Tragedy Tourism
I read
this article today about getting tourist bucks from Pol Pot's home.
All that remains of the last house of one the 20th century's most brutal rulers, Cambodia's Pol Pot, is his toilet bowl and a dozen empty medicine bottles.
Now the site, along with others belonging to leaders of the ousted Khmer Rouge, could soon be restored and spruced up under a controversial plan to cash in on the country's genocide-scarred past...
Development of the area is part of a scheme, announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen in December 2001, to turn all of the country's genocide sites into tourism offices.
It got me thinking about the concept of tragedy tourism again. This summer I spent two months working nonstop with Kyu Sung on our entry for the WTC Memorial competition. The
guidelines say they anticipate between 8,000 and 50,000 people daily. Circulation and just containing all those people is really one of the biggest design problems. Of course, the problem that goes along with that is, what are they looking at and where are they going? It's a void; there isn't even Pol Pot's toilet bowl to look at. It's a graveyard. Well, that's how we'd like to see it treated. In truth, the site is already overrun with emotion trinket hawkers. It doesn't need quoting, but
here's a pretty good description:
Remember when it was just hallowed ground? Ground Zero is now one of the most popular tourism attractions in the city. It is a place where tour guides charge $15 a head to point out the spot where the firefighters raised the flag.
The proud can buy twin tower T-shirts, the angry can buy toilet paper bearing the face of Osama bin Laden and the curious can climb up the fence to take the perfect picture of what is now just a big hole. The hustle of commerce hawking to the crush of sightseers has prompted some to call it September 11 World.
Eventually one of the Libeskind buildings will house "The Museum of Freedom" (what a remarkably confusing name), as described in
The New York Times last March:
As envisioned, the first floor of a Museum of Freedom would be devoted to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; the second floor would be dedicated to the history of New York City; the third would explore freedom from a national perspective; and the fourth would have an international focus.
The Museum is being sponsored by American Express. It will be disgusting, and it will be profitable. I wonder, will it be so crass and commercial that we'll shop our way out of grief? How long will the tragedy tourism last? When will it turn into Grant's Tomb?
In February, when the shuttle
Columbia crashed in Texas, tragedy tourists
rushed to Nacogdoches to see the wreckage.
All last week, Jill Carroll, who works at the Heart of Texas gallery downtown, watched with mild disgust as people parked on the square, walked across to the bank parking lot where a shuttle part fell, took pictures and drove off.
The same thing is happening in Shanksville, PA, and, of course, Oklahoma City. It's tempting to say people are shopping for bigger emotions, but the idea makes me a little nauseous.
Something I found by Eva Hoffman:
Perhaps our fascination with tragic legacies--our idealization of catastrophe--derives in part from the sense that in our "post-" generation, we have had too many experiences and not enough profound experience, too much information and not enough history. Memory is the faculty through which we can claim to connect with a significant past, or maybe even with the sense of significance itself--for the very word memory has begun to be used as a sort of stand-in for the authentic or the real, especially, of course, for the authenticity and the reality of suffering. The vicarious urge to partake of, to "participate" in such authenticity is evident, for example, in the widespread "tragedy tourism": visits to former slave quarters in Africa, or mass tours of concentration camps.
Her conclusion about remembering the Holocaust:
In relation to the period of the Holocaust, and of World War II altogether, we are now at a crucial juncture, when living memory has to be relinquished. It is a poignant moment, akin to the moment of giving up mourning. In a sense, we need to make a choice as to whether in its relinquishment, the memory of the Holocaust will be passed on as myth or as history. I think there is much in the event that cries for transmutation into myth, which is the modality of deep emotion, and of awe. But I think we also have to follow the sterner gods of historical reflection and rigorous thought. If we do not, we run the risk of betraying the very legacy we are ostensibly honoring and preserving. We cannot undo the past, or even cure it. But we can derive from it an understanding that does justice to its richness and depth--and that can be potentially healing in its present and future uses.
Yeah. What she said.
In my googling for "tragedy tourism" I also ran across
this study guide about voyeurism in general. Here's the section on "Tragedy Tourists - The True Spectator Sport."
- Discuss the meaning and implications of the following quotation: "Die quietly and we'll hide you in steel box. Die publicly - and horribly - and everybody owns you."
- Have students read the following article:
- Andersen, Erin. "Fatal Attractions" The Globe and Mail, May 22, 2000, pp. R1 & R4
The article describes how some tourists are drawn to visit the sites where people have died as a result of gruesome and freakish violence.
- Have students respond to the following: In the article, the author suggests that "People are drawn to places like Columbine because the media promotes the trip". She goes on to imply a metaphor where people are the tourists, and the media is the tour guide. Explain what she means and the extent to which you agree or don't agree with her observations.
- Engage students in a discussion regarding the Spectacle of Human Tragedy:
- Why are people attracted to these sites?
- What types of places or events evolve into spectacles that draw public attention?
- Examples to discuss: Columbine / Taber Alberta, Oklahoma Bombing, World Trade Center, OJ Simpson's Run from the Law, Montreal Polytechnique, Jack the Ripper Tour, Jon Benet Ramsey
- To what extent will people go to become a 'part of history'?
- Is this appropriate and / or expected behavior? Why or why not?
- How is this type of "Tragedy Tourism" different from visiting sites of historical significance such as former Nazi Concentration Camps, Pearl Harbor, the explosion at Halifax Harbour.
The breadth of the study guide is impressive. Here's a portion of the Table of Contents:
- Reality TV - The Rise of Mainstream Voyeurism
- Web Cams - A Move to Voluntary Surveillance - The Dangers of Abuse
- Introduction to Involuntary Surveillance - Today's James Bond - Tools and Methods
- Pervasiveness of Surveillance in our Daily Lives: Safety versus Privacy
- Big Brother is Watching: Culture of Paranoia & Fear / Intense Monitoring=Self Monitoring of Behaviour
- Hollywood Connection
- Identity Theft
- Online Communications - Lures, Dangers and Precautions - Protecting your identity and your safety
- Cyberhate: Regulating the Internet: Is It Possible?
- Consumer Mapping
- Use of Surveillance Cameras to Regulate and Monitor the Behavior of Ordinary Citizens
I don't think I would have ever linked Tragedy Tourism and Identity Theft, but there you have it. It's the same thing.
* Ray, 9/13/2003 02:24:53 PM
