Is The Wild Thornberrys neo-colonialist?

After this wonderful course, I am seeing a lot of old media in a new light. In fact, almost all of them. That includes some rather unexpected works like The Wild Thornberrys.

If you’ve forgotten what the show was about, or haven’t seen it (shame on you, it’s good), here’s a recap from the intro.

The protagonist of the show is American (i.e. White) girl Eliza Thornberry.

She travels with her family around the world. This strikes me as a bit like a nostalgic safari fantasy, updating the old “White colonial explorer” narrative to the modern day. Every place in the world becomes framed as the personal adventures of the White protagonists.

During their travels, the Thornberrys shoot nature documentaries. This reproduces the “camera on the boat” position where foreign Whites always hold power over the camera and representations, not the locals. This family appears to be in the privileged position to consume and profit off the local environmental resources everywhere.

Across the show there’s an implicit explanation for why local peoples couldn’t just shoot documentaries themselves – they are depicted as all backwards and living in traditional villages and shacks!

Twist! This nameless African shaman zaps Eliza with the power to speak with animals. This just falls into the “magical negro” trope where a minority person has magical powers because he is just so fascinatingly exotic and spiritual. The shaman’s role in the story is only to benefit the White protagonist.

Hot Air 

Since we looked a lot at Māori representation and biculturalism, I will focus on the episode “Hot Air” (season 4 episode 6) in which the Thornberrys visit New Zealand. It is an interesting case since mainstream media also has the capability to promote Indigenous cultures if done correctly. How accurately and respectfully does the show portray Māori culture?

The first shot in, and they have already misspelled Rotorua as “Roturua”. Not a good sign.

Pictured: “Roturua”. Apparently the town is just a forest and a Māori village. They are showing things like a tourist advert, where a place is defined only by its most “exotic” elements.

 The chief welcomes the Thornberrys in an over-the-shoulder shot. It’s subtle, but this will always treat the White protagonists as the holders of the gaze, and the “ethnic” Other as the object of the gaze.

Chief of whom exactly? There’s no mention of iwi or hapū. The show just treats Māori as one homogenous group, an example of cultural flattening and the mark of the plural.

The first thing that New Zealand viewers would notice about the chief is his thick Australian accent. This is not only inaccurate, but insulting, as it seems like the producers casted an Australian and just said “close enough!” instead of trying to find actual Māori talent.

Debbie (the older sister) is smitten by the chief’s son, Arapita. She says she loves his tattoo and that it’s cool that he’s a “real warrior”. This reduces a human being to a fetishized, romanticised image. The term for the Māori facial tattoo (tā moko) and its significance are never explained. I’m not sure if Arapita is a real Māori name or if that’s a real tā moko pattern.

The kanikani (dance) is just jumping around in front of tourists with cameras.

Debbie agrees to try carving a canoe – “hey, if it’s traditional, I’m all for it” – like a giddy tourist, only treating the culture as some exotic experience, not something lived out by real people. She mentions a rock star and condescendingly tells Arapita that he’s probably never heard of him, as if they just live in grass huts with no contact with the outside world.

After the Eliza-centric second act, we get back to Debbie who receives a sobering revelation. Arapita’s brother arrives and reveals that his name is really Albert, the tattoo is just makeup, and he is needed to fix a satellite dish. Albert confesses that the traditional appearance was just for the welcoming ceremony, and he was only keeping it up to impress Debbie because that’s what she wanted to see.

This is a very interesting twist. Until this point, the episode was complicit in representing Māori as an exotic spectacle. Now Debbie (and in turn, the viewer) are chastised for this problematic and naïve relationship. It exposes colonial hybridity, as Māori and Pākehā aren’t completely separate; Māori people can have English names. It also skewers the ethnographic present, as of course indigenous peoples aren’t stuck in the 18th Century lifestyle with no outside contact or modern technology.

It even seems to engage with the “cosmetic biculturalism” where watered down indigenous culture is used as marketing and to satisfy tourists, exposing the stereotyping and fakeness of it all. Perhaps in implicating Albert, the episode is also condemning some Māori performers for being complicit in these “self-exploiting” representations. Wow, this is deeper than I realised. Did Suzanne Woodward write this part?

There’s a caveat to this critique though. Albert admits that he kept up the traditional Māori warrior persona because he was afraid that Debbie would not accept him as a “regular kid”. This is a Eurocentric labelling of Debbie’s American culture as more “regular”, and Māori as the Other.

Debbie learns her lesson and accepts Albert as an individual, beyond the pre-packaged tourist imagery, inviting the audience to do the same.

How often do you see Māori male/White female relationships in media, let alone American media? It’s remarkable that the show took this step and it is shown positively.

Debbie shows her canoe to the family. There is a strong inversion of the “mighty whitey” trope in which a White person entering indigenous culture masters it absurdly fast, surpassing the others and sometimes even becoming their leader. Here, Debbie’s Māori canoe carving skills are naturally atrocious since it’s only her first attempt.

However, why is she so privileged that she gets a whole canoe to carve? Would she be allowed to under Māori traditions? The show gives no answers for these glaring questions.

Nigel: “Bravo, Deborah. Amazing resemblance!”

After that interesting turn, the episode disappointingly ends with a haka that looks like “heads, shoulders, knees and toes”. My eyes rolled so hard they could power a medium sized city.

The verdict

“Hot Air” is a mixed bag.

On the good side, it dismantles some tropes of dominant neo-colonialist discourse. It sets up a romanticised image of Māori culture and a “mighty whitey” plot, then demolishes them. Diegetically, it deconstructs and critiques the idea of indigenous cultures as spectacles for consumption by outsiders.

On the bad side, this critique does not affect the status quo of the show. Extra-diegetically, the show still privileges the White Eye and appropriates “exotic” local cultures as the spectacle of the week. This is alongside the wildlife spectacle of the week, an uncomfortable neo-colonial association. Even though Debbie accepts Albert in this episode, he is never seen or mentioned again, confirming his status as part of the show’s temporary exhibitions.

There is also the issue of cultural education and accuracy. The episode explains a few Māori terms like hongi, kanikani and hui, but these definitions are only cursory. The viewer never finds out the cultural significance of these traditions or why they are done. Since Nigel (the father) is a silly man and the Māori characters have Australian accents, the terms are constantly mispronounced. Also, at no point does anybody speak a full sentence in Māori, and the dances are all made up. It’s an insincere engagement with the culture that feels ripped out of a tourist brochure.

Still, it’s an interesting step. No doubt many overseas viewers would have gotten their first exposure to Māori culture from this episode. Since mainstream media reaches so many people, it also has the capability to promote indigenous cultures, not just Fourth Cinema. However, this must be done carefully. The work’s premise must not involve neo-colonialist consumption of spectacles, research must be extensive and indigenous peoples must be meaningfully involved in the production, so that the culture is represented in an accurate and respectful manner.

Works cited

“Hot Air.” The Wild Thornberrys Season 4. Dir. Ron Noble. Writ. Sarah Jane Cunningham and Suzie Villandry. Prod. Maureen Iser. Perf. Lacey Chambert, Jodi Carlisle, Tim Curry, Flea, and Danielle Harris. Viacom International, 2002. DVD.