9. Authenticity

MacCannell’s ideas immediately sound attractive and agreeable, but I don’t know how much of that is because I feel his ideas are original and intriguing vs. how my misanthropic inner demon enjoys hearing the word “ritual” used to describe contemporary human behavior. All the talk of modern desires for authenticity being tied to primitive sacredness is quite compelling.  It seems logical to assume that primitive cultures viewed any action or ritual as authentic, considering they helped contribute to their survival—thus, considering that the role of the individual in providing for his own survival has diminished in modern times, it seems natural that humans would begin to question the authenticity and meaning of actions and rituals in their daily lives. Big ‘ol governments do the job for us nowadays. Why live when someone can do it for you?
 
Institutionalized concerns for authenticity and purpose manifest themselves in the tourism industry… Seems right, I guess. And the extended metaphor of the relationship between the stage, the audience, and the outsiders is interesting, but I wonder if it begins to serve itself when MacCannell starts talking about anthropologists and invaders. Yes, the logic of this thesis works out fine—but I’m just not sure that it’s all truth, that it all exists. I am very skeptical of classifying human sociological behavior by trying to determine mental perceptions and desires solely through the use of good metaphors. I can pull metaphors out of my ass like a magician can…pull rabbits out of hats? Wrong metaphor.
 
Intimacy and closeness—what MacCannell argues are fundamental tenets of social society, reflect on the desire to find the “authentic” aspects of everyday life. Those “back regions” that MacCannell mentions are the objective of tourists searching  for this authenticity. Whether or not that authenticity is accidentally stumbled upon or synthetically propped up for discovery, it’s what we generally strive to find. I like to associate MacCannell’s talk of “back regions” with a more accessible notion—the “luster of the unknown.” We crave for that risk of something unexplained, something alien, encountering us, while we paradoxically fear such an encounter.
 
The notions of authenticity coming from a “real” or “honest” depiction of life reminds me of Goethe in his Italian Journey. I feel like tourists strive to experience what Goethe did—earnest, sincere interactions with “real” life as exhibited by natives. And yet, Goethe’s journey was very much like that of a modern-day tourist, yearning to understand and see rustic life “as it really is [was]” (whatever). One of the bigger differences between Goethe and the modern day tourist, however, is that Goethe is not really being given any form of binding expectation as to a culture, a people, or a place. He makes the logical connections then and there, without the outside influence of a tour guide or a Wikipedia article.
 
 “…important commercial establishments of the industrial West ‘went hippie,’ a decade before hippies went hippie. Approached from this standpoint, the hippie movement is not, technically, a movement, but a basic expression of the present stage of evolution of our industrial society.” Woah! Huge implications to what this guy is implying here. I’d like to hear more about this, about entire social actions that are actually just statistically-predictable anthropological behavior.
 
I believe that touristy activities essentially end up marring the individual—they give an illusory experience that is a complete lie. The “false back” is dangerous because it pretends to be real, thereby giving incorrect impressions as to whatever it is they are trying to portray. Similarly, but les dangerous, is the “false front,” which makes no pretensions as to what is real; they knowingly do it for show. We all know those, because we love those restaurants. When it is commonly accepted that a performance or display is false, there is no anxiety--yet when there is a presupposed reality being thrown in our face that is actually a farce, then danger arises, because there arises the potential for manipulation and deception of the masses.

It's the difference between a real haunted house, a house that's dressed up to look haunted for show, and a house that's dressed up to look haunted to be passed off as real. Which witch is which?

(Photo Taken by Madison Graboyes)

Finding the “back regions” of Ghana has not been as tough as I originally thought it would. I think the reason for this is that Ghanaian’s love Americans. I keep reading in everyone else’s blog posts, particularly from those studying in Europe, that people react negatively towards them because they are form the US. Here in Ghana, however, we are treated like celebrities. I know that might sound extreme, but I’m serious! Whereas in many others countries it might be hard to find an authentic experience because the locals put up a barricade to block intruders, in Ghana I get invitations to visit people’s villages almost as often as I get marriage proposals.

The most recent “back region” experience I had came when we did a homestay and build in a rural village for a weekend with NYU. On the bus ride there Christa, the associate director of NYU in Ghana, told us to expect a warm welcome. She also warned us that the welcome ceremony might seem fake, or planned, or exaggerated because we’re American tourists, but she assured us that ceremonies like that are a normal part of Ghanaian life. If I had not already been in this country for months (and witnessed something just like this already) I would have thought she was lying. But the truth of the matter is that Ghanaians celebrate anything and everything. We were entering into their village to paint a school and build a urinal and boy were they ready for us. We walked down the dirt road into the village and suddenly there was music. Everyone in town came to greet us. They swarmed us with song and dance and plenty of hugs and kisses.

We spent the entire day building in the heat, shoveling, and carrying giant bowls of cement on our heads. At the end of the day we went with our host families. I stayed in a small brick house – just one bed, no lights, a desk, and a mattress on the floor for me – with my host brother. My host mom, who didn’t speak English, cooked us Fufu for dinner, a local dish made of Cassava and plantains that you eat with your hands. The next morning she decided to dress me up for church in an entirely traditional outfit. When I got to church I quickly realized that everyone else’s host mothers had decided the same thing. If it weren’t for our pasty white skin, we would have looked almost normal there.

As a foreigner, you are never going to find a “truly authentic” experience because you are not from the country you desire to experience. Being in that village I ate the food, wore the clothing, and went to church, but it was only for one day and of course I was still treated as a foreigner. But I have to say, I think we came the closest we possibly could. And the most amazing part is that this was not the first truly Ghanaian experience I have had here. I hope it’s not the last.

The whole time I’ve been in Florence I’ve treated my 3.5 months abroad as a mission to get to know Italy on a level that tourists don’t ever get to see. I figured that finding this “authenticity” that I wanted would be easy with the amount of time I had here. However, the first month or so of school proved to be frustrating in that sense, especially living in the very touristy city center. Italian restaurants in this area are mediocre, catering to foreigners who don’t know any better, people working in the area all speak English, and stands overflowing with cheap, tacky, “Italian” souvenirs stand on every corner.
 
Therefore the idea of delving into the coveted “back regions” of foreign places seems near impossible. Some tourists find themselves lucky enough to stumble into an “authentic” situation while on their short periods of travel, but for me I think that in order to make your way into back areas, and not just front areas disguised as back areas, you have to devote a lot of time to a single place. My reasoning being that to gain access to a back region, you need a common link to that space: the people that occupy it.
 
We see movies in which hapless female travelers venture abroad and find themselves whisked away into the authentic life of some native, muscle-y, vespa-riding Italian man (well, WE might not, but you get the picture). They are exposed to “back regions” through the people that inhabit them. They are seduced by these areas. People don’t normally just waltz into the home of a local in the place they are travelling just to witness real life. True back areas require invitation. Some travelers and even tourists may be able to expedite this process in order to satisfy their quest for authenticity, but it usually takes more time than that, because usually, forming a human connection with someone brand new takes more time than a vacation allows, especially if there are language barriers involved.
 
After two months abroad, I have been mostly frustrated by my attempts to go past the surface of Florence and experience something more “real.” The people of Florence are still strangers to me. I don’t know how they live, what they do in their homes, etc. But recently I finally accepted a request from Eduardo, a friend that I met about a month ago, to go out for drinks. Eduardo is from Brazil, but now lives in Florence. He speaks more Italian than English (which I’m finding is actually improving my Italian skills). He took me to a karaoke bar, which I assumed would not provide any sort of an authentically Italian experience, but as the night carried on and more people arrived, the bar was packed with Italian couples and friends, singing songs in Italian loudly (and usually very poorly), with the very rare American hit thrown in. I was the only one speaking English, and I could barely understand what was going on, but for the first time I felt like I had found where all the Florence bar-hoppers retreated to (because they certainly aren’t at the bars and clubs I usually get dragged to, the ones that play Katy Perry and the Black Eyed Peas and are filled with American students).
 
Since that night I’ve spent more time with Eduardo, seen his apartment, how he lives, where he works, etc. Knowing him and having a connection to this place that goes beyond myself and my experience of the city as an outsider has pushed my connection to Florence to a different level.
 
I’m not saying that in order to find the authenticity of a foreign place you must connect with the people. There are certainly other ways to delve into the back areas in which natives inhabit, but I believe that connecting with the people who inhabit a place is important to really knowing the place, since a city’s population is what gives it life.

 Photo by me
Coming to Africa with very few expectations, the notion of “authenticity” did not really cross my mind until I left the bubble created by NYU in Ghana that is Accra. During one of our first weekends “off” (of being a group of 42) I traveled with some friends to Benin and briefly stopped through Togo. When we finally arrived in Benin, its beauty totally blew me away. Clean sidewalks (wait actually just excited about the real sidewalks in general!) and closed sewers! What I was most shocked about was even though this was blatantly a French colonized country (it looked really similar to where I stayed with my family in the South of France), it still had a vivid African flare. Almost everyone on the street was dressed in traditional African print outfits and headdresses.
 
What was most pleasantly shocking was that unlike Accra, I felt like I could actually walk down the streets alone in peace. There was one point when half of our group walked ahead and the other half straggled behind and I was left somewhere in the middle. I was nervous at first as I was in a strange country at night, but not one person came up to me to try and sell me anything or even propose marriage!
 
The single conflict that arose among the group was whether or not we should go on a boat tour of this stilt village not too far from where we were staying. Half the group argued that this activity would be the “touristy” thing to do. The other half contended that we are in fact tourists and rather than aimlessly wander around an unfamiliar city we should check out what the guidebook suggested. A short moto-taxi ride later we arrived at a table in front of a body of water. The man at the table told us (in French, which was then translated by one of the two travelers who took French in high school) a price per person for the boat tour that differed from what the guide book said, but with little options, we agreed to pay the price and all piled into the boat.
 
About ten minutes into the boat ride, the tour guide announced that if we wanted him to give us information about the history of the village and if we wanted to get out and walk around when we arrived (he assured us there would be a place to get a drink and a snack) we would have to pay an additional fee. After much debate, we agreed that although it was sneaky for the tour guide not to inform us that we had only paid for the ride there and back, we were already in the boat so it would be silly to not just shell out a little bit more for the full experience, after all, it’s not everyday that you get to take a boat ride around a stilt village in Benin. We also agreed that the French speakers would translate what the tour guide was saying to the rest of the group.
 
We should have seen it coming when everything the tour guide mumbled was basic information we easily could have read straight out of our guide book. When we finally arrived at the stilt village, there were no stilts in sight. Do to an extreme rainy season, the water level of the village had risen and the entire village had been flooded. This happened three weeks prior to our visit. Uhhh thank you for the warning? Our tour guide had obviously taken advantage of us because we were tourists. We desperately tried to see a glimpse of “real” culture in this foreign country, but it proved much harder when its very own inhabitants are so discouraging. 

I view MacCannell's dichotomy of front/back regions more in terms of roads less traveled. Even in large metropolises, there are certain areas that tourists don't roam around. The businesses there are, for the most part, untouched by the tourist industry. For me, the pilgrimage for authenticity centers itself around walking around conventionally "backwater" regions that are deemed culturally unimportant by tourists (or by the tourism industries in the countries they visit that don't promote these areas). I haven't been invited into the back rooms of any of the places I visit, but in a way I've been invited to the back roads of Prague (and even of a recent trip to Budapest with the aid of my Hungarian friend) by virtue of suggestions by locals. My pilgrimages to these recommended places are often met with a smug sense of self-satisfaction: I've conquered Prague*. (*I'm on my way to hopefully maybe discovering a fraction of Prague). 

 

Our classes in Prague are right off of the main Old Town Square, aka tourist-central. Around any hour of the day, I have to elbow my way through teems of gaping tourists, mesmerized by the anti-climactic hourly shows of the Astronomical Clock. I admit that I quickly became resentful of these scores of "sheep." These herds sometimes don't look far beyond the square for lunch, and end up getting charged 3-5 times more than they should for what is probably a sub-par meal. On the other hand, I constantly hunt for good food. It's my life's mission.

 

I am a vegan living in Prague; difficult, maybe… impossible, no. But sometimes I wonder if my quest for Czech vegan restaurants has hindered my "authentic" experience of the food; if my diet cuts out most all of the Czech specialties, are the veganized versions good enough? Somehow, I am comforted by the fact that the restaurants I end up patronizing end up being on roads less traveled. 

 

Recently, at a visit to a fair-trade clothing and crafts store, the store owner recommended a vegan macrobiotic restaurant. One that I had never heard of, not in any of my exhaustive research of the veg restaurants in Prague. I knew it had to be amazing. Nestled four tram stops off of a major metro station, in the heart of a very residential neighborhood, in a restaurant space so hidden that you have to ring a bell to be invited inside is Nine Star Ki studio. The waitresses speak limited English, there is no English menu (though I will hopefully help them polish their translations when they decide to expand to an English menu). But the place is absolutely magical; it doesn't offer "traditional" Czech fare, but instead is at the forefront of Czech macrobiotic cuisine. And it's pretty reasonably priced, too. As for the food? Extremely wholesome and lovingly prepared. One of my favorite restaurants ever, and all discovered by a chance encounter with a shopkeeper.

(photo by my friend Lauren)

My reading of the article was several times interrupted by my quest to find food. This led me to wonder whether the processes involved in a "back room" experience maintain their authenticity when transferred into a new space. The new space doesn't have to be a "front room" but maybe it is a different room all-together.

A specific example:
I did not go to Lake Bled over fall break. I went to Slovenia and stayed with a wonderful family in Litija, and one of the many things they taught me about was the existence of Lake Bled. They did this by sharing with me some "kremšnitas" (cream slices)...otherwise known as Blejska rezina (Bled cake). As we were enjoying the dessert, they told me that this was a pretty good copy but that I should really go to Lake Bled to have the original because it's much better...and a regional specialty. Authentic.

Since it will probably be quite some time before I have a chance to experience the original version, I'm currently quite content with the copy. I actually thought it was pretty tasty. But here is where things get complicated. I'm giving a presentation tomorrow on my fall break experience. Wanting to give my fellow classmates a taste of Slovenia, I started searching online for recipes for the cake. Wanting to get the best (ie most authentic) recipe possible, I looked first at recipes written in Slovene. This was ridiculous. Even when I ran them through google-translate, the complicated directions came out incomprehensible. I had to settle for looking for them in English.

I won't be bringing the cake to class tomorrow after all, because I don't have a big enough pan as it happens. But the experience made me think about touristic "relics" and whether they keep their value when they change contexts. If I eat a "Bled cake" that isn't from Bled but is from Slovenia, is it authentic? If I make a "Bled cake" in Prague from a recipe written in Slovene, does it keep any of its original appeal? If I make a "Bled cake" in Prague from a recipe written in English, can I really still call it a "Bled cake"? Should one choose to consider the touristic adventure as a pilgrimage, than a relic of such an adventure would be something that gets its importance based on its proximity to the pilgrimage site. Theoretically, if I was trying to share with my classmates my (non-existant) time at Lake Bled, I would be better off showing them pictures and describing the cake than attempting to recreate the experience for them. However, since I'm trying to share with them an experience of enjoying imitation cake based off the traditional recipe with people who were teaching me about Slovenian culture, my classmates could actually have a fairly authentic simulated experience if I were able to make them the cake. Even if the recipe would be an English one.

Now I'm hungary again.

I don’t really think that Ghana has been touched by tourism in the same ways that most of MacCannell’s examples have. I have frequently had conversations with people here about the “real” Ghana but the question of reality does not revolve around a tourist set-up. Rather, it is about the disparity between the areas that fit the typical Western understanding of Africa as a land of poverty, starvation, and disease and the richer areas of Accra that have beautiful mansions among gated communities.
This is not to say that Ghana hasn’t been affected in at least some ways by tourism. Wander through the more urban and touristy neighborhood of Osu and you’ll be surrounded by men selling loads of traditional African artwork. You’ll stand in the middle of the busy street as people rush around you to get to the ATM and the supermarket as a man offers up a painting of some village and mumbles about how you should take home a piece of “the real Africa.”
Even so I don’t really feel like I’ll ever find myself progressing through McCannell’s six stages here the same way I might in a region that was more affected by tourism. I got my first real experience with stage two the other day when a group of us decided to go exchange money at one of the local hotels. The Golden Tulip is an incredibly fancy hotel and it offers all the amenities of the developed world while still making sure that the place featured a lot of traditional African art in its decorations. Having already been in Ghana for two months we all immediately walked in and laughed as one of my friends declared, “I didn’t realize that we had arrived in Europe.” The hotel was so vastly different from anything we had experienced in Ghana that we couldn’t help but feel incredibly out of place. It just felt ridiculous. We left almost immediately after arriving. I feel like I’m lucky in that I believe that I actually get to experience stage six fairly regularly. Since tourism is relatively uncommon the idea of creating a variety of false back spaces hasn’t really taken root so I think (or at least I’d like to think) that a lot of the experiences I have here are genuine. There certainly have been times when we’ve been taken to see some false back spaces, with things like tours of the old Ashanti palace that was led by a guide whose biggest concern seemed to be that we had skipped the gift shop on our way out (pictured in my photo), but overall the spaces we visit just aren’t organized that way.
I can relate far more to McCannell’s ideas of tourism as an almost religious experience. I certainly came on this trip with the hopes of understanding something bigger than myself, although in my case I have no interest in God but in the day to day life of an average member of the human race. I came on this trip hoping to have a better understanding of the world and then use that lens to have a better understanding of my own life and that certainly fits in with the way many people feel about their religion.

" An attitude that turns man against man in a they-are-the-tourists-I-am-not equation." ( Macanell, 602)

Funny enough, an article about tourism makes me think more about Manhattan than it does London. Or rather, the reception I've gotten whenever the fact that I'm from New York City comes up in conversation with Londoners. " Ugh, I hate New york. It's so commercial" they say. "Well, where have you been?" I ask. "You know, Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Central Park. The big places." These exchanges make me appreciate the effort of the tourists to enter the "back regions" of the places they visit. It would be so exciting for me to hear that a Londoner loved Luke's Lobster Shack in the East Village or Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg .

This is the one aspect I would argue against Macanell: he claims that locals have a fear of outsiders penetrating their back door regions. Maybe that's the case for other people from other places, but from my experience ( and that's really the only thing any of us can judge based on, isn't it?) it makes me happy when people who are visiting New York take the time to get past The Empire State Building, The Met, and The Statue of Liberty to go explore on their own- to be "travellers" rather than "tourists".

Indeed, the "tourist" and the "traveller" are both merely visitors to a foreign place. The way Macanell talks about it, the only difference between the two is snobbery- both are outsiders, whether they attempt to enter " back regions" or stick to "front regions". But I think that attempt is crucial. I'm proud of where I live, and when outsiders take the time to get to really know the city they're visiting, I can tell.

And so when I visit a new place, I'll continue to eschew museams and monuments for restaurants, bars, and local shops. Maybe that's just me flattering my ego with disdain for fellow tourists. But i've always thought the best way to get to know somewhere I've never been is through food and drink- and this article hasn't convinced me otherwise. There's something humurous about bus tours and fanny packs,and I stand by my view that walking your way down random streets and avenues is more... authentic? Well, I'll try my best to avoid that term for the time being.

It’s not always easy to tell how staged or real an attraction is. I think that’s where I have to agree with MacCannell’s view in “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings” that “tourist settings can be arranged in a continuum starting from the front and ending at the back” (597). Whether or not what outsiders see is the way local people actually do things is something that runs through my mind all the time whenever I visit a new city or go on a tour of a popular site. I think in my heart of hearts, I want to believe that I am looking at something authentic, but then I must come to grips with the fact that tourist sites are often nothing more than capitalist ploys to help fuel the local economies that rely on tourism to maintain their way of life. It is their job to make visitors believe that what they are looking at is at least partly authentic; they must blend the fiction with reality in a flawless demonstration of local fanfare.
 
Sometimes, even when you know that what you are about to go see is purely put on for show, you can’t help but notice how hard the locals try to please their visitors and provide as much of an authentic experience as is within their power. This past weekend, my suitemate, Stephanie, and I took a single day excursion to Dublin. One of our top priorities for the day was visiting the Guinness Storehouse. I know that might sound cliché and maybe even a little dumb on our part, but we are both fans of the beer and everyone who has already visited has told us that it’s a pretty interesting experience if you care at all to learn about its history. On every list I found on Google of things to do in Dublin, a trip to the Guinness factory was always up near the top. Somehow, it’s become closely linked to the heart of Dublin despite being slightly out of the way.
 
When we arrived, I was shocked to see the lines of people waiting to purchase tickets and get through the gates. What didn’t shock me was the amount of people that were tourists; everyone was except for the staff. People go there thinking they can learn about the making of Guinness and perhaps pick up a little of Dublin’s history along the way. Whether or not the Guinness Storehouse provides much in the way of an “authentic” experience is up to the visitor to decide. Steph and I were both thoroughly engrossed by the exhibits showing off their achievements through the years and how they’ve reached the furthest corners of the world. I kept thinking, "Yeah, I can totally picture Arthur Guinness making his first batch of Guinness here and turning it into a worldwide franchise." At the same time, I noted how everything was put on display for show to give people the experience they had come and paid for. The only real attachment it has to Dublin, aside from its history, is the 360° panoramic views of the city from its sky bar on the top floor.


A finished pint of beer and an overhead view of Dublin from the 7th floor sky bar.
 
After reading the article and thinking back on this weekend, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that Guinness most definitely is putting on a show for its visitors. Everyone “Ohhs” and “Ahhs” as they giddily participate in the interactive demonstrations that are meant to appeal to all your senses, but this feels no different than a museum. In fact, that’s exactly how it was described when we first entered and a guide gave us a quick rundown of the building’s history. Little within the building was actually from the time when Guinness was first stored there aside from the building itself, whose interior has completely been redone to look modern with an aged feel. Looking back, I would describe the experience as authentic in the moment in the sense that I felt myself being pulled along Guinness’ timeline as I explored the 7 floors of the storehouse surrounded by their greatest achievements, but after it was all over and the curtain had dropped, all I could think was what a great show it was.

It is true and it make perfect sense too that the back region of any space would be the place where things “really” go on. If you want to get to know a place, which could be assumed in the case of the traveler who invested their resources in going there, the back is the best place to be to do that. I like very much that MacCannell quoted anthropologist Margaret Mead although it is also ironic, in that he is a sociologist. Before Malinowski, a founding father in the anthropological discipline, fieldwork wasn’t the “deep immersion” that it came to be and which distinguished the field from the former “armchair” anthropology. One of the reasons Malinowski’s work, in particular Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), was so influential was because it got rid of the idea that true understanding could be achieved through mere observation and instead his unprecedented theory instilled a sense that to know a culture, one had to live it.

It’s funny too because as I was reading “Staged Authenticity: Arrangements of Social Space in Tourist Settings”, I started to have this creeping feeling of embarrassment and here is why. Two weeks ago I met my Renaissance art class outside of Hampton Court Palace for an exploration of  one of the sixty palaces that belonged to King Henry IIX. We where met by guards dressed head to toe in costume and my teacher remarked, “let’s stand over here, we don’t want to get in those guys’ way”, as he refereed to one and his eight footed spier. When I was reading the article, I laughed at the bit that described the tactics tourist attractions use to insight this sense of “insider-ness” but not once did I think I was guilty of the tourist consumer behavior. This is why I am embarrassed to admit the satisfaction I felt at seeing what I did that day at Hampton Court Palace. Although satisfaction did quickly turn to disgust when I arrived at King Henry IIX’s bathroom stalls. The toilet seat was adorned with a royal green velvet cushion, but what got me was the royal poopy aroma that lingered. If the museum curators purposefully and appropriately scented the toilet room, that would be taking the whole insider thing way too far. If they didn’t, I guess I would say, once again, that the power of my imagination never ceases to amuse me.

note: The irony comes from my relating sociologists to armchair anthropologists.

Back in California, I'd take visiting friends and family to Universal Studios. One of the main things they wanted to do their was the Studio Tour, which takes visitors through the backlot of Universal's production studios. Universal Studios could be one of the definitions for staged authenticity. Famous movies like Back to the Future, War of the Worlds, and Bruce Almighty have been filmed in the studios, which are located just down the hill from the theme park making it highly accessible to tourists. A behind the scenes look into the movie making industry makes the Studio Tour one of the parks most in demand attractions. Tourists want to see where their favorite movies were filmed and the magic behind the production. I've been on the tour a few times and it is definitely exciting to see the clock tower from Back to the Future or one of the Jaws robots in action. 

Although tourists feel like they've gotten an insider's look, there are still many layers to this authenticity. In addition to the Studio Tour, visitors can still obtain a VIP pass, which gives you an even more behind the scenes look at the studios (I think for this one the bonus is being able to get out of the tram and wander around the lot, as well as the plus of getting your picture taken). The Studio Tour has even been featured in its own Universal movies. In Big Fat Liar, there's a scene of tourists taking photos from the tram. Another dimension to the tour includes its overlap with real Hollywood production. In 1999, Jim Carrey actually surprised everyone in the tram including the guide and driver by jumping out and scaring them from behind the Psycho house. Even though this doesn't happen during every tour, the occurrence spurs tourist hopes to see a celebrity while behind the scenes. 

The Studio Tour exemplifies several of the stages described in MacCannell's "Staged Authenticity" piece. The Universal Studios backlot is a bit of a challenge to separate into MacCannell's stages because the sets featured in the tours are authentic; however, during actual movie shoots the sets are closed to the public. Therefore, Wisteria Lane from Desperate Housewives remains a big attraction on the tour, but shifts to a different stage when it is removed from the tour due to production. Another portion of the tour includes a display of famous prop cars from movies, such as Jurassic Park and The Fast and the Furious. These represent Stage 3 because they are no longer used and are cleaned up to be put on display for the public. There are some cheesy parts to the tour. For example, the flash flood demonstration has a lot of people leaning to the other side of the tram when Universal unleashes a couple hundred tons of water towards the tram in hopes of showing off their special effects. 

It appears staged authenticity is such a large part of tourism, that its no longer a problem. A certain market of tourists either look for staged authenticity or are satisfied with it even if they believe its what others consider unauthentic. What the tourist takes from his or her experience is the most important part of traveling and appreciating the these new experiences be they authentic or not. 


(The photo was taken by me in early September on a Thames boat ride.)

I am an “estadounidense”, and unfortunately or fortunately however one may look at it, I will never be an Argentine. In some way, I will always be confined to the back region of a culture I wasn’t born into, but appropriated. My official status of “residence” does imply an entrance in the back areas of the living Argentine society, but nationalism defines identity and in that, I will never have access. However in the ethnographic dilemna of how to record the “insider” or “native” experience, I refuse to accept that we can never understand how the insider lives or what is their experience of back culture.

Though, I am perpetually preoccupied with attaining an “authentic” experience. I want to travel the roads less traveled, dance with porteños in milongas until 6 in the morning followed by medialunas and café afterwards, dance in the nightclubs, read La Nación, and eat at the restaurants recommended by “El Ocio”. Being socially relevant and authentic is a cultural must for me. Not a lover of kitsch or the masses in general, I am always looking for the most avante garde experience, but at the same time could find the old-man drinking hole and be just as happy.

I always endeavor to be a traveler rather than a tourist. I can remember certain instances in my tourist experience that I left unsatisfied: one time in Capetown, South Africa we drove forever to see this penguin sanctuary. We entered along with a bunch of students and screaming children and walked down these wooden planks with black iron bars with a railing to lean on that functioned like a bridge throughout the penguins natural habitat. I was pissed at the walkway that acted as our watchful guide inhibiting our experience. I confronted this same walkway problem in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile while hiking by the salt lagoons in the shadows of the Andes; the path was marked with stone that led us close enough to the lagoons to see them and take pictures, but still far enough away so that we wouldn’t invade and destroy the natural habitat. I am a huge fan of preservation- environmental conservation even more so, but a guided path provided empirical challenges for me. I wanted to jump on the rocks, run through the desert, bathe in the lagoons and not be inhibited. I didn’t want my experience to be mitigated by stupid rocks that didn’t even provided a proper inhibitance at all; nothing kept me from crossing the line of rocks except a certain moral tourism code that gently urged me to not deviate from the path.

Buenos Aires plays with the staged authenticity of social space that MacCannel explores. The average tourist sees a particular deduced Buenos Aires: the adequate neighborhoods (La Boca, San Telmo, MicroCentro, Recoleta) that provide a cultural and historical exploration into the city’s past and present, the two neighborhoods that represent the city’s future, Palermo and Las Cañitas.  They tend to stay clear of Retiro, which represents the underbelly of industrialization with its ports, train station, bus station, and the government buildings designated for immigration purposes. Seldom does the average tourist venture into the northern neighborhoods of the city that are more residential and provide less of a manicured aesthetic. These translations of urban settings comfort the tourist as he believes he is receiving an authentic experience. Typically, the Tourist will stick to the traditional guidebooks (my Hedonist Guidebook or Phaidon excluded) and follow a guided view of the city venturing through C/ Florida y Cementario de Recoleta or viewing a tango show at Club Tango or maybe a gaucho representation at an estancia located a few kilometers away and believe they have garnered an intellectual understanding of the culture of Buenos Aires. However, history will tell you that this icons are produced nationalisms to achieve homogenous symbols that unite a diverse people.

I do however believe that Argentina’s “milonga” has provided a window into “the back and front” without really being neither of those structural divisions. The Wednesday night “Maldita Milonga” in San Telmo is usually compromised of two parts: an hour where a couple of instructors (one female and one male) instruct a class of foreigners and natives alike, they teach a couple of standard “pasos”, the basics of the “abrazo”, and the complexities of “el eje” or how to be on the bodily axis, and the second half is comprised of the orchestra that plays different tango, milongas, or waltzs for porteños, instructors of tango, and enthusiasts alike. It is this mix of instruction and authentic action that defies the “back/front dichotomy” in the structure of the social space of the milongas. The initial facilitation is followed by the everyday practice in the real space.

I’ve read Goffman’s The Presentation of Self In The Everyday Life and I think MacCannell makes some interesting connections to that and tourism. In my experience in London social decorum does become more tricky because your accent always reveals that you are an outsider.  Not only this, but I’m sure you can apply the Heisenberg principle to any experience: by observing something we ultimately change it. 

In this way there is no way to get into the back of the stage, at least not interactively. Once you reveal yourself as a stranger, as an American, then the conversation becomes about archetypes. “It’s like that over there, well it’s like this over here.” What would I see if I gazed into the windows of a British home? A few old hens sipping tea? How many google searches have me and my friends done to find an authentic pub? What makes it authentic? The crowd an authentic pub must attract, must be authentic people? How do we know if a person is authentic or not, especially if according to Goffman we are always wearing a mask for the occasion?

But we do know when reality is being blatantly constructed by overpriced knick-knacks and stereotypes. As a New Yorker I know that Times Square isn’t the coolest place to hang out. What we’re really looking for is the difference between an apple picked off the tree in a farm and buying one at Walmart. We’re looking for a world that seems untainted by capitalism and commercialism. We feel things are authentic when we’re not being sold a culture, but being immersed in it. I don’t know if there is anything spiritual about this, I do know that when I go to a tourist area I immediately feel like I am being conned and cheated. 

There is, however, something to be said about traveling because we want to experience something different and there is something enticing about seeing how others’ day-to-day life strays away from our own. But in the end I think we strive for authentic experiences not for the novelty of rituals or odd customs, but to truly find some kind of connection with people who appear so distant. Mostly we’re just trying to find our own authentic self. 

Goffman's diagram of a front and a back room in society is interesting, although the way MacCannell discusses the continuum of front rooms disguised as back, this classification system seems to apply only to attractions that are built specifically for tourists.  I was more interested in his categorization of the people involved as players, audience members, or outsiders.  From a perspective of obvious tourism, this makes a lot of sense: In Disney World, for example, the players wear costumes or uniforms and put on the show for the audience of visitors - everyone else in the park.  Then there are the outsiders, who have nothing to do with Disney World.  In this case, where there are literally stages and back rooms, Goffman's theory totally works.  (Although I don't think anyone goes to Disney World looking for "authenticity.")
 
Applying his theories to wider tourism and city life is more difficult.  "Once social structure differentiates into front and back in the movement from primitive to modern arrangements," says MacCannell, "the truth can no longer speak for itself.  It must always be announced and revealed."  So now that modern society is concerned less with survival, but with "authenticity," experiences are now being classified and so are the people involved in them.  The more defined the relationship between audience and players, the less authentic the experience.  Tourists want to be treated like natives and behave as the locals do, in places that nobody except the locals has heard about.  This is a "real" experience, one where the roles that Goffman defines have been blurred.  The reality of a city is that people can't be classified by Goffman's roles.  People are at once players, audience, and outsiders, and outside of Disney World, it's very difficult to tell who is who. 
 
What role, for example, do I fill?  Am I a player?  I am an official, real live resident of Berlin, no matter how long I've been here.  I buy groceries, commute on the train, and complain about the crowds of tourists (of which I used to be a part).  But I am American, not exactly the Berliner that foreigners come to Germany to meet.  So am I an audience member, merely a tourist who has come to visit Berlin for four months?  The NYU staff could be the players; through classes and info packets, they have been guiding my experiences in Berlin, as well as teaching me how to feel about them.  But I don't really rely on NYU to show me around either; I navigate this city independently and continually pass back and forth between the front room and the back room of Berlin's public facade.  I take guided tours before returning independently to my apartment in Kreuzberg - far away from the glamor and tour bus routes. 
 
In this scenario, as I alternate between host and visitor, I wonder what it takes to be an outsider.  Are outsiders simply the people outside of the city limits, people in Boston or Nigeria that have nothing at all to do with Berlin?  Or can there be outsiders living in Berlin - perhaps in Kreuzberg - who have nothing to do with the tourism industry?  They don't visit the attractions, nor do they present them to anyone else.  Are they still outsiders if a tourist strays onto Adalbertstraße and observes the Kreuzbergers in their natural habitat, or have they now become unknowing and unwilling players?  And has that tourist, who has successfully entered an unpolished back region, finally found his authentic Berlin experience, even though the neighborhood's full of Turks?  It certainly would be an accurate depiction of life in Berlin; nobody's putting on a show or hiding anything here.  I don't know that it's any more enlightening than a visit to the Brandenburg Gate, but maybe that's just because I live here - I've seen it.