Exploiting Caribbean islanders highlights colonial heritage of tourism
Now, competing Hulu documentaries and Netflix documents have recounted the events through the lenses of millennial culture, media coverage, and greedy “entrepreneurship.”
But there’s another story humming away in the background. Exuma is one of many Caribbean islands that rely heavily on (and sometimes precariously!) the tourism. The hedonistic nature of these islands can hide exploitation. The documentaries fail to examine the colonial baggage they portray by focusing on the stress and losses experienced by festival stakeholders and attendees.
The Fyre Festival chaos
Documentaries reveal the festival’s erratic and dwindling cash flow.
Attendees began posting images of the festival’s “catering”, which was not celebrity chef-prepared meals as promised but instead processed cheese and bread. headline performers pulled out even before the event began. In the documentary footage, festival-goers stranded in the dark described the scene as “barbaric”.
Fyre catering. Twitter @trev4president
It would be an understatement to say that the festival’s sales pitch failed to materialise. Both documentaries reveal that social media initially marketed Fyre by using expensively produced video footage featuring models and influencers running in slow-motion through crystal clear waters. Drone shots show yachts speeding toward the idyllic Bahamian coast. A coordinated network of social media influencers boosted Fyre.
McFarland stated that the goal was to “sell a pipe dream to average losers”. Tickets, some of which were priced at US$12,000 per VIP package, sold out quickly.
Paradise Islands
It has been a long-held belief that the Caribbean is a place where you can escape from your daily routine and indulge in sensory overloads. In the early 20th Century, Cuba was one of the illegal, near-but-foreign play areas that North American tourists could visit in order to gamble, drink, and find prostitutes. Fyre’s marketing exploited its island location, which, according to the story, was once Pablo Escobar’s. McFarland boasted: “We’re taking the American dream and saying that for three days, you can be Pablo Escobar”.
YouTube promotional video for Fyre Festival. YouTube
Fyre’s original marketing strategy promised a festival on a “remote island.” This was to encourage “a quest for crossing boundaries.” As Colleen Ballerino Cohen observed, the narrative of conquest, discovery and “possession of virgin” territories positions tourists as sexual conqueror. Important studies argue that the tourism market literally and figuratively recolonises Caribbean. The colonial gaze cannot be separated when it comes to the construction of paradise island.
Paradise lost
Caribbean nation-states rely heavily and perilously on mono-culture, extractive economies like tourism. This is a legacy of colonization. Capital can be concentrated offshore and benefit foreign operators while contributing little to local economies. All-inclusive resorts are a good example of this. Guests pay their money in their own countries, and the local economy is not able to participate. McFarland’s team also encouraged guests to purchase credit-loaded wristbands to pay for drinks, experiences, and food.
The documentaries showed a lot of Fyre’s video marketing, showing white bodies in slow-motion partying, but black bodies could be seen intermittently toiling away in the background. Netflix’s film acknowledges this more, describing how 200 local contractors worked day and night for weeks to prepare the site. According to reports, these contractors were not paid.
