Current professional cultural anthro. exists only as scandal in the media imagination, so BBC series serves as origin story, the story of decline and fall.

When I hear “Tales from the Jungle,” I think “Tales from the Crypt.”

I haven’t seen the segments on Harrison and Anstice (who is not an anthropologist). But, based on the three I have seen (BM, MM, CC) and what I know of Antice, contrary to what Tim says, the BBC shows are dreadful “primers for a public audience” regarding cult. anthro.

And another thing. The clothes. I am sure the real Malinowski would have ironed his shirt when making an appearance on TV. Plus that bloke reading from the Notes and Queries totally could have been Dumbledore.

Having said all that, I really like this series. They are well made, expensive productions that serve as pretty good introductory primers for a public audience. They are not badly written compared to most of the previous attempts I have seen, and in any case have lots of well known academics doing the talking head bit. The episode on Tom Harrisson, narrated by David Attenborough was great.

First, the music that they use is not very good and misplaced throughout the film. In many cases it is overdramatic and distracting.

Second, something feels off about the way each of them were cut. A lot of scenes don’t flow well into each other.

Third, they feel to soap operaish (I know that is not a word). It’s one thing to talk about the controversies in a famous intellectual’s life. It’s entirely another to cut a documentary in such a way that the controversies seem sort of tawdry. Some recent PBS documentaries about black scientists (for black history month) did a much better job balancing telling a story about an intellectual’s life, giving iformation and dealing with controversy.

I think you\’ll find that most of the members of this blog (writers and readers) wholeheartedly endorse the popularization of anthropology. The problem is \”preserving the anthropology\” while doing so. If the anthropology is lost then what is being popularized? Little more than the prejudices and stereotypes anthropologists work so hard to undo…

But the real problem with this show has nothing to do with that. It is really, really, badly made. If they had hired decent writers I might have still been able to enjoy it!

1) We, as anthropologists are so intune with what our discipline is about that know one else really has a clue

or

2) that anthropologist exsist in a discipline that demands a sense of arrogance.