An Investigation of the theory surrounding the new movie, “Captain
Phillips”
Growing up as a huge Tom Hanks fan, I had to see the new
movie “Captain Phillips” that premiered recently in theaters. For those of you not familiar with the film,
it follows the true story of Captain Richard Phillips as his cargo ship is hijacked
by pirates of the coast of Somalia in 2009 and is then subsequently taken
hostage by the pirates. After three days
as a hostage, the U.S. Navy intervenes and intercepts the pirates who have
taken him captive, resulting in the death of the captors and rescue of the
captain.
The trailer for the film can be found here for those
interested:
While watching the movie, however, I could not help but make
connections back to the anthropological theory so far covered this
semester.
While I am not going to go into all of the possible theoretical
connections that can be made to the movie, I am going to mention several that I
think are particularly clear. First and
foremost, this movie clearly represents the differences between and emic and
etic point of view, one of the major theoretical issues in the field, when
comparing my etic view of pirates and the reasoning of the pirates themselves. Prior to seeing the film, I, like I am sure
the majority of others familiar with the actions of pirates both in this
situation and other recent news stories, presumed the pirates to simply be
relatively evil people with little moral compass or compassion for others,
hence their boarding of ships, firing at innocent civilians, and taking of
hostages. However, several instances in
the film makes one question these prior beliefs. Not only does the presence of personality and
agency within the pirates add a sort of human factor that media and news
sources tend to look past create a closer feeling of emotion and connection the
pirates alter my previous ideas surrounding the nature of pirates, certain
lines in the film also hit home for me. In one such instance, while Phillips
was hostage he turns to one of the pirates and says something along the lines
of, “There has to be something to do in Somalia besides fish and kidnap people,”
to which the pirate replies, “Maybe in America.” He is referencing the dire
situation of many of the people in Somalia and the true lack of other ways to
make money to please both one’s superiors and to provide for oneself. Phillips, like myself, does not see the
necessity of piracy when thinking of the comparatively endless amounts of
opportunity present in our own American culture. To the pirates, however, there is no such
opportunity.
Along these lines, the next thing to consider is the idea of
holism, made popular by Franz Boas. When
using holism, one has to study the entire context in which a trait or pattern
occurs. This is seen in the movie,
though at a very minor scale, as the viewer obtains insight as to the lives of
the pirates and the reasoning and background to their acts of piracy. This is exemplified when the pirates refuse
to simply leave Phillips’s ship with the $30,000 received aboard and instead
kidnap the captain to hold for a ransom upwards of 6 million dollars. To Phillips, this seems absolutely ridiculous
because $30,000 is a large amount of money to any individual. While Phillips is exasperated by this, one
does not realize that the pirates’ bosses will not let them back to their lives
and families with such a small amount, demanding a much larger sum and
therefore causing the pirates to resort to more desperate and hostile actions. While this is a very simplistic view of the
idea of holism especially when trying to explain the pirates’ situation, it
gets the point across. While not
changing the morality of the act, a peek into the holistic point of view
creates a deeper understanding of the actions of pirates instead of just seeing
it as an act of evil.
From a Freudian standpoint, the act of piracy can be
considered an example of sublimation which is the process of hiding the carnal
and base desires of humanity in the constructs of society designed to fulfill
and regulate these desires in a culturally specific way. In this case, piracy may be considered an
outlet to a primal urge toward violence.
While these are just several of the connections between
anthropological theory and “Captain Phillips” I believe that the application of
such theories to the understanding of the movie creates a much more unique
experience. It opens one’s eyes to
context of the situation and helps to incorporate and understand different
perspectives and ways of thinking about situations such as this. This anthropological application also, at
least for me, helps to keep in mind the etic nature of news and reporting in
general. I have to reiterate that in no
way am I condoning the acts of piracy featured in this film, I just think that anthropological
analysis is a very interesting approach to such matters which also shows the
broad range of anthropological applicability in thinking about the world and
living our lives.
For those of you who are planning to see or already have
seen “Captain Phillips” I challenge you to take a step back and keep anthropological
theory in mind when watching and critiquing the film.
Some interesting monetary conversions to further elucidate just what exactly $30,000 would mean to the average Somali citizen:
ReplyDelete1 USD = 1237.51 Somali Shillings (SOS)
The per capita income of Somali is 600 USD
600 USD = 742506.45 SOS
30,000 USD = 37125322.28 SOS
In other words, had the Somalis left with the upfront 30,000 USD, they would have averaged 50 years worth of an individual Somali citizen's income. Instead of taking what would count as a literal Somali fortune, the pirates set their sights on a 6,000,000 USD ransom in an effort to appease their warlord boss.
6,000,000 USD = 7425064456.37 SOS
Following the same math, it would take the average Somali citizen 10,000 years to earn this amount. A truly unthinkable sum.
Thus the motivation was fear, rather than greed.
DeleteMy second point centers around a question that has no doubt been broached before in anthropology, but is pertinent to the analysis of Somali pirates, and criminals in general -- how does one conduct an ethnography of hyper-violent fringe groups? After all, these particular factions are perhaps the most obvious affront to what Durkheim would consider a community conducting themselves in a way that encourages beneficial social cohesion, as the deciding mark of a criminal organization (which can potentially exercise a social complexity that rivals "tribes" and even "chiefdoms") is their transcendence of normal behavior with the intention of exploiting others. And yet, a group's deviance from social norm is not grounds for their exclusion from anthropological analysis...far from it! It is in fact the very reason why we as anthropologists should study them. What underlying societal institutions--both physical and mental--lead to the synthesis of a criminal organization? In the case of the Somali pirates, the relentless trawling of local fish by multi-billion dollar international fishing industries along the Somali coast posed a crippling blow to the local fishermen. They, economically destitute, were then unable to meet several of Malinowski's emphasized needs (like nutrition, relaxation, etc) and became susceptible to desperate and illegal acts, the likes of which were spearheaded by what might classify as a loosely charismatic authority in the form of a Somali warlord. A far cry from what Max Weber defined as, "devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person" the Somali warlord nonetheless acted as an almost canonized rallying point for the resuscitation of the fishermen's devastated community. Thus, through a series of anthropologically accessible ideals, we can roughly categorize the rebirth of modern piracy in the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteThis analysis, of course, is mere "armchair anthropology." Returning to my original question, how on Earth could one go about the participant observation of a criminal syndicate in a manner that wouldn't result in bodily harm? Keep in mind, I am not simply referring to the anthropology of crime (drug users, urban graffiti artists, and shoplifters have all of received notable anthropological attention in the past), but an actual socialized organization founded on specific rules, taboos, and institutions that have before been so painstakingly analyzed by the anthropological figureheads we have studied thus far. Is it even a question worth asking? Assuming all participants were kept anonymous without any intent of ever exposing the criminal organization to the authorities, would such a study even function in the realm of legality? If you conducted participant observation, would you be liable for aiding and abetting? I could not imagine conducting a more fascinating ethnography than one in the depths of a crime syndicate responsible for acts of international terrorism, as we have seen in the Somali pirates.
Great questions. Some aspects of human life are probably better documented by survivors (e.g. Twelve Years a Slave) than by anthropologists with their social, political and economic protections.
DeleteFor others who are also looking for another big screen film to use some of Anthropological theories in big screen films, I want to recommend the film Elysium (Sadly Tom Hanks does not appear in the film). The film centers on Matt Damon’s character Max who lives in a futuristic chaotic world heavily divided by the privileged and the rest of humanity. The population of Earth, as well as those with political power, leave Earth for this man made space station where only they may reside and the rest are left stranded with almost nothing on a ruined earth.
ReplyDeleteTrailer for the film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIBtePb-dGY
I will spare anymore details about the film for those who wish to watch is sometime in the near future and experience it for themselves. This film is also great for an Anthropological viewpoint mainly because many concepts can be applied in the film. Immediately, I go to Marx and his ideas of how history unfolds and how the capitalist society will eventually meet its own end. As well as the obvious divide between the power and money hungry bourgeois and the barely alive proletariat. Another anthropologist that I can point out in this film is Durkheim and his ideas of how societal groups come together and how they operate among each other. Mainly here in this film I mainly see the Organic Solidarity aspect of Durkheim’s theory at work in this film. Watching this film over the summer, I made so many connections to not only my own life, but also from what I have studied in past classes in Anthropology. Though this film is set in a fictional Earth, the problems Max and his world faces are very much real. Perhaps one of you will see other anthropological theories at work that I may not have seen or overlooked in this film. Elysium is another great film if you want to put you’re Anthropology hat’s on and applied what we have learned so far.
Can you say more about the Durkheimian dimensions of the film? The Marxian perspective comes through in your description.
DeleteVery interesting post, Pete, and it got a good dialogue going. You make readers think about the relationship between etic perspectives and external moral judgments. Are these different? Holism is more about the four-field approach; I think what you are looking for is cultural (and perhaps even moral) relativism, the former at least being another gift from Boas. The relationship between piracy and sublimation presents another interesting quandary. Outsiders of course connect piracy with a lack of sublimation, an expression of unregulated id. But as you go on to point out, in context, piracy may be highly rational.
ReplyDelete