Post #677 by kahukini on Sun, Apr 14, 2002 5:05 AM

I find it hard to believe that the original tiki culture wasn't totally tongue in cheek about "primitives" - how could they be "innocent" - adults in the mid twentieth century were just as smart as we (if not smarter, certainly their books and films were more intelligent). I submit that the originators and participants in the original tiki lounge culture were cultural imperialists poking fun under the table at simple island people who live in little grass shacks. Sure these white suburbanites idealized life on far away pacific isles where rum barrels always lay around the next corner and native girls did impromptu topless dances... but the fact is they didn't move to Polynesia and stayed home in Minneapolis working for National Conglomerated Insurance, remaining good Christians to boot. I don't think they were trying to understand or "appreciate" in the academic sense the cultures or religions of polynesia - I think they were trying to let off some steam after a long workweek calculating risk ratios. Tiki's roots just could not be "P.C." and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sure, now that we've all made it through the 90's everyone is sensitive to language that smacks of anything but outright reverence to foreign cultures, but this notion of cultural relativism is entirely a recent academic creation and is not how the human mind naturally works and has worked since exploration first began. I don't think we have to or should apologize or explain away what Tiki culture was and what it still is to an extent - the bastardization of polynesian culture for the sake of entertainment. And after 9/11, entertainment is more important than ever according to Tom Cruise.