MacCannell’s Raison

1. MacCannell’s Raison • PhD in Rural Sociology • Dissertation work in the Caribbean • The Tourist came out ten years after his PhD was completed • Based largely on Barthes • Title not his, but actually the publisher’s idea

2. Roland Barthes • Signified • Signifier • SIGN

3. The Tourist • Marx was the first to discover the symbolic or fetishistic aspect of the commodity: its capacity to organize meaning and make us want things for reasons that go beyond our material needs • Needs become wants…

5. Get Out There!

6. Voyager of the Seas

7. Chapter 1 • Increasingly, the pure experience, which leaves no material trace, is manufactured and sold like a commodity

8. Chapter 1 • The value of things such as trips, shows, parades, events, sights, spectacles, courses, etc., is not determined by the amount of labor required for their production

9. Chapter 1 • Their value is a function of the quality and quantity of experience they promise • Think of an actor or a sports entertainer

10. Cultural Experience • All tourist attractions are cultural experiences • A cultural experience has two basic parts and a medium

11. Cultural Experience(pp. 23 – 29) • Model: The representation of an aspect of life • Influence: The created, changed or intensified belief that is based on the model • Medium: An agency that connects a model and its influence

12. Models • Models for individual personality, fashion and behavior are conveyed in motion pictures – but if there is any suspicion that mannerisms, clothing or other artifacts were put before the audience for the purpose of initiating a commercially exploitable fad, the fad will fail

13. Modeling

14. Modeling/Influence

16. Production • A cultural model, its influence(s), the medium that links them, the audiences that form around them and the distributors

17. Sightseeing(pp. 39-48) • Remember, as MacCannell mentioned in the introduction, the term “tourist” has two distinct meanings in his text:

18. The Tourist • Middle class, in search of “experience” • Modern man in general • These two definitions are constantly played with throughout the MacCannell text

19. Sightseeing • Briefly, sightseeing in modern society can serve as a representation of good and evil (often to reinforce a moral base)

20. Sightseeing • Visiting the finer monuments and attractions of society produces feelings of respect and admiration (either for one’s own society or for the visited one)

21. Sightseeing • Equally important, is the attitude of disgust associated with seeing muggings, abandoned buildings, polluted rivers, etc. • It helps to keep the moral order intact • It makes you glad as a tourist that you do not live there

22. NegativeSightseeing • Rojek (1993), for example, develops a typology of attractions • One of his types is the “black hole” • A place where a famous person died (or was killed) • A place where a mass murder took place

23. Devastation Tour

24. Sightseeing • This balance that is created is often called “real” • Disneyland, and other “perfect” places seem to lack the “real” because they don’t have the dirty, undesirable parts • They seem to lack authenticity

25. Structure of the Attraction • The attraction (be it good or bad) is an empirical relationship between a tourist, a sight and a marker

26. Attraction • MacCannell plays with the terms “site” and “sight”, so be aware of the use of each one of those • A marker is a piece of information about a sight/site

27. Marker • Markers can take several forms: • Souvenir matchbooks • Slide shows • Snow globes • Signs • Travel Channel shows

28. Attraction • Attractions are often indistinguishable from their less famous relatives

29. Sight • Most tourists (being middle class modern men/women) cannot visually determine an attraction – they must have markers to tell them which rocks are moon rocks, and therefore worth seeing

30. Sight • Would the average person (the tourist), know which piece of modern art was worth visiting, which building was important or which vineyard had the best grapes?

31. Sight/Marker • We need a sign to say that a vineyard is Mondovi • We need a marker to indicate which building is a Van der Rohe • We need a marker to tell us which is a Matisse (and even why Matisse is important)

32. Sight/Souvenir • MacCannell distinguishes between sights and souvenirs by saying that sights are collected by entire societies, souvenirs are collected by individuals • In this sense, the sight is elevated and has cultural significance

33. Sight • The tourist, because of the use of markers, has no problem figuring out which sights she ought to see

34. Mona • The Louvre example suggests that even in a place full of things to see, some (the Mona Lisa) are the sights (collected by everyone) and the rest are just souvenirs (collected by individuals that found them interesting) • The Mona Lisa is clearly identified by numerous markers

35. Sight Sacralization • This is based on the tourist’s desire to see certain sites/sights, that have become “must see” items for a given culture (take the Grand Canyon on the book’s cover)

37. Sight Sacralization • Visiting these sites is a form of ritual, and one often performs these “rituals” without even thinking about it – if one goes to France, one “must see” Paris, and when in Paris, one “must see” the Eiffel Tower • (The question arises – do you seem them because you really want to or because they are “must see” attractions and everyone will ask if you saw it?)

38. Sight Sacralization • People save their money (thousands of dollars sometimes) to make the “pilgrimage” to see these sights

39. Sight Sacralization • The exception is the local • The Manhattanite who has never been to the Statue of Liberty is a mythic image in our society • It is the reverse of the city person that visits the country to see things the locals care little about

40. Sight Sacralization • Sights take on power with the tourist – some want to be alone and are annoyed by the presence of other tourists • Sometimes, the sight is re-named, like Manhattan or San Francisco are often called “The City” (decidedly as proper nouns)

41. Sight Sacralization • This is how MacCannell explains the emergence of sights to the common mentality • There are five stages…

42. Marker • The first stage is marking the sight – this is called the naming phase • Often a great deal of work goes into an object (determining its age, historic relevance, recreational value, etc.)

43. Framing and Elevation • After a sight is named, it is framed/elevated – put on display • This can be a literal pedestal (elevation), or it can be a boundary (framing)

44. Framing • Protection: Cage, glass, ropes, guards • Enhancement: Spotlights • Often, guards or glass can be read by tourists as enhancements, so often framing types can merge in the mind of the tourist

45. Enshrinement • When the framing material has itself been named (marked), the original attraction has now become enshrined • Half Dome is inside of Yosemite National Park, so the valley has been enshrined

46. Mechanical Reproduction • The object gets reproduced • Postcards • Models • Prints • T-shirts • It is the mechanical reproduction phase that usually sets the tourist in motion – and he is not disappointed – alongside the copies, he now sees the real thing

47. Social Reproduction • Society takes on the attraction • Groups name themselves after a destination • Cities and regions take on the name of a famous attraction