by Madeleine Sheffield

 

The dichotomies of Desire and Fear / Sex & Violence
 

Sexuality is perhaps the most complicated of the standard commodities of the indigene, seldom expressed unequivocally and without ambivalence. It has to be said that this is not only true of the sexual commodification of the native woman, but of women universally. For example, the reaction to the savage indigene is usually negative whereas the sexualised, erotic/exotic indigene is seen as the positive ideal of native feminine beauty [Goldie 1989:67]. From projections of this ideal through postcards, tourism and other textual media such as film, literature, poetry and now advertising, a power structure has emerged based on the commodities of sex and violence. The static Other reflects the gaze of the observer and returns the image which the male gaze requires [Goldie 1989:65). The power is held by the describer and creator of the pose (photographer, artist) to return the desired image. This can be summed up by the conclusion of John Berger; "men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at" [as quoted by Pollack: 1992]. 

The representation of indigenous women as erotic beings, sexually available to the male colonists gaze, fills three purposes. Firstly, the temptation and guilt arising from erotic desire is transferred from the white male viewer onto the Other; the sensual erotic/exotic native female. Secondly, the possession of the indigenous women is equated to possession of land. This is clear in postcards of alluring Maori maidens positioned against backdrops of lush scenery or placed beside Maori carvings, meeting houses and Pas (signifying the culture of the past). The maiden, representative of nature, invites the colonial gaze to penetrate, and consequently possess, both herself and her land. Thirdly, the sexual availability of the native woman connotes the absence of an aggressive native male society. When the male is defeated, the indigenous female is offered or offers herself as a metaphorical war trophy for the white victor [Beets 1997:15]. 

The primary role for the male exotic is found in the standard commodity of violence that does seem to have some historical basis. For example, the warrior trope. The trope is still maintained in and by the hierarchical iwi structures but the way that the warrior tradition is understood is from a Westernised (and hence, masculinist) perspective. This is illustrated by the absence of photographic images of native warriors with native women. When they are represented, it is always in traditional costume. This imagery again depicts a culture that is a phenomenon of the past, not the present [Beets 1997:16]. Overwhelmingly, the myriad images of the exotic beauty of the South Seas or the Pacific Islands depict images of women. Though there do exist images of the actively savage Pacific Island male beauty as defined by western discourse, there are few images of a passively sensual Pacific Island male [Beets 1997:91]. In my view, this could be interpreted as an indication of how feared/admired the male indigene was/is by the white colonial male. 
 
 

Early Cinema - Integration and Segregation in Aotearoa
 

On the surface, New Zealand's national story is represented through the texts of postcards, films, tourism and ethnographies as a utopian historical romance, pursuing progress, modernity and racial harmony. The reality was/is quite different from the iconographic representations in these texts of Maoriland and the exotic/erotic Other. Early films from 1910's and 1920's such as The Romance of Hinemoa, Under the Southern Cross, and Hei Tiki portray the two cultures becoming one and are allegories of cultural engagement with the exotic/erotic Other based on Darwinian notions of racial/sexual classifications. Thus, films and television programmes are not essays on authenticity and inauthenticity so much as allegories of cultural engagement and negotiation between the coloniser/colonised [Blythe 1994:21]. 
 

ÊThe Romance of Hinemoa
 

The film legend of Hinemoa and Tutanekai is a classic example of allegorical narrative. Set in Maoriland (the romantic name for New Zealand in the nineteenth and early twentieth century), the film embodies at least five examples of stereotype that were seen as portraying the authentic Maori in the imperial age: the Noble Savage, the Ignoble Savage, the Romantic Savage, the Comic Savage and the Dying Savage [Blythe 1994:24]. New Zealand was very much influenced by the socio-politico intellectual writings of Enlightenment thinkers, such as Rousseau and Diderot, and the stereotypical classifications implicit in The Romance of Hinemoa reflect this influence. 

The Romance of Hinemoa (1925/27) was a British film produced by Sphere Films Ltd, for Gaumont and directed by Gustave Pauli, a Danish filmmaker, photographer and painter [Blythe 1994:27]. This version is the third of four versions of the legend. A fairy tale-like narrative of handsome Noble Savages, it is set against the visual imagery of lush forests and sparkling lakes designed to appeal to the audiences fascination with exotic parts of the world, unseen and unknown prior to the nineteenth century. Directed towards art house intelligentsia, the film constructs a patronising discourse praising the Maoris rapid escalation in the classification stakes, exemplifying the imperialist mind-set. The sub-title of the film states that "For the first time, a film has been acted entirely by Maoris, who in less than a century have emerged from savagery and barbary to a high state of civilisation" [Blythe 1994:27]. 

Such discourse, in a historical context, is not completely negative, as implicit within the dialogue is the message that "at least Maoris are good at something". This is often a message we hear today; for example, when accolades are heaped on sporting heroes, musicians and the like who happen to be Maori or Pacific Islander, comments along the lines of "well, its in the blood, you know - but at least they're good at something" can often be heard. As in the past, when trying to go in the face of otherwise negative discourses about the realities of life for indigenous people, the discourse of the powerful is often implicitly/explicitly negative and patronising whilst giving praise (this discourse could also be described as a back-handed compliment). 
 
 
 

Conclusions
 

From analysing historical popular early texts such as the keepsake postcards and the timeless romance films from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the images used by the tourism industry today, it becomes clear that the romanticised picture of a Pacific paradise is a chimera. An illusion posed and created by the greedy, sexualising gaze of the possessive white male who not only desired/feared the indigene, but wanted their land and resources as well. These exotic/erotic iconographic representations of indigenous Pacific women are designed to appeal to the fantasies and desires of white male consumers in different ways. This raises questions about how such similarities translate within the minds and fantasies of those who create/consume them, particularly those who hold positions of power. Analysing the link between the erotic/exotic packaging and objectification of Pacific/Maori women and the commodification of the Pacific as a saleable entity created and maintained by white male desire, reveals a complex web of domination and subjugation, desire and fear. Only in identifying and deconstructing the stereotypical imagery explicit within colonial, modernist and now post-modern constructions, can the demeaning effects of the label exotic be reinscribed in a way that disrupts the colonised/coloniser mind-set, and empowers the exoticised to construct their/our own contextualised images. 

Finally, I would like to include a poem that powerfully describes the double othering or double bind that faces indigenous women when trying to reinscribe and reconstruct their identities one hundred and sixty years after the first western contact. 

Fighting the Crown was written by a Maori woman from the small settlement of Pawarenga, in the Far North, and was published in the Northland Ageon 15 July 1999. 
 

Fighting the Crown 

Woman 
Body carved cleanly and curved like a Crown 
Nursery of new life in its cyclical round 
Bold, bodacious, groovy and gracious. 

History's high waves sweep your shores like a song 
Smash rivers of right over rocks of wrong 
Shattering spray lifts and drifts away. 

Arced through the shimmer hangs a shining hope 
Gods promised token like Mauis strong rope 
Sign of a future both sunlit and sure 

Lightening on faces of foes set in frowns 
Who flit through the fight in the cloak of the Crown 
Greedy and rotten their people forgotten 

They yammer and yowl "You're the Mother of a dog" 
Refusing to see you're a Daughter of God. 
Jealous as Cain their hands are stained. 

Fight those behind them with God-given skill. 
Wielding the Word whose power can kill 
Sharp as a knife yet offering life 

Fight hard and strong and persevere 
Fight for a future free of fear 
Lovely loquacious 
Bold and bodacious 
Woman. 

He Wahine Ra o Pawarenga. 

 

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Bibliography

Beets, Jacqui. "Images of Maori Women in New Zealand Postcards after 1900" Womens Studies Journal: Special Issue: Indigenous Women in the Pacific. 13:2 (1997). 

Blythe, Martin. Naming the Other Images of the Maori in New Zealand Film and Television. London: Scarecrow, 1994. 

Gilman, Sander L. "Black Bodies, White Bodies: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality in Late Nineteenth-Century Art, Medicine, and Literature" "Race", Writing and Difference. Ed. Henry Louis Gates Jr. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1986. 

Goldie, Terry. Fear and Temptation: The Image of the Indigene in Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand Literatures. Kingston, Montreal and London: McGill-Queens University Press, 1989. 

Pollack, Griselda. "What's Wrong with 'Images of Women?" The Sexual Subject: a Screen Reader in Sexuality. Ed. Mandy Merck. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

Suaalii, Tamasailau. "Deconstructing the 'exotic' female beauty of the Pacific Islands and 'white' male desire" Womens Studies Journal: Special Issue: Indigenous Women in the Pacific 13:2 (1997).