Reimagining Surf Culture through Play
Name: Elinor Gittins Student Number: 10848274 Thesis rMA Cultural Analysis Supervisor: Dr Mireille Rosello Date: 15 June 2016
Contents
Introduction 3
Chapter One: Who has Priority?...10
Chapter Two: A Gateway to the Good Life...25
Chapter Three: “Surfing’s Oldest Grom”...39
Conclusion...52
Introduction
“I tried surf-bathing once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself. The board struck the shore in three-quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me. None but natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly.”
Mark Twain, Roughing It (1872)
I am a surfer, but I have trouble identifying as such. Why do I choose to write about the practice of surfing? Perhaps because surfing is expected to be something that you do, and not something that you do research on. I believe that taking surfing seriously, yields many interesting insights. I should first note that surfing is a sport. I see sport not simply as a microcosm of society. A sport produces its own rules, stakes, interests and practices. Surfers have cultivated their own, unique culture. In the past few years, a handful of academics have opted to take surf culture as an object of study. In her critical analysis of surf culture, Krista Comer argues that surfing can be used as a lens through which to consider various
problematics of globalisation. She outlines, “surfing had set people, money, goods and ideas into motion in ways that created new forms of identity, sociality, commerce and politics” (Comer 13). I will follow suit in paying close attention to these forms.
Surfing is a practice carried out by latching onto the inward surge of the ocean towards the shore.1 This motion is a stimulus for this project. Since the surfer latches onto the flow of a wave, the act of surfing is viewed as a connection with the landscape, or seascape.
1 Philosopher Gilles Deleuze also expressed an interest in surfing. He wrote that, “the basic thing is how to get
taken up in the movement of a big wave, a column of rising air, to ‘come in between’ rather than to be the origin of an effort” (281). For him, describing this sport was a way of moving away from theories about origins.
Visual documentation of surfing has a lot of aesthetic and symbolic potential. It is therefore no surprise that surfing and the cinema have developed a close relationship over time (Engle 6). In fact, in the second half of the twentieth century, a unique cinematic genre emerged: the surf documentary. You can now discover hours and hours of footage online, showing surfers tracing surf-breaks around the world.
Surf documentaries are traditionally marked by “surf action sequences aimed at a niche audience of aficionados” (Engle 6). However, not all viewers are as thrilled, watching a handful of figures repeat the same cyclical motion over and over again. Of course, a genre is not a closed book. Rather, it is a growing list, subject to inherent change. Today, many surf documentaries look beyond the more traditional format, and alternate between filming the waves as well as the beach and its further surroundings. The camera turns to the local environment and the lifestyle that accompanies the sport. Although they are broadly
understood as non-fictional objects, documentaries are also characterised by ambitions that may be aesthetic, social, rhetorical or political (Plantinga 52). In examining the culture that has developed around the act of going surfing, I am interested in all its narratives, its codes and its contradictions. Rather than seeing the surf documentary as a fixed genre, I consider three documentaries of vast difference. In each case, I ask what purpose the representation of surfing serves for the narrative.
For several years now, I have myself sought out the physical and sensual experience of going surfing. This search has led me to various locations. You may say that these
experiences were a way of researching through the body. The thoughts that I express on this topic are subsequently coloured by my own experience in the water. The descriptions of surfing practices also stem from my own understanding. One of the feelings I often encounter whilst surfing, is that of feeling out of place. When you learn to surf, instructors will tell you that it can take years to understand what you are doing. To come to terms with the
movements of the water underneath you. When there is a strong current, it is easy to end up in someone else’s way. One has to know how to manoeuvre around the oncoming, breaking waves.
The surfing community has come up with a term to describe the learner, or the persistently inept surfer who always gets in the way. The webpage, “Surf Terms”, describes such a surfer as a “Kook”. According to their definition, a kook is a beginner or an
incompetent surfer; a kook is someone who does not follow the rules in water; a kook is someone who only surfs to improve their image. The kook does not perform well in the water. The kook will often fall off the board, crash into other surfers, or, in some way, make a fool of themselves. The kook is not to be taken seriously. Mark Twain perhaps felt like a kook in 1872 when he first tried “surf-bathing” (526). He tells the reader that he “missed the connection” to the wave (526). He felt out of his depths because only “natives ever master the art of surf-bathing thoroughly” (526). The natives in his story are the Hawaiian people he observed surfing. He introduces the “native” surfer as a genuine surfer.
Who are these figures, native to surfing, that are in the position to recognise someone as a kook? Take for instance, a feed that has emerged on the popular social media site, Instagram, called “The Kook of the Day”. On this feed, photos or videos are posted regularly of embarrassing moments that occur during surfing. The feed, @kook_of_the_day, revels in the humiliation of others, but it also announces that: “We’re all kooks in our own way”. People are able to send in their own photos of “kooks”. See Figure 1 & 2 below, in which one person wears a life vest to go surfing and the other puts on their wetsuit backwards. The implication is that an authentic surfer would not make these errors. Since, using a life vest would not allow them to duck under oncoming waves, and wearing the wetsuit backwards would cause the zipper to chafe against their chest. The Instagram feed aims at exposing the flaws in the practice and performance of others. Therefore, the term “kook” has fiercely
negative connotations on this feed. A kook represents the tension between how someone sees themselves, and how others see them. A kook might identify as a surfer, but is not accepted as such by the community.
Figure 1 & Figure 2. Two examples from the feed @kook_of_the_day.
If we enter the archive of classic surf documentaries, there is not a lot of diversity in the figures we see surfing. “The model of choice for ‘everyday’ surfing remains defined in terms of white, heterosexual, able-bodied, male, core surfing participants” (Olive, McCuaig, and Phillips 269) 2. These figures also appear competent and skilled in the water. These are the figures an audience may expect to see in a traditional surf film. What happens when a filmmaker highlights characters that do not perform so well in their chosen sport? Through the documentaries I have selected, I aim to look at figures who do not adhere to this “model choice” (269). I pose the question, how is surf culture reimagined through the representation
2 For more see “Women's Recreational Surfing: A Patronising Experience” by Rebecca Olive, Louise McCuaig
of non-traditional surfers, or kooks? In the surfing scene, the kook is the impostor. How can an understanding of surfing change through the depiction of kooks and an emphasis on playfulness? I aim to look at surfing moments that one would not expect to find in a traditional surf documentary. This includes moments of failure, but also moments of play.3 When a sport turns playful, does it still maintain its codes and policies? I am also interested in the frictions caused by surf culture. How can these be traced by analysing moments of
suffering?
In the first chapter, I look at an object that I encountered during my own travels. This object was notorious amongst the locals and tourists I surfed with in Bali. It was a
documentary that few people had seen but everyone knew about. This documentary is not strictly about surfing, but it includes scenes of surfing and is saturated with surf imagery. The film, Cowboys in Paradise (2009), by Amit Virmani, takes a look at the popular travel destination, Bali. On his website, Virmani asks the viewer to become the voyeur, as he invites them to get “between the sheets of Bali’s holiday romance trade”. I will evaluate how the film frames the locals and the tourists and what tropes are attached to these figures. Then I will demonstrate how footage of these characters surfing acts as an interruption in the narrative. For the locals, their surfing practice is conveyed to be a strategy, whereas for the tourists, surfing appears to be something they try on a whim. Does Virmani allow the audience to take these practices seriously? I will outline a set of codes that are projected by surfers onto each surf-break. These codes are used to structure a space that is otherwise chaotic. I explain how these codes perpetuate a discourse that systematically assigns the status of ‘kook’ to individuals. How can these codes be reimagined, and in what ways can Cowboys in Paradise be seen to do so? In my consideration of each object, I aim to see if the audience can be given a new understanding of what it means to be a kook.
3 According to sociologist, Ramon Spaaij, sport could be defined as “expressive play”, in which case, “sport
For my second object, I turn to a film that partially abides by the traditions that I have outlined. The enthusiastic surfer can watch several sequences of surfers demonstrating their abilities in the water. In the film Splinters (2011), by Adam Pesce, the audience is transported to a village in Papua New Guinea. Pesce exposes characters who have recently encountered a dream of joining an international surfer’s circuit. The documentary shows the first national surfing competition, which is the first time these characters are offered a pathway towards this dream. The object of this analysis will be the relationship that develops between the viewer and the subjects of the film. I argue that there is a discrepancy between these two groups, using the concept of cruel optimism. This concept was developed by Lauren Berlant to describe the affective impact of an increasingly precarious public sphere in Europe and The United States. In the case of Splinters, I ask whether the subject’s optimism can only be recognised as a cruel implement by the viewer. This causes an ambiguity between the way the subjects see themselves and how we see them. Finally, I ask whether, through the event of the national surf competition, the viewer learns that these characters have their own definition of what surfing is and what it should do.
In the third chapter, I have chosen to look at a short documentary that approaches the intersection between disability and sport. Curt (2015), filmed by Brendan Hearne, is about a character called Curt, who identifies as both disabled and as a surfer. This film shines a light on the case being made for surfing as a way of alleviating the complications of autism. I aim to complicate this conversation by taking concepts from disability studies. The book,
Feminist, Queer, Crip, is a project by Alison Kafer. In order to “crip” time, Kafer departs from a notion of linear development. In my analysis of the documentary, Kafer’s theory acts as an impetus to think differently about notions of dependency and progression. I will consider how the narrative casts Curt in and out of time, allowing him to seemingly inhabit multiple ages and multiple timeframes. I argue that this character challenges a normative
timeframe, especially through his position as a surfer. How does this character allow us to revisit the concept of a kook?
Chapter One: Who has Priority?
The documentary, Cowboys in Paradise, directed by Amit Virmani, looks at holiday
romances that occur in Bali and through this topic addresses the intersections of race, gender and class. The paradise alluded to in the film’s title is Kuta Beach in Bali, one of Indonesia’s most famous tourist destinations. The “cowboys” mentioned in the title are the local men who work on the beach, selling drinks and offering surf lessons to tourists. It gradually becomes clear that these cowboys are actively seeking out romantic connections with tourists. Through their own admission, the audience realises that they do so for financial gain.
The documentary is structured through Virmani’s quest to discover why the career of the cowboy4, or sex worker, is the choice for so many local men. In an interview in Twitch, Virmani speaks about the years he lived in Indonesia, during which he was always aware of the existing market for holiday romances. He tells Stefan, the interviewer, that he knew for a long time that there were “women travelling for sex” and “guys making money off it”. The trigger for his documentary, Cowboys in Paradise, was an encounter with a twelve-year-old Balinese boy who was eager to grow up and perform such sexual services. In his interview with Twitch, Virmani muses, “what was it about the cowboys that allowed them to keep their pride, to retain their dignity?” His interest feeds directly into a Western heteronormative imagination of holiday romances. Through his self-professed quest, Virmani expresses both admiration and envy. It is almost as if he wants to discover the secrets of the cowboys. Yet, the cowboys remain an enigma. By structuring the film around this quest for the cowboys’ knowledge, how does Virmani frame the milieu in Kuta? There are two groups of surfers in this narrative: the cowboys and the tourists. Both have the potential to be read as kooks. The cowboys embrace a surfer’s lifestyle to construct their personas. The tourists express
enthusiasm over learning to surf, but they often romanticise the practice through its evocation
4 I note that the term “cowboy” is associated with the history of cowboys, or animal herders, in Northern
of a certain paradise. Is surfing just a strategy for the cowboys? Is surfing merely an activity that tourists need to experience whilst on holidays? Firstly, I focus on the situation set up in the documentary, before I explore how the practice of surfing interrupts this narrative. I will outline the concept of priority in surfer’s terms, and use it to reimagine the milieu that Virmani presents to the audience.
≈ Trouble in Paradise
First of all, Virmani presents the relationship between cowboys and tourists. The cowboys that he films take on the role of a guide to the visiting tourist. In this relationship, secrecy is employed as a tool for catching the attention of the tourist. The guide must maintain the curiosity of the outsider. According to Jonathan Culler, “in their quest for an authentic experience, tourists want to see the inside of things, so social and economic
arrangements are made to take them behind the scenes” (9). This statement sets up a division between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ of things which is upheld throughout the encounter between a guide and a tourist. Therefore, constructing the “inside”, as an undisclosed space, becomes a way of exerting control. Culler continues, “The authenticity markers attached to these tourist attractions indicate that they are already coded, and therefore not the true back regions, which become in turn a further source of attraction” (9). We imagine that these “true back regions” are spaces where the cowboys would usually eat, sleep or enjoy themselves in their daily lives. These true back regions could also be the secret waves that the locals surf when the tourists are not watching.
In the documentary, the cowboys engage with the senses of female visitors to spark their interest; “tourism, as it is commonly understood and practised, is a form of
commoditised pleasures and these – whether tastes, touches, spectacles or sensations – are sensual and carnal” (Pritchard and Morgan 153). The cowboy, Rudi, describes to Virmani his
strategies when initiating conversations with tourists. On the beach, he offers to share with them the food he usually eats. The viewer witnesses him purchasing a brown, paper package from one of the beach-vendors. The tourist relies on his knowledge and is invited to
experience the local smells and tastes. Rudi explains how he takes his clients to listen to music in his favourite bars. The cowboys also take the tourists on tours of the island to show them the sights, usually on the back of their motorbikes, manoeuvring through the busy, overwhelming roads. The audience witnesses an immersive experience that demands a high level of trust. The guides perform a knowledge of the milieu that constructs a framework of dependency. One of the Balinese residents, commenting on the romantic relationships that commonly occur in Bali, explains to Virmani that the cowboys are actually “selling paradise” as a package. Only through a guide can tourists gain entrance. The cowboys stand as
intermediaries between the tourists and an authentic world that they are presumed to desire. I will now discuss what problems are situated specifically through the narrative surrounding sex work?
The different languages spoken in the documentary add a layer of opacity to the relationships; the audience wonders if the subjects really know what the other is thinking. 5 The language barriers add another secret dimension. In their individual interviews, the cowboys explain to Virmani that they have learnt a few basic phrases in several languages in order to make initial connections with their clients. As guides, they make the effort to learn the language of the visitor; the visitor has the priority of sticking to their own tongue. Rudi can say “I love you” in English, German, Dutch, French, Japanese, etc. Virmani tries to convey the superficiality of the interactions. The conversations are often characterised by the same, over-rehearsed jokes. The secrecy that is embedded in tourism everywhere is arguably
5 Virmani’s position here is interesting, since he can speak both English and Bahasa Indonesia. Yet he does not
responsible for perpetuating certain stereotypes. The documentary suggests that the existence of these tropes are a problem within the tourist industry.
How does the impossibility of really knowing the other become harmful? Reading Virmani’s interviews through the concept of the secret, we are confronted, with two tropes of tourism. Firstly, we encounter the naïve, foolish tourist, who firmly believes in the
authenticity of their experiences. This is perhaps most evident when Virmani interviews Linnea, a Swedish tourist, who believes that the connections that tourists make with the local cowboys are moments of “real love.” How is she then framed as foolish? Just moments before Linnea’s interview, the cowboy Rudi presented the audience with his bedroom, the walls of which were decorated with flags from various countries. He connected these flags with women he met on the beach, as if he was boasting about his exploits. The audience might read these mismatched accounts as evidence of the foolishness of the tourist, but also, as evidence of the unreliability of the local figure. The cowboy embodies the trope of the untrustworthy foreigner seeking to mislead the visitor.
M. Jacqui Alexander argues that tourists are systematically unaware of the opinions that locals hold about them. “The well-practiced rituals of dissemblance that characterize friendliness have more to do with the rituals of asymmetry and survival, or the desire to keep a job when few are available, than with the fictions of “native” character” (Alexander 59). Linnea assigns a romantic nature to the Balinese, which does not seem to match Rudi’s rhetoric. He appears to make a mockery of the tourists he interacts with. By seeking to uncover what the cowboys really think of the women, Virmani perpetuates these potentially harmful tropes of tourism: the credulous tourist and the local with a dark secret. Furthermore, by highlighting the sex industry that operates on Kuta Beach, Virmani addresses a topic that is largely taboo within Western discourse. He is also distinctly uncomfortable addressing this topic, and is apparently reluctant to label his characters as sex workers, preferring to hide
behind the ambiguous term of “cowboy”. This ambiguity attached to his subjects causes the viewer to be suspicious of them throughout. This ambiguity speaks to certain stigmas that are attached to sex work. In his interview with Twitch, Virmani is fascinated by the pride that the cowboys find in their jobs. In this statement, Virmani reinforces the idea that the label of prostitute is one to be ashamed of.6 What systematic inequalities are made visible through the relationships he represents?
Cowboys in Paradise frames holiday encounters as being multi-layered. The
encounters between tourists and cowboys can be marked by various forms of oppression. In reference to the holiday romance trade, Julia Roth conceptualises the “economies of desire” that are at play during interactions between tourists and prostitutes in these settings (1). The sex industry relies on the imagination and its production of desires. The cowboys that Virmani follows – who claim they never charge directly for sexual services – are selling drawn-out fantasies to the visiting tourists. In doing so, they hope that these tourists will end up paying for their daily needs, constructing another relation of dependence.
Roth would argue, from an intersectional perspective, that the type of encounters that Virmani documents, address, “unequal stratifications on the macro level: income, access to mobility, citizenship and gender regimes. On the micro level, the encounter is marked by hierarchizations with regard to race, gender and class positions in a transnational dimension” (Roth 1). To ignore boundaries of race, gender and class that emerge in touristic encounters would be incongruous. Virmani demonstrates that the cowboys profit from the exoticisation of the ‘other’. As Linnea explains to the filmmaker, her first attraction to the cowboys is due to their tanned skin and toned bodies. Is her attraction steeped in colonial fantasies?
6 It is worth mentioning an article, by Christoper Shay. This article reveals that, following the release of the
trailer for Cowboys in Paradise, the Balinese authorities condemned the project as an attempt to disparage their prized tourist destination. Under this pressure, Balinese police arrested 29 cowboys. The film was considered evidence of them selling sex to tourists illegally. So the documentary did expose the cowboys as prostitutes, but Virmani remains reluctant to do so.
Another appealing characteristic that she lists is their ability to surf. As a persona, the surfer is usually depicted as being easy-going, care-free and non-conformist (Comer 2010; Laderman 2014). This is an image that the guides latch onto. Surfing becomes a cover for the cowboy’s true profession as a prostitute. Virmani has already demonstrated to the audience that the cowboys must keep their strategies secret. In this way, it is difficult for the audience to read their interest in surf culture as genuine. Meanwhile, many of them might take their surfing practice very seriously.
In exploring the interactions, as well as the personal thoughts, of those involved in holiday encounters, Virmani’s documentary constructs multiple problems within the realm of tourism. As Roth points out, “all these interrelations are deeply imbedded in the structures of an unequal world system” (1).When shrouded in ambiguity, the sale and procurement of sexual services is fuelled by imbalanced politics. Virmani’s project suggests that personal accounts are often mismatched and therefore tourists are either naïve or locals are
untrustworthy. In the next section, I ask how footage of surfing, and images of surfboards, disrupt this narrative of complications. What affective alternatives do these moments of interruption offer?
≈ Reimagining Priority in the Line-up
It is clear, when watching Cowboys in Paradise, that the Balinese community
capitalises on a circulation of surf culture. A cultural code formed by the surfing community flows visibly through Kuta. The audience notes surf brands on the clothing of the cowboys and watches hordes of people cross the streets with surfboards clenched under their arms. On the beach, where cowboys and tourists often first meet, the audience sees the stalls that the cowboys have set up. These stalls are very simple: some plastic chairs, a parasol, a cooler of drinks and a collection of five or more different-sized surfboards. Most of the boards are
made of foam to cater to beginners. By appearing to spend their days sleeping, drinking, playing, and occasionally surfing, the cowboys produce a simulation of the surfer’s
romanticised lifestyle. Historically, the surfing subculture has placed a greater emphasis on play over work (Comer 2010; Laderman 2014). In Cowboys in Paradise, the surfing personas hold onto this historically counter-cultural ethos, simulating the ideology of seeking pleasure for pleasure’s sake. The simulation of a surfing lifestyle makes the cowboys desirable to some of the women Virmani questions. However, if this lifestyle is just a simulation, the surfing community is unlikely to take these figures seriously. Is surfing only a strategy? There exists a supposedly universal code of conduct amongst surfers. To what extent do the figures in Cowboys in Paradise follow these codes?
I argue that the surf lesson marks an interruption in the narrative of the documentary. The event of the lesson creates a very specific environment. In this situation, standardised roles and relations are blurred somewhat. Comer recognises the countercultures that emerged through surfing; such communities had the aim of escaping political realities and
romanticised an existence outside the rules and norms of society (5). However, the physical practice of surfing has its own strict codes of conduct7. The strongest of these codes is that one should never “drop in” on another surfer. At any given point, only one figure in the water has the right to catch an oncoming wave. To “drop in” means to take to an oncoming wave out of turn. The idea is that everyone awaits their turn in the line-up, the area from which waves are initially caught. Failure to wait your turn often sparks animosity. These codes of conduct construct a landscape as being suitable for surfing. I recognise this surf-scape as a space where everyone is competing for a limited resource. In crowded spots such as Kuta, there appear to be more people than waves to ride. Surfers have also visualised these codes through sketches that can be found at the beach.
7 It is possible to find this code written down on websites for surf shops, surf schools, or even displayed on signs
at popular surfing beaches. As an example, see the “Surfers’ Code of Conduct” on Australian website, Surf the
The person closest to the breaking wave has the right to catch and ride it. This person is described in the surfer’s code as having “priority”. This term, priority, becomes a key concept for surfers. Priority must be obtained for each individual wave. One essentially gains priority by being in the right place at the right time. This is often easier for local surfers (the cowboys for example) who know the space well, and are better at predicting the patterns at their surf-break. Priority can also be handed over to another.
How do these codes generate their own politics? For example, local surfers often refer to their local waves as a home-break, expressing territorial sentiments which are closely connected to the concept of priority. In many sports, the participant with better strength and agility has an advantage. When seeking priority, it is beneficial to paddle harder and quicker than others. The concept of priority allows us to see that there are many power relations circulating through the line-up. Yet, the surfers’ code of conduct is often called upon by the surfing community to insist on fairness and equality. How does a lesson environment affect the concept of priority, which is so significant for the surfing community? For the sake of my
Figure 3. An example of a sketch that can be found at beaches. Image taken from a surfer’s guide by Louise Southerden.
argument, a kook is someone who does not know or does not follow the codes of conduct. Learners, therefore, are kooks by default. Learners are also more likely to be excused for dropping in out of turn. The assumption is that the learners are not yet familiar with the code of conduct. In the surf-scape, priority is sometimes handed over to a friend or as a means of making friends. Learners are sometimes offered priority by more experienced surfers, as a chance for them to improve. However, the surfer who hands over their priority, is also straying from the codes of conduct. Surfers who consistently hand over their priority to learners are sometimes deemed to be too generous or too forgiving. If we assume that the cowboys use the surf to their own advantage, it follows that the cowboys pass on priority to tourists in an ingratiating way. Even though they seem to spend all their days surfing, are the cowboys actually kooks?
Perhaps Kuta Beach is a space where the dynamics of the surf-scape can be seen to alter. Within surfing discourse, an authentic journey must involve a surfer who sets out in search of secret, isolated waves (Laderman 1). This leads us to question whether someone must follow this narrative in order to be an authentic surfer. In other words, to avoid being a kook. Cowboys in Paradise, opens up an alternative conversation on inauthenticity. The documentary celebrates Kuta as a hub of tourism, and the beach as a heavily crowded space. Furthermore, the cowboys are marked as characters whose practice of surfing is inauthentic. Many of them prefer to play than to adopt a truly competitive stance in the water. If the strict codes are needed in order to decide which figures are kooks, how might surf-scapes be imagined with alternative dynamics, especially by taking the politics that are supposedly only outside of the water into consideration? I argue that playfulness is key to an understanding of the encounters that occur on Kuta Beach.
Linnea is a traveller whom Virmani interviews during her third visit to Bali to spend time with her local boyfriend. She explains that she enjoys spending time with cowboys
because of their humour and willingness to play. As she speaks, the audience watches footage of two cowboys tandem-surfing on a longboard. As they roll towards the shore on a wave, the first cowboy adopts a hand-stand position and the other stands behind him holding up his legs. The footage ends as the one behind tumbles off and the one in front falls to his belly with a broad smile. These surfing personas appear not to take their sport too seriously, preferring to turn it into a fun display. As our gaze aligns with that of Linnea, watching this comical scene, there seems to be a secret to making the practice look easy. Even though the surfers fall off of the board, they over-perform their blunders. Falling off of a surfboard can be a source of shame, for someone trying to perform athletic competence. For the cowboys, it is purely a source of fun. As the camera scans the line-up at Kuta Beach, the audience will notice several characters falling from their boards or colliding with others. The horizon is scattered with splashes and flailing limbs. Supposedly, by enforcing the surfer’s code of conduct, this scene would become more structured. Are we witnessing organised chaos or plain mayhem?
Maria Lugones conceptualises an idea of “world-travelling” for which imagination and playfulness is the foundation (93)8. Lugones argues for playfulness as an accompaniment to travel, as a way of crossing boundaries and being open to uncertainty. She defines
playfulness as “a combination of not worrying about competence, not being self-important, not taking norms as sacred, and finding ambiguity and double edges a source of wisdom and delight” (96). Kuta Beach is essentially one big site of play. The openness and empathy that Linnea expresses, is key to interacting with the locals in the way that she does. The liminal position that a tourist often adopts, precisely because she is not at home in the world, often forces socially-constructed barriers to break. Lugones is guarded against utopianism, but she does recognise the power of play as a way of deconstructing inequality within social
8 Lugones does not exclusively refer to world-travelling in an enjoyable sense, but also to journeys that are
forced upon individuals (Lugones 17). She finds it important to remember that some people have limited mobility or no choice over their movements.
encounters (27). I argue that there is evidence of such deconstructions in Cowboys in Paradise, specifically when the interactions are framed through the event of a surf lesson.
Rudi and Wayan (another interviewed cowboy) explain that their initial point of interaction with a tourist is to ask whether they want a surfing lesson. Surfing calls upon many of the senses. When learning to surf from another individual, physical contact seems unavoidable as the movements of the sea are unpredictable. The viewer of Cowboys in Paradise watches as learners cling to the foam-boards and cowboys accompany them on foot, clumsily steering the vehicles over oncoming, broken waves. As learners are splashed by saltwater and accidentally collide with their instructors, the tactile nature of the surf lesson is demonstrated. I think that lesson environments blur the concept of priority in the line-up, the space where surfers organise themselves in the water. As I have explained, there exists a set of codes amongst the surfing community, according to which only the surfer with priority may take to the wave. This set of codes come into existence when surfing ‘properly’, however, during a lesson, these codes are not yet of importance.
Virmani’s footage of surf lessons highlights vulnerability, openness and care. The learner is experiencing an environment in a new and unreliable way, unsure when they will be thrown from their boards by an oncoming wave. The instructors take control of the situation in a playful, caring way, showing their learners how to get back on their feet again. Virmani highlights these moments of interaction as disruptions to the politics of tourism. As moments when talking is no longer possible. However, even though interdependencies are shifted in the water, power is still reinstated. Cowboys are still the guide figures who steer the vehicles. These instructors must also ensure that the experience of the lesson is enjoyable so that their customers will return. The surf lesson is not a utopian space where dynamics of power cease to operate. I will further demonstrate why this is the case by considering the feminisation of ‘the other’ as a mechanism of power.
≈ Capitalist Paradise-scapes
I propose that, in the sphere of global capitalism, discriminatory practices are
strengthened. In the case of sports and their institutions, a space is constructed where women are often discriminated against. Rebecca Olive, Louise McCuaig and Murray Phillips carry out sociological research on the realm of surfing. They point out the fact that the sport is male-dominated, and this affects the experience of female surfers, especially when they are learning (Olive, McCuaig, and Phillips 265). The female surfers they interview often find the advice and support of male surfers to be patronising and differentiating: “Women remain unusual in the surf and so they stand out, meaning that as surfers, women are different” (Olive, McCuaig, and Phillips 265).They find that women are never really classified as surfers. Comer makes the same point in her study. She finds that:
The visual narrative transmitted about women and surfing by mass culture is often at odds with girl surfers’ daily subcultural life. Girls know it, talk about it, and long for a more sustained ‘insider’ narrative to explain to themselves how it is they have managed … to defy the aggressiveness of collective male surf culture and paddle out anyway. (88)
These ethnographic findings express a sentiment that, in the androcentric realm of surfing, women are always considered secondary. They are read as figures who are not quite surfers yet. These points allude again, to the notion of authenticity that is so heavily emphasised within surf narratives. Feminising a surfer can be a mechanism through which to mark that person as a kook. As a figure out of their depth.
Holiday destinations such as Kuta Beach can also be read as self-perpetuating, capitalist meccas, which exist simply because there are consumers who create a demand for certain experiences or practices. Robert Shepherd regards spaces such as Bali as
“paradise-scapes [which] apparently cannot not be utopia, no matter the material reality” (121).
Virmani interviews a local expat, Janet De Neefe, who romanticises Bali and perpetuates this notion of a paradise-scape. She claims that, in Bali, “time is slower” and “people pay
attention to small details”, in contrast to the cities where the tourists come from. De Neefe’s comments participate in a romantic view of certain communities existing outside of time.9 She describes her surroundings as a more “feminine environment”, where women can find a “touchy-feely” element in their interactions. This tactile contact is visually associated with the cowboys, as a cross-cut shows one of them tickling a woman on the beach.
Virmani also interviews Hiromi, a Japansese tourist whose motivation for several trips to Bali is the surf. She is filmed confronting the whitewash, the bottom of a broken wave that has to be passed to reach the line-up. Perhaps Hiromi is the least kook-like character in Virmani’s film. She marks Kuta Beach as a space where she can pleasantly and politely improve her practice, by herself. On the other hand, when tourists pay for and enter into the situation of the surf lesson, the figure of the local instructor is implicated. I suggested already that the inauthenticity of Kuta Beach as a surf-scape, allows us to imagine a different set of dynamics, with less emphasis on priority. Yet, we could also note that the cowboys are feminised in their relationship with the tourists. In being feminised, they also become the inauthentic, and the insufficiently care-for. As subjects, they are apparently not to be taken seriously. In surfer’s terms, this feminisation turns them into kooks.
Kateřina Kolářová argues that Western fantasies of finding self-renewal in the South, inevitably make profitable the increased precariousness of certain lives (397). Bali is
continuously conceived of as a paradise-like place. The tourists who arrive there to find what they could not find at home, feed into a system which exploits the locals. The force with which tourism fixes certain material locations as everlasting “paradise-scapes”, also attaches certain jobs to certain people in order to maintain the illusion of paradise. For Kolářová, the
“never really outdated visions of the Orient”, provide simple solutions for those travelling figures in need of pleasure or care (415). If the tourists are able to exercise power by paying to have their needs met, are the cowboys then weakened by the assumption that they will take care of these needs?
Virmani’s documentary comments on the imagination of a utopia where social boundaries cease to exist. The encounters between the cowboys and the tourists blur expected social relations. The playfulness that Lugones invokes as an accompaniment to travel,
hopefully results in such a crossing of boundaries. By dismissing the framework provided by the surfer’s code of conduct, I attempted to highlight a potential shift in power dynamics that occurs during a surf lesson. A tourist visiting Bali, struck by the prominence of surf imagery, may consider taking a surf lesson in order to experience the authentic culture. In this desire, they can be described as visitors who accumulate only memories. Is this an appropriate way to consume the culture of the “other”? Meanwhile, we could argue that surf culture does not really belong to the cowboys, if they have been marked as kooks. I have been tempted to posit the surf-scape as a space where social boundaries are temporarily transgressed in Cowboys in Paradise. However, is this presentation critical enough? Cowboys in Paradise remains a multi-layered representation of the many intersections that occur in any social space, even while one is on holiday and dreams perhaps of escaping everyday power dynamics.
Virmani’s documentary tempts the viewer into reading a surf lesson as an event during which power relations are blurred, and unequal relationships reach a level playing field. We should remain sceptical of this imagination. Having said that, a surf lesson is an interesting situation. The privileges that are distributed through the surfer’s code of conduct are momentarily erased in a lesson environment. In a situation that is friendly to learners, individuals are expected to make mistakes. In other words, it is a safe space for kooks. What
if such a dynamic could be developed in more spaces? I started by asking the question, who has priority; but what if no surfer could ever gain priority in the first place? Then someone who ends up in a wrong position, would no longer be a kook. As Lugones argues, norms should not be taken as sacred (96).
Chapter Two: A Gateway to the Good Life
In contrast with Cowboys in Paradise, which is not strictly about surf culture, my next object stays closer to the conventions of the surf documentary. As John Engle points out, surf documentaries consist mostly of flawless action footage, captured at uncrowded surf-breaks, and eventually viewed by a tight group of surf enthusiasts (6). However, when the camera turns away from the sea, these films also show a tendency to document the intercultural interactions that occur on the beach. The film, Splinters is one such example, which is about the beginnings of surf culture in a small township in Papua New Guinea, called Vanimo. It concerns an indigenous community that has taken up the practice of surfing. Filmmaker, Adam Pesce travelled to the location and is also credited as the producer, director and sound technician of the film, resulting in a product that feels distinctly like an ethnographical study. The camera traces surfers who perform manoeuvres on the waves, which indicates that the documentary still caters largely to those viewers who enjoy watching extended footage of surfing.
Rather than documenting Western travellers on a surf trip to an exotic location, Pesce’s project is only interested in portraying the surfers that are local to Vanimo. All of these villagers comment on the ways in which surfing has affected their lives. The
documentary can be said to revolve around the activity of surfing. I seek to pinpoint moments in the documentary where surfing is represented as socially productive. Surfing as a sport is highlighted as a way of improving the individual, both athletically and mentally. Those in the film who surf, access certain hopes and dreams through their practice. I am interested in the way these hopes and dreams are read by the audience. The characters in Pesce’s film take their surfing practice seriously. Does the viewer also recognise these characters as genuine surfers? Or do the villagers create their own definition of a kook?
I am interested in the way the subjects frame the act of surfing, as well as the surfing culture, as being beneficial to the community. I will examine three scenes in the documentary during which the act of surfing is celebrated. In the first scene, the audience watches children playing at the water’s edge. In the second scene, villagers compete vigorously for a chance to join the professional surfing circuit. The final scene, takes place outside of the water, as members of a local surf club receive a lecture about how surfing can translate into their daily lives. What does surfing do to the dynamic of the village?
≈ The Village at the End of the World
Splinters demonstrates the inherent playfulness of surfing. This playfulness was also significant in Cowboys in Paradise as a way of exposing the productive potential in learning to surf. In Splinters, Pesce attempts to visualise the thrilling rush of the water. In constructing this feeling, the documentary seeks to demonstrate the uplifting effect that such an activity can have on an individual and on a community. Splinters does not follow the travelogue narrative that is typical of a surf documentary, but it does maintain a perspective that is rooted in the West. I regard Pesce as an outsider looking in. We should also ask, what audiences are consuming this documentary. The dominant gaze is perhaps most immediately apparent in the way that the film fixes Vanimo at the periphery; it is described by Pesce as a “village at the end of the world”, as if it were on the verge of slipping away. Such a village suits the surfer who fantasises about reaching an uninhabited beach with an uncrowded wave upon which to surf.
I am critical of the first scene of Splinters, which is demonstrative of the gaze constructed by Pesce. At this moment, we see a group of young, unclothed boys clutching splintered planks of wood as they surge towards the audience on a set of incoming waves. They all have endearing, broad smiles on their faces. Whilst watching Splinters, I was
reminded of a scene from a seminal surf documentary: The Endless Summer (1966). Pesce’s opening is reminiscent of footage from this film, which helped to pave the way for the surf-and-travel genre. In this influential film, Bruce Brown tracks two Californian surfers around the world as they chase summer waves. This film introduced the idea of the “perfect wave” to the community; this was a wave that had to be searched for. One of the locations on the itinerary of the film was a village in Ghana, where they claim the locals have never laid eyes on “white men” before. The Californian surfers end up inspiring local children to take to the waves with them in footage akin to Pesce’s opening scene. Both scenes highlight the
influence of the surf-scape on the individual. The cameras turn towards children, who are subjects that are generally deemed innocent and untainted. Their smiling faces demonstrate how enjoyable it can be to play in the water. Once again, playfulness, rather than the
performance of skill, is framed as an important component of surfing. The Californian surfers aim to use their sport as a language through which to communicate a shared experience.
The similarity between Pesce’s opening and the scene from The Endless Summer is problematic because it is suggested that the “white men” teach the children how to enjoy the waves. These men appear to introduce the locals to the act of bodysurfing, which is
considered to be a precursor to surfing on a board, because it involves tapping into the surge of the sea towards the shore. Both scenes construct the outsiders as deliverers, as being gracious for teaching locals that the ocean is not just a resource for food or mobility, but also for fun. In this way, the children and the rest of the villagers are eternally learners, and therefore, never really surfers. The village is thereby framed as being in need of an instructor.
Pesce explains how, twenty years prior to filming, a tourist triggered the development of surf culture in Vanimo. The film tells the narrative of an Australian pilot who travelled to the island in search of isolated waves: a surfer’s paradise. After his trip, he donated his surfboard to the village. The pilot demonstrated to the villagers how to use his board to tap
into the water’s energy. However, journalist Nina Zietman explains that the children in Vanimo had been bodysurfing on the waves long before the first modern surfer arrived and long before Pesce brought his camera. In fact, in Vanimo, the term “splinters”, is used to refer to vehicles that the villagers had fashioned for themselves to play in the water. These
splinters are wooden planks, broken off of old canoes and cargo-ships, which can be used to tap into the sea’s energy and ride waves. The title of the documentary is a gesture towards a local past filled with its own forms of play. So why does the documentarian tend to represent modern surf culture as an offering made to the indigenous community? According to
Zietman’s article, this is a misrepresentation. Why are the Papuan methods of play not deemed genuine?
In her analysis of surf culture, Comer explains that, “without quite intending to, The Endless Summer invented what has since become surfing’s greatest collective dream. This dream connects surf spots across the planet in a coherent narrative of potential belonging, any of them possible ‘homes’ to the surfer who can get there and manage them” (63). I am wary of the way Comer presumes to know what Brown’s intentions were in documenting this surf trip. It is possible that constructing this “collective dream” was precisely the filmmaker’s aim. Comer does want to tease out problems with this dream, especially through her use of the cold and insensitive term “manage”. She suggests that foreign spaces are turned into possible sites to be managed from the outside. Historian, Scott Laderman, also discusses The Endless Summer and highlights the freedom that American surfers, such as the Californians in the film, had to explore the planet (50). This same freedom was, however, not afforded to the Ghanaians in The Endless Summer and it is also not afforded to the surfers in Splinters. Yet both groups are still introduced to the surfer’s dream of “potential belonging” that Comer outlines. This dream becomes supposedly collective. Yet, the task of managing foreign surf spots is, systematically, left to the surfer with the privilege of transoceanic mobility. This
constructed opposition between the invisible Western surfers and the Papuan surfers is an important factor of the documentary. Perhaps through this opposition, the locals remain kooks in the eyes of the audience.
≈ Surfing the Impasse
Splinters documents the event of a national surf competition in Vanimo. This event was the first of its kind, and therefore acts as the trigger for producing the documentary. The competition also provides an effective structuring device for the narrative. Does this
competition impose on the villagers, the dream of surfing professionally? If so, this dream can be seen to turn the waves from a source of enjoyment, into a source of mobility. It can be a source of upward social mobility in the local community as well as a source of physical mobility, if the surfers are good enough to join the professional circuit. When surfing is marked as a competitive sport, the benefits of the activity are recognised as being economic. So, in order to become a successful athlete, the surfers have to undergo rigorous training and body regimes. In this instance, we would expect surfing to become a body-project. How else does the activity shape the individual? If we read the competition as an affective activity, what else does the viewer observe?
Many characters in Splinters present surfing, not as a distraction or a source of pleasure, but as a way out. The documentary builds up towards the first ever Papua New Guinea Surf Titles, in which the best local surfers will compete in order to win a place on a professional surfing team. The winner will receive sponsorship and be taken away to train with other surfers. The competition becomes a promise of escape. Only for the individual that wins though. Prior to the competition, we witness the villagers flicking through old surf magazines, which frame the life of a professional surfer in a glamourous way. The villagers
recognise the surfer’s lifestyle as making them a promise. It becomes a pathway to the good life, and affects their view of the purpose of surfing.
In interviews, the villagers align their dreams of escape with, what they call, the “good life”. In these scenes, the audience experiences a mood that is hopeful. The study of affects, can be a way of coming to terms with spheres of experience. Although Berlant’s research on affect covers a Western context, her concepts resonate in these scenes. Berlant describes how “a relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is actually an obstacle to your flourishing” (1). This concept is quite simple, and therefore applicable in many narratives. Berlant explains that cruel optimism can come about through merely practicing a new habit and expecting it to grant you a new way of being. Her project is about demonstrating how the persistent fantasy of the good life has failed its subjects. What can Splinters tell us about the range of such a fantasy? When it comes to a relation of cruel optimism, who is in the position to recognise its existence? It seems to me that the subject is always unaware that their optimism is self-destructive, and therefore cruel.
In the context of Splinters, the villagers speak of the “good life” that professional surfing offers, through its association with “the world stage”. It becomes clear to the
audience, that the surfers of Vanimo perceive their home as peripheral. It becomes mandatory for them to chase athletic victory, professional sponsorship and global exposure in order to reach their imagined “good life”. As I said before, only the winner of the competition will be able to live out this fantasy. Yet the villagers that Pesce questions are all determined to compete. Is their optimism cruel? Since the relation Berlant describes is assigned from the outside looking in, it could be compared to the theatrical device of dramatic irony. In drama, the audience is sometimes made aware of something that the characters themselves do not know (Goldie 72). Is the audience of Splinters made aware that most of the characters will not attain their dreams by the end of the narrative? Pesce reveals to the audience, glimpses of
village politics that will restrict the chances of certain competitors. The individuals remain unaware of these obstacles. Pesce allows a drama to ensue before the eyes of the viewer.
These Papuan surfers do not appear to fit my understanding of a kook. They train rigorously and speak sincerely when it comes to their surfing practice. The viewer is also treated to footage of these surfers marking their local surf-break with impressive manoeuvres. However, if we view these characters through the lens of cruel optimism, they end up in a different light. Their dreams appear naïve and detrimental to their own well-being. If their surfing dreams are really “an obstacle to their flourishing”, then their surfing practice can no longer be romanticised (Berlant 1).
In the chapters of her book, Berlant recites different scenarios in which a fantasy begins to fray, and characters have to adjust in order to live on (3). In Splinters, the likely victor of the Papuan surf competition is Angelus, known locally as “the king of surfing”. However, the opposing surf club has Angelus arrested before the end of the competition, exploiting their knowledge of a crime that Angelus had committed. The crime being that Angelus had failed to pay alimony to his ex-wife. Through the use of dramatic irony, the audience is aware that Angelus’ downfall is looming, before the actual arrest occurs. For a few moments before the arrest, Angelus is able to enjoy his victory. The entirety of his enjoyment is cruel. Local politics continuously blend with the surf in Splinters. Surfing as play being supposedly pure and incorruptible. As I have explained, even a playful sport has its own codes and policies which can lead to friction. In Splinters, this blend between play and politics demonstrates that the surf-scape does not exist independent of life on the beach.
The problem with the good life fantasy, situated in the context that Berlant works with, is that it presents itself as a packaged deal. The surfing discourse is just one force that perpetuates the lure of a certain packaged deal. According to Comer, surfing, along with its fantasies, is diffused around the world (12). Through its nature, the sport is considered to be
capable of sparking positive change in the lives of subjects it has reached. Surfing thus “constitutes a rhetoric of optimism about the potential of globalization to advance the global good” (Comer 12). As this statement suggests, the rhetoric of optimism surrounding the good life fantasy, although constructed in the West, has pathways through which to reach other locations. Through their experience with surf culture, Pesce’s characters access a prototypical Western imagination of the good life, as expressed in the glossy, surf magazines they read.
Berlant introduces the concept of the impasse to the increasingly precarious public sphere in Europe and the United States to explain how individuals track their affective experiences. She finds that the impasse is a temporal experience that emerges in response to precarity and demands from the subject both “a wandering absorptive awareness and a hypervigilance that collects material that might help to clarify things” (4). The concept of the impasse is an attempt to express the experience of Western subjects who feel disillusioned with a fantasy of the good life. However, describing these affects does not make all lives equally or similarly precarious. Reading through the perspective of cruel optimism can lead one to participate in the classification of levels of suffering. How does the concept of the impasse further construct the Papuan surfers as wretched subjects?
The impasse, for Berlant, is a temporal experience, during which “being treads water” (10) and the subject is forced to “maintain one’s sea legs” (4). In Berlant’s work, the sea is employed as a space that demands alertness. The subject must remain standing, or keep moving, in order to survive. The temporal scene that Berlant describes fits with a surfer’s experience in the water. I observe a clear tension between the care-free nature that is
associated with the surfer, and the hypervigilance demanded by the ocean as a setting. In the water, the surfer must be wary. Berlant states that she is attracted to “affective activity” that binds subjects to the present rather than the future (12). A surfer has to decide in a split-second whether to latch onto a wave or pass over it to avoid its collapse. This activity does
not allow the subject to act outside of the present.10 By perpetuating an image of
hypervigilance, Pesce generally does not allow his characters to live up to epitome of the relaxed surfer. Does this image strengthen or weaken their representation as genuine surfers?
If we integrate the concept of the impasse into Pesce’s narrative, then his characters are seen to exhibit an “absorptive awareness”, as they stare out at sea dreaming of a better life (Berlant 4). When they stare out at the waves, they are not merely assessing the conditions of the surf, but they are wondering where the waves might be able to take them. They also exhibit a “hypervigilance”, as they worry constantly about which villagers might be plotting against them and impeding their imminent escape (4). When the various surf clubs collect material on their rivals, they are attempting to take away some of the agency that they have granted to the sea, and take matters back into their own hands. Before the outcome of the competition materialises in the final scenes of Splinters, the surfers try to eliminate any controllable factors that might be detrimental to their fantasies, which includes intimidating competitors. Reading this surf-scape as a temporal impasse encourages the viewer to feel a certain amount of pathos towards the villagers. In what ways can this relationship between the viewer and the subject be problematic?
I have already argued that conveying a subject’s optimism as cruel is comparable to the usage of dramatic irony. Is this a possible weakness of Berlant’s concept? Peter Goldie discusses the device of dramatic irony as a way of participating in a shift of perspectives which can have unethical implications. Goldie argues that one should always adopt what he calls an “external perspective”, through which he imagines someone always as a separate entity and never stands in for them (70). As Goldie states, “I thus do not in any way adopt his
10 On a separate note, professional surfer, Easkey Britton, has written an article about a development project that
was set up in Papua New Guinea following the release of Splinters. In this article, she explains how she believes the practice of surfing can benefit the local, Papuan community. Interestingly, she mentions that practically all of the languages in Papua New Guinea only make use of the present tense. She argues that for Papuan surfers, all that exists is the present.
[the other person’s] perspective in imagination, or in any way try to think the same thoughts as him or feel the same feelings” (70). Is assigning an affective relation a way of presuming the perspective of another? How can we dismiss the structure of dramatic irony, which leads the audience to make external assumptions about the thoughts and dreams of the characters? How does the audience remain on the outside? In this instance, the concept of cruel optimism appears to fall short.
≈ Civilising the Line-up
In most surfing narratives, the beach could be described as a space of contested meaning. On the one hand, the audience is given a depiction of paradise, but at the same time, they are confronted with the inevitable politics that occur, in and out of the water. In
Splinters, the idyllic images of life on the beach, are juxtaposed against the camera’s attempts to expose a darker side. Suffering is a motif in Pesce’s documentary; beautiful footage of villagers on the waves alternates with images of hard work and violent confrontations. The villagers are shown baking bread in the early hours, working relentlessly on cargo ships and selling saksak, the local staple. According to Berlant, “across diverse geopolitical and biopolitical locations, the present moment increasingly imposes itself on consciousness as a moment in extended crisis, with one happening piling on another” (7). In the narratives she chooses, there never appears to be a moment that is not in crisis.
At the beginning of Splinters, the surfboard merely offers a recreational distraction from daily hardships. This is suggested by the children’s games. The narrative gradually builds up an “aesthetics of suffering”, a term I borrow from Ashish Nandy (21). In a
particularly affective scene, a local woman is chased down the beach and publicly beaten by her brother. This punishment was implemented, the audience is told, because she had been surfing against the orders of her family. Similar scenes signal to the audience that
interfamilial violence is embedded in the local culture. I consider that Pesce frames these acts as evidence of a problem that warrants fixing. Consequently, the lifestyle of surfing is offered as a solution. I will show how, once again, the distinct figure of the instructor emerges and the villagers remain fixed in their position as learners; they are not quite surfers yet.
Pesce tells us, in an interview carried out by Stu Nettle, that when he first encountered the surfboard in Papua New Guinea, he regarded it as a symbol for “the globalised world”. The surfboard is introduced as a catalyst for change. In the discourse of globalisation, an uneven narrative of process is often told between so–called developed and developing countries. Nandy describes a “Third World perspective” as being capable of opening up a different vision; he finds that one of the ways the “Third World” can transcend the well-wishing of the West, is to internalize or acknowledge outside forces of oppression and cope with them as interior vectors (21). Nandy is proposing to see suffering as a universal
phenomenon and arguing that a recognition of this co-suffering could help to spark debates about collective futures. If we follow this logic, then Vanimo will no longer appear to be a singular location, where surfing is necessarily a blend of pleasure and suffering.
From the camera’s perspective, the act of surfing consists of an unavoidable fusion of play and pain. Consider that Pesce highlights this dual nature of surfing by deciding to call his film Splinters. The planks used to float on were dubbed “splinters”. It follows that, by choosing to surf, one risks being hurt, or being splintered. A surfboard becomes a double-edged sword. Perhaps this contradiction should come as no surprise to a viewer familiar with surf culture. Although the practice of surfing is often celebrated for circulating a peaceful, communal state of mind, its history has also been soaked in sexism, territoriality and violence (Taylor 105). What I find problematic about the discursive practices of the surfing
community, is the predisposition to highlight only the beneficial nature of the sport, without considering the politics that are already so inherent to it. The women in Splinters who
continue to surf despite the objection of their family embody this fusion between pleasure and suffering. Two of these women are the sisters Lesley and Susan Umpa, both of whom
compete in the national competition. However, the camera spends much less time following their actions at sea. Consider also that the film introduces us to Angelus, “the king of surfing”, but there is no mention of a queen. Not only are the performances of Lesley and Susan not taken as seriously by the camera, but the sisters are also punished by their community for choosing to surf.
The surfers competing in Splinters are framed as undergoing a personal journey in order to become authentic surfers. In other words, if they can complete this journey, they will no longer be kooks. The professional surfing circuit exerts power over the villagers by expecting “civilised” behaviour during the competition. This expectation is revealed when Pesce films Steve, the head of one of the local surf clubs, as he gives a lecture to the male surfers of Vanimo. Steve asks the male villagers to share donated surfboards fairly with the female villagers. In this way, everyone taking part in the competition is given an equal chance to practice. Essentially, Steve attempts to use surfing as a tool to teach the villagers about gender equality. At this moment in the documentary, the voice of modern surfing is at its most problematic, because Steve tells his members that, in order to be accepted in the Western world, which he presumes is their aim, they have to “become civilised”. A
regurgitated understanding of Western feminism is built into his vision of civilisation. The local surfers are thereby constructed as being on a path towards becoming true, authentic surfers. The male surfers remain artificial surfers until they are able to share their supplies and participate in the supposedly communal spirit of surfing.11
Splinters falls into the trap of the white saviour narrative. Steve’s lecture could convince the audience that local surfers need to be familiarised with a feminist perspective. In
11 See also Bron Taylor’s chapter called “Surfing Spirituality”, which discusses the religious undertones of the
‘Violence, Mourning, Politics’, Judith Butler forcefully approaches the problem of white men presenting themselves as saviours of the female population in other parts of the world.
Inspired by the work of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Butler describes this act as a “culturally imperialist exploitation of feminism” (41). Steve, the head of the surf club, is local to
Vanimo. However, he mimics the discourse of international sport institutions which insist that increasing space for female athletes is a fool proof method of enforcing gender equality. The realm of modern surfing is not a space free from misogyny. The surf industry fuels a discourse that differentiates and discriminates against all kinds of surfing bodies. The solution is not as simple as regulating the use of sporting supplies.
The speech that is given is part of the build-up to the national surf competition. The villagers are told that the surfboards need to be shared fairly between the male and female surfers so that all participants will feel prepared for competition. It is as if the villagers are not yet ready to enter the global surf setting. The surfers need to become “civilised” before they can enter the “world stage” they have dreamed of. The lectures given to the Papuan surf club members appear to be a way of educating the line-up for the national competition. The Papua New Guinea Surf Titles, are eventually overseen by a set of white, male judges who still dismiss the performances of local surfers. The outsider is filmed momentarily but forcefully, as the judges take their seats. One judge comments, “those 360’s they’re doing – useless – they don’t score at all.” The professional surfing circuit imposes a rigid structure which the Papuans must adopt if they want to be globally included. The local surfers are given little room to stray from a predetermined path they are on. To what extent does the footage of the national competition become a visualisation of power structures? According to Andy Webster’s review of the documentary, Splinters “derives tension from the proverbial big tournament but also from how the event helps foster a worthy morality”. Worthy of whom? Clearly the Papuan surfers are expected to become “worthy” of their Western
counterparts. Surfing is framed as a civilising mechanism.12 Webster only takes one moral structure into consideration in his statement. We should be looking into moments that Pesce’s camera fails to document, which may reveal different ideologies.
Surfing is highlighted as an activity that involves interacting with the natural
environment and developing a level of respect for these surroundings. The surf community in Papua New Guinea is unique because it is the first in the world to develop a surf management plan. This plan is briefly referred to in the documentary. The Surfing Association of Papua New Guinea, is working to implement strategies that allow surfing to contribute to the local economy (West 413). Their plan has three functions: to limit the number of surfers that are allowed in the water at any time, to charge a fee to each visiting surfer which will be
distributed back to the communities that protect the surf-breaks, and to provide an income for the surf clubs in order to promote local surfers (413-4). In being the only structure of its kind, the management plan adjusts the surfing ethos. The plan places the utmost importance on the protection of the home-break, which includes protecting marine environments and local practices. Berlant imagines a collective subjectivity emerging out of precarity. Nandy similarly speaks of the need to think about collective futures. Why could this collective not include one’s natural habitats? Through their model, the members of the Surfing Association of Papua New Guinea have created their own definition of a kook. To them, a surfer who does not work to protect their local surf-scape is not a real surfer. The definition of a kook is not fixed, but fluid.
12 Alternatively, the tricks the Papuans perform could be read through Homi Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. They
would then be described as “slippages” which, according to Bhabha, are the most productive results of mimicry (86).
