Reflective Ethnographic Project (Discomforting Experience)

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Instructor’s name:Course:
17 November 2016
Reflective Ethnographic Project
Describe the Experience
Since both Luisa and I were of Caribbean origins, we had some common cultural practices. However, because Luisa moved to the United States when she was just five years old, she had gotten more accustomed to the American culture than the Caribbean one. Nonetheless, for someone who grew up in the U.S., Luisa had quite excellent knowledge about the Caribbean culture. She told me that her parents never missed an opportunity to educate her on the Colombian culture. After discussing a lot about our Caribbean roots, Luisa took me through certain integral elements of the American culture; a culture which she had been part of for the last seventeen years. She informed me that the culture of the United States was majorly Western; however, she also said that it had some Asian, Latin, and African elements in it. Luisa told me that the cuisine, dialect, folklore, social habits and arts were some of the defining elements of the American culture. We then decided that it would be a good idea to start me off with the arts segment of the American culture. To let me into the American art culture, she chose to take me to the Gateway Theater for the Rocky Horror Picture Show; I had never been to any event of that kind.
When we got there, there were lots of weird looking people. Not weird in physique, but in dressing and the choice of make-up. Almost everyone I could see had black clothes on them; that surprised me a bit because I did not understand why everyone was in black.

Luisa had just told me to put on black clothes; she did not say that that was part of what it took to get a real feel of the show. Nonetheless, I shoved the unnecessary “black thoughts away” by telling myself that it must be the theme of the show. Outside the theater, there were stands selling things like tissue paper, rice, and pieces of toast etcetera. The only theaters I have been to just retail popcorn, biscuits, and similar snacks on the way to the entrance. The most confusing part was that everyone was buying all these items in almost equal measures and with a lot of enthusiasm. I never understood why that was necessary, but I followed Luisa’s lead and bought some all the same. Once in the theater, the audience was deafening and unruly. Shortly after, actors with dark, revealing clothing and bold make-up appeared on the stage. The manner in which both the male and female cast were dressed really intrigued me. In my Cuban community, people, especially women have to be very cautious not to expose too much of their body. I have to admit that Luisa got me on that one; that experience was really uncomfortable for me.
When the cast walked in and began their performance with a musical, the noises went down for a while, and I thought my brain was finally going to cool down, and I get to enjoy the movie in peace. To my awe, a few minutes into the play, the audience, including Luisa, started shouting at the performers on stage. That got me really confused, and I wanted to ask Luisa what it meant, but she was too busy enjoying the moment to give any clear explanations. From the little she explained, I determined that it was what was supposed to be done. Unlike the buying of tissue paper and raw rice grains, I was unable to participate in the hurling of dirty words; my upbringing would not allow me. Some of the words were so dirty that I wondered how anyone could utter them in front of such a large congregation. Whoever managed to say or do something that got the attention of the actors got cheers from the already raucous crowd. I have to admit that initially, I felt like walking out. However, as the play went on and a few grains of rice, pieces of toast and some tissue paper rolls on their way to the stage landed on me, I got more and more used to the experience. Though I could not be able to participate in the hurling of insults and shouting at the actors, I found it less uncomfortable to throw the few projectiles I had bought outside the performance hall. The whole experience threw me totally out of my cultural comfort zone; I have to congratulate Luisa on this. Once we were out of the theater, she explained to me that the noise and the pelting of non-lethal objects were meant to see who could manage to take the cast’s attention from the scripted play. I then slowly started to understand what the mad energy was all about.
Analyze the Experience
From what I have learned in anthropology, there are many weird cultural practices around the world. The Body Rituals among the Nacirema is one of the cultural practices I have read about in this course (Miner 22). The cultural practices of this group, as mentioned in the book, are unreasonably crude to an outsider. However, the Nacirema followed the rituals so religiously that one would believe that their life actually depended on it (Miner 37). The Rocky Horror Picture show was unbelievably loud and rude to me at first. But my friend Luisa who knew what the show meant to her, and why the audience had to do some of the seemingly disrespectful things they did, enjoyed every moment of it. The more I stayed inside the auditorium, the more I got used to the rowdiness. Soon I started making contributions towards maintaining the state I considered rude just a few minutes before. What this means is that, however, awkward, a culture might seem, once a person gets to live in it and maintains an open mind, they are likely to start appreciating some elements of it (Fabian 13). The adrenaline that I got inside the theater made me feel like introducing a similar but less insulting experience to my people; this is how people borrow culture. Some of the body rituals like the mouth rituals that were practiced by the Nacirema were a satirical representation of what Americans do today (Miner 38). They brush their teeth regularly and visit the dentist once in a while like the Nacirema did the traditional healers. To be succinct, culture only looks completely out of place for a person who looks at it with a judgmental eye. An unwillingness to compromise their own “superior culture” further worsens the situation (Fabian 21). The curiosity I had at the start slowly became part of me, and in it, I began to appreciate the show and found myself willing to participate in some of the rituals.
Reflect upon this Experience
A good part of the show threw me way off my cultural comfort zone; in fact, I still do not believe some of the words that were uttered by elderly looking people in front of young men and women like us. The theater experience was entirely different from what I am used to in Cuba. The Cuban society that I come from is very conservative and mindful of most of the things they do and say in public. However, if I compare the morals of most of my friends in Cuba and those of Louisa, I do not see any significant negative difference. The fact that Louisa could let loose and enjoy the moment like every other fan was doing, yet still stay focused and disciplined in school, and many other aspects of life got me thinking. I thought that perhaps one should just occasionally give in to the exciting thrills of their culture and feel the moment without any biased judgment or rigid thoughts about what the rest of the world thinks, that I ended up participating in the rituals, despite the confusion at the start, made me realize how different yet similar my people and I were to those “mad” people in the theater. Everyone wants some fun in their life; to the Americans, whatever was going on in the theater was fun, and we also have our fun rituals in Cuba. The fact that I managed to get over my judgmental self and enjoy the experience taught me that no matter how different we are if we stop judging each other’s culture and start appreciating them, every part of the world would be a fun place to live in.
Works Cited
Fabian, Johannes. “Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object.” Columbia University
Press, 2014.
Miner, Horace. “Body Ritual among the Nacirema.” American Anthropologist 58.3 (1956): 503-
507.