Cultural Anthropology and Important Documentary

Question: Discuss about the Cultural Anthropology and Important Documentary. Answer: Introduction Culture refers to the way of life which includes customs, language, mode of dressing, traditions, behavior, beliefs, knowledge, law, morals, art, other capabilities as well as the habits that man acquire as a member of the society. Culture is a concept of anthropology which encompasses the range of phenomena that are transmitted via social learning in human societies. Therefore, culture is what shapes us and gives us our identity. Cultural diversity refers to the quality of different and diverse ways of life. There are various fields of study in cultural diversity which includes; Material culture, for example, food and food customs, tools and weapons which include clothing, housing, and travel. There are different economic organizations in various cultures encompassing systems of production, consumption, and exchange (Eller, 2016). Different social organizations and institutions are differently structured across culture which includes family, marriage, age groups, kinship, and sex. T here are different political institutions and social control across all cultures. There is different worldview across cultures regarding; knowledge, behavior, religion and even magic. Communities have their unique language, art, and play. Cultural diversity is important since our country, workplace and schools consist of various cultural, racial and ethnic groups. Therefore, we can learn from one another through understanding our differences, collaboration, and cooperation to remove stereotypes and even personal biases towards different groups. Globalization, westernization, and civilization have shown to have adverse effects on various cultures (Eller, 2016). Throughout this literature, I will review and critically analyze two films shown during the semester that show various cultural diversity and dynamism. The chosen films are; Tokyo-Ga and Cannibal Tours. Tokyo-Ga The film Tokyo-Ga is a 1985 documentary in which Win Wenders goes on a journey to Japan in an unsuccessful quest for a vivid picture of the transcendent beauty he associates with the sacred films of Yasujiro Ozu but unfortunately soulless, routinized behavior through travelogue and ethnographic study of the Japanese people and their culture. Searching for the Tokyo as showed in the films of Yasujiro Ozu, Wenders travels to Japan to record the images of the city; highways, parks, traffic, trains, subways cemeteries, the pinball parlors, video arcades, taxi cabs and much more. Wenders visits actor Chishu Ryu who featured in many of Yasujiros films which explain to him the precise working methods used by film director Yasujiro. They both visit the grave of Yasujiro which is unmarked but contains the Chinese symbol that signifies nothingness.' Wanders goes to the rooftop of the golf driving range and to a factory that manufactures the realistic wax food displays which are found everywher e in the country. Wonders meets his fellow German filmmaker Herzog Werner on the top of the Tokyo Tower. Werner laments on the death of truth images in the world after he observes a group of Japanese teenagers who dresses like the 1950s greasers and also dance to the American rock n roll. Wenders talks to Yuharu Atsuta who used to be Ozus cameraman (Michael Fogerty, 2016). They discuss the technical details of Yasujiros simple shooting style and demonstrates by use of a specially designed low tripod. Through bookending the hall-horrified images, half-comical pictures of the modern mechanised Tokyo with mostly lengthy scenes from Yasujiros Tokyo Story (1953), Wenders can demonstrate that the people and the city portrayed in Yasujiros films may not be only long gone but they might never have existed altogether except in the mind and heart of Yasujiro. Wenders finds out that Ozus film on the integration of the Japanese family was just a mere attempts to create order out of the chaotic world. Wenderss analysis and critical evaluation of the transparent and vivid beauty in the Ozus films is deeply penetrating but his efforts to come up with a larger philosophical and sociological importance by contrasting the purity of Yasujiros images with the overload of junk and unwanted pictures of the current Tokyo that is filled with numerous neon lights and the many ever-showing flickering TV sets that show baseball and American films is not such a success. Therefore, Wenders believes that the American culture is increasingly poisoning the world and blames the erosion of the culture of Tokyo on the postwar westernization of Japan, peoples obsession with order and the availability of televisions which have easily digestible images but he fails to come up with an easy explanation of all this. The erosion of Japanese culture which made them unique and adorable by persons like Wenders, civilization, and westernization is seen through how the teens are dressed, dancing to the American ro ck n roll, modernization of Tokyo by putting various TV screens that always show Baseball and American Movies. The documentary shows that westernization, civilization, and globalization has led to the erosion of the beautiful culture that Yasujiro was so focused on preserving. Wenders states that reducing the cinema to its bare essentials, that is just a fixed camera, Ozu gives us the declined Japanese family and also the decrease of the national identity hence erosion of the Japanese culture which was seen through local food, native clothing, music and the simplicity of Tokyo. The Tokyo-Ga is a short documentary but so important. As stated above, it is the scouting trip Tokyo-Ga. It is a diary-like a film directed by Win Wenders on a trip to Japan to access the works of a prominent film director, Yasujiro Ozu but discovers how Tokyo has changed compared to how it was in the films by Ozu. Cannibal Tours Cannibal Tours is a documentary film by the Australian director and cinematographer, Dennis ORourke 1988. This anthropologic film shows how the civilized and the primitive people tried and struggled to understand and fully comprehend each others culture. This quasi-documentary film shows two different perspectives, one belonging to the tourists and the other belonging to the natives. Cannibal Tours documents a cruise ship tour to the region along River Sepik in Papua New Guinea. The ship sails to these parts of the world carrying European and American tourists who are in search of Primitive cultures. The film captures a cross-cultural miscommunication and misunderstanding as for the tourists and the host's clash and misunderstands each other. This instance is both comic as well as disturbing. The film shows these American and European eco-tourists traveling from one village to the other throughout the region along Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. The tourists are seen making hard bar gains for the local handcrafted items, taking pictures of every aspect of the primitive life of the natives and paying to view the practices and ceremonies that used to be sacred among the natives (Visual Anthropology, 2016). The film also highlights on the black and white photographs from the dreadful era of the German colonization of the New Guinea between 1880s-1914. The tourists through these behaviors reveal a pervasive and an unattractive ethnocentrism to ORourkes cameras. The tourists end up being dehumanized by the cameras, as they are busy exoticizing the most common aspect of the life of the Sepik River peoples way of life. ORourkes Cannibal Tours is a sophisticated and stunning documentary. The cameras snap, the tourist continues to bargain while the locals are just lamenting and complaining. This film shows how little the western understands their culture. Cannibal Tours, therefore, succeeds in being both charming and at the same time devastating which is a fantastic combination. As the film ends, it seems that both cultures are totally confused with each others culture. Cannibal Tours are made of two journeys. The first is the actual journey that is made by the wealthy European and the American eco-tourists on a luxury cruise ship along the mysterious Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. The second Journey is the real text of the film is a metaphysical one. It represents the attempt to discover the residence of the other in modern imagination. It shows how the civilized persons wish to encounter the primitive cultures. The film indicates that the tourists are disrespectful to the natives and how they are ignorant of the natives culture. The wealthy eco-tourists think that they are helping the residents economically, but they are not since they were bargaining and asking for lower prices. The tourists also disrespect the natives culture and their religion in the sense that they enter sacred places and also demand to be entertained using the sacred ceremonies. The residents give in to their demands since they are poor and need the money and other rewards being offered by these wealthy tourists. The title Cannibal Tours can also be interpreted based on the German tourist who describes the past practices of raiding cannibalism. This German tourist is much obsessed with cannibalism as he is consistently and aggressively asking the local Native men about this past practice and even taking pictures of the locations where the residents once practiced the headhunting as even the other tourists also try to discuss the symbolic interpretation of cannibalism. However, the plot of this documentary is to portray the rich American and European eco-tourists as the real cannibals who consume the entire world via their arrogance, primitive fantasies of the natives, acquisitiveness and also photography in that the cameras in the documentary double for the former colonial administrators guns. This documentary by ORourke Cannibal Tours, therefore, portrays the tourists as persons driven by bizarre beliefs, behaviors, ideas and even intentions. However, the natives are portrayed as reasonable regardless of the tourists opinion that natives culture is backward. The local people represents modernity while the western tourists represent guilty due to the irrational traits they attribute to the residents. The film reaches the climax where the western tourists appreciate the natives culture as seen when these tourists dance, prance and also assume boxing stance as the local music plays while their faces are painted like those of the native people. This kind of cultural tolerance and integration is what brings beauty to humanity through cultural integration. Conclusion Cultural diversity is an important aspect of humanity. The differences in political, economic, social and cultural ideologies and practices are what makes us unique (Eller, 2016). Differences in race and ethnicity should not divide us but unite us as we come together to share our varied ideas, beliefs, practices, and other cultural variations. As seen in the two films discussed above, Tokyo-Ga by Win Wenders and Cannibal Tours by Dennis ORourke various cultures especially in the developing countries are at risk of being eroded due to the effects of globalization, westernization, and civilization. Cultural tolerance should be promoted so as we can protect and preserve our identity. Wenders is not happy with the influence the West and America has on Tokyo since it has led to culture erosion in the name of civilization. ORourke is not pleased by how the European and American tourist views the culture of the natives of River Sepik in Papua New Guinea as backward and uncivilized. Therefor e, these two films encourage us to tolerate other peoples culture since cultural diversity gives us an identity. References Eller, J.D., 2016. Cultural anthropology: global forces, local lives. Routledge. Michael Fogerty. (2016). Tokyo-Ga (1985) important documentary (Y?haru Atsuta) . [Online Video]. 14 September 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvsIxNEH-cE. [Accessed: 25 April 2017]. Visual Anthropology. (2016). Cannibal Tours - 1988 - Dennis O'Rourke . [Online Video]. 4 September 2016. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUQ_8wl93HM. [Accessed: 25 April 2017].