Tourist Paradise: Intercultural Encounters Movie Review Samples

After watching “Paradise: Love” by Ulrich Seidl and reading “Bodies, beaches and bars: negotiating heterosexual masculinity in southern Thailand's tourism industry” by Linda Malam, it is easy to draw a common parallel between the encounters of tourists with African men in the movie and Thai bar workers in the article.
Basing on these two sources, one can make a conclusion that the nature of relationships of locals with tourists is completely the same, whether it is Kenya or Pha-ngan Island. To be more precise, as an example, both the director and the author of the article chose female tourists and male locals working in the service area. In spite of reasoning and common standards, women are really attracted by men of another race and culture when on vacation. The reason is hidden behind many important factors.
Being used to the Western masculinity, female tourists are charmed and seduced particularly by the personality traits and behavior. It is important to take into account the fact that working in the tourist resort is mostly common for migrants, not locals. And migrants are usually those who can’t find a job in hometown for some reasons (low education level, unpresentable appearance or no skills). These people are usually financially marginalized and have no family responsibilities. Their motivation to work lies in the desire of new experiences, too. Working with tourists can bring a lot of physical encounters with females and even travelling abroad with their tourist lovers. It means that both sides are interested in “cooperation”.
The local’s space is his space where he is confident and is a master. If speaking of a bar in Thailand or tourist resort in Kenya, the boundaries between identities are transgressed, everything is permissible. Another skin, another body and its smell become attractively exotic to female tourists, and they choose local and not tourist men. Dominating in this particular area, the local worker is able to make a woman feel in the centre of attention – he knows every corner and every person, so it is not difficult to entertain her for free.
Probably, there is no place for love in such relationships because the major interest of both sides is material or physical. So it is not a good idea to search and hope for love, like the main character in “Paradise: Love”, because it is not common for the tourist resort.

Works Cited

MALAM, LINDA. “Bodies, beaches and bars: negotiating heterosexual masculinity in southern Thailand's tourism industry”. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography (2008). P. 581-594.