Re: BODY SHOP? MILLENNIUM?
Maureen Korp (mkorp@acadvm1.uottawa.ca)
Wed, 29 Jul 1992 10:51:30 EDT
I, too, am interested in some verification/refutation sort of
background discussion re the Millenium series. I saw most of
series (alas, missed the one featuring Elijah Harper), and felt
uneasy too often because I did not know enough to know what to
underline, fill-in, and nod my head in agreement with.
Some of my students and I discussed the first program--where
Maybury-Lewis et al. are motoring down the river in Brazil--
and we agreed whole-heartedly that we were glad the gang was
refused permission to go ashore. Something seemed so
intrusive, exploitive about that crew and the personal
musings of Maybury-Lewis were off-putting to us.
On the other hand...I really, really liked the contemporary
Western culture sequence with Jack Pollock in Toronto.
On the whole, I liked the Western sequences. They
were almost all Canadian and I enjoyed seeing Maybury-Lewis's
take on a society I know from both emic and etic
viewpoints (I'm an immigrant).
Still...I think there's good reason for my underlying
misgivings. I KNOW I jumped in the last program when I
realized the point of the summation was to praise the
role of women in holding together tribal society--with
drudgery, back-breaking labour, and unrelentless self-
sacrifice--and bemoan the loss of this in Western culture..?
Remember the sequence with the young woman in Nepal...
(and used again in the last sequence): she
states that she knows it's her job to hold the family
together. There was no corresponding statement from
the men in that family concerning their ultimate role.
That's when I knew my misgivings were likely sound ones.
Had women's rituals been portrayed in equal measure
with men's, I would better understand how these
groups maintain their stability, harmony, and
sense of purpose. But we didn't see those: instead, we
were left titillated (?) by scenes of women who have
multiple sex partners (two societies portrayed as
such, but this is not on average a common practice
worldwide). We were not given much information about
how women and men regard each other in those particular tribal
societies. That is what I really want to know.
My interests are ones of sheer self-preservation.
I'm already working hard enough as a woman in this society
to stay sane!
Maureen Korp, PhD
University of Ottawa