servility

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Servility

The question of commodification has manifestations and implications that extend beyond the frontstage/backstagc distinction. Additional concerns include the presentation and exploitation of" the people themselves as a commodity, as demonstrated in advertisements and imagery that degrade and stereotype local people. The following is a frequently quoted excerpt from a Jamaican Tourist Board advertisement that appeared during the 1970s. Accompanying the advertisement was a photograph of a matronly black servant standing and smiling benignly over a white couple relaxing at a table: * You can rent a lovely life in Jamaica by the week. It starts with a country house or a beach cottage hilltop hideaway that comes equipped with gentle people named Ivy or Maude or Malcolm who will cook, tend, mend, diaper and launder for you. Who will 'Mr Peter, please' you all day long, pamper you with homemade coconut pie, admire you when you look 'soft' (handsome), giggle at your jokes and weep when you leave (quoted in Erisman 1983). *»

This kind of imagery has been strongly condemned bv the cautionary platform as evidence of racial exploitation. Especially vocal have been the supporters of black servility theory, who see tourism in regions like the Caribbean or South Pacific as an activity that perpetuates the subjugation of formerly colonised or enslaved peoples through the servant—served relationship (Erisman 1983). The basic argument is that menial workers such as maids and servants, mostly of African or indigenous descent, are 'commodities' expected to fulfil the whims of the pampered tourists, who tend to be of mainly European background. This represents yet another indication, in the sociocultural realm, of the plantation model of tourism described in chapter 8, particularly given that most hotel owners and managers also tend to be white or at least light-skinned. Advertisements such as the one quoted above are now rarely used, but the same message in many instances is still conveyed in a more subtle way, as. for example, in stressing the uncomplicated, simple and 'natural' qualities of the local people.