Indonesian Muslims who live on the island are replaced with an exotic, primitive, Polynesian-island stereotype. The scene reinforces the cultural and economic power imbalance between visiting surfers and locals in Indonesia.
What’s next? Frontline reporting from the War On Christmas?
it’s over. drumpf is finished for sure now
Holly fuck, this was infuriating to read. This shit is getting way out of hand. Until Dems dial it back a notch or two Republicans are going to keep trumping on for decades to come.
What’s the point of this anyway? No one was offended when it first debuted over three years ago, why pick it up now. I was woke as fuck back then and didn’t see a problem with it and sure don’t see a problem with it now.
Malaco does not translate to hot shot, if anything it translates best to ruffian. Which I think is a major point this professor got wrong. Yuri is fully black, does this mean he’s in the clear when the other light skinned privileged Brazilians are wrong? Go pick on Elvis, Mickey Rooney, Downey, etc…
Ah, a fellow pnbhs boy. Although you have muddied the water by saying he was your form 2 maths teacher.
Meaningful research and publication is done: this is neither.
Yeah yeah ive met heaps and they suk.
That was stunning. Good guy?
A teacher at my high school was a dead ringer for Groucho Marx
Occasionally a bunch of us would wear the glasses, nose & mo combo in class or around the grounds
Sparked up cigars a few times too…haha
As someone who’s done post grad stuff the social sciences I agree, it’s interesting. But it ain’t really exact and people who like to see things one way often latch onto the bits that jive with what’s trendy. Honestly post colonial PhD.. just say anthropology, or social scientist. Or cultural scientific expert or something. It’s a loaded title.
well put, I heard a comedian recently interviewed who said that “good comedy skates the edges of what is appropriate and great comedy doesn’t care”….
but we’ve lost the ability to laugh, even at a stereotype we don’t believe in. shock has replaced humor as looking for disrespect has become common.
and everyone is scared of the orange clown and the codes No Style or Substance.
So Muslim states treat their women poorly, ie Sunni run Saudi Arabia but varying individuals can be ok – even within those states? That’s sort of generalising too I would think. I definitely don’t think “all Muslims are bad” lots of dicks in every bunch! I just think if you stand against women being treated like they are 2nd class, you’d feel pretty strong about a religion, any religion (not people) embracing this idea.
Fuck people have way too much time on their hands.
The liberated mind doesn’t discriminate. It hates all with equal vehemence.
Mantra of the grumpy local.
This professor is surely a twitch, but what’s the difference between him pointing an academic finger at Yago and you pointing a journalistic finger at the professor?
Most brazillians lost all their memories about their indigenous/precolonial past, we were forced to forget our original language, religion, etc… so what to expect?
Postcolonial Studies – Right up there with comic book guys Masters is Mythology and folklore.
What is there to know.. Pre colonial = original people and traditions, post.. capitalism and those traditions are then compromised, sometimes brutally. About sums it up eh. But that does not a career professor in grievance studies make, so he/they/them/she/her/zim/zer have to ascribe meaning to things that essentially have none, seemingly making it an academic account. Fuck off with overanalysing things anyone can figure out, because its obvious.. They danced around like dicks, just say that. It wasn’t a comment on the “pro’s” of colonialism by a bunch of racists. Jesus.
“they danced around like dicks”
Pretty apt description of the human experience.
Just another fukwit telling people what’s right and what’s wrong with themselves.
How bout telling the dumb Muslims to treat their women right?
Bexy, that would be holding both an Islamaphobic, yet very pro feminist stance. I’ve often wondered how the outrage machine reconciles this conflicting woke pathos.
Tell me about it.
Not one fuken journo will ask this obvious question.
If the lefties support Islam and hate Christians it confirms their evil status
I’ve never gotten the love of Islam and anti Christian thing. Being from proud lefty stock, it’s a debate I’ve had dozens of times with contemporaries and they never have a reasonable come back. You cant be anti authoritarian and praise any religion that is barbaric. For the record, all religions are barbaric, definitely including Christianity here. However, in the current climate, if you say Islam is.. well..das racist.
Sure.
Hate one hate them all
But some are so much worse than others.
Even on this site a lot of cunts Jesus bash but don’t utter a word on Mohomos evil rantings.
You should vote Liberal. Thats conservative for you septics.
They’re more right than wrong and that’s about all you can hope for.
haha don’t think I can vote liberal. The hypocrisy in the last few years of clown world has me tripp’n hard though.
Most labor people now vote lib
They just lie about it while they wait till labor shakes off it’s idealistic wokeness
If Labor still had the Hawke esque, union strong/for the people version, as opposed to the Dumbocrat light version we see today I think they’d have beaten Scomo-noflo in the election. I like Albo but can’t tell if he’ll ditch the identity stuff Labor seem to love atm. Get woke – go broke.
Ambo is in inner west so expect more of the same .
And he’s left of the left
Ie, totally useless.
They’ll dump him pre next poll if they are smart which they are not.
Das Racist Jam.
Lefties don’t hate. Hate is a childish term to avoid criticism most often…. you Hate every day here bexy. Conservatives hate because they are intolerant.
xtians and muslims share one thing mr vidina…. they both worship bullshit. distrust each devotee equally.
Christians don’t publicly cane women for kissing someone.
they should cane their priests for kissing little boys
The left is eating itself. Too many contradictions to sustain.
Its no good cause good government needs good opposition
A Hispanic picking on Spaniards. Now that’s rich.
Orientalist
Reeks of outmoded, racist
Dumb Professor speak
An academic once again doing world-changing work. I will gladly pay $50k tuition/year for each of my kids so that this type of research can continue to be funded.