What is real and what is not #1 - Living w/ Machigenga

Can you turn on your television and see a video of an ACTUAL LSD trip? I would think not.

But on the Travel Channel we get this new show, Living with the Machigenga, where two guys named Mark and Olly apparently show up with a camera crew and try to assimilate in with an indigenous Amazonian tribe. And on this episode (first or second - I'm not sure) they hop right in to the traditional culture by seeing a shaman and taking the drug "black ayahuasca"

Here's a little online extra where Mark demonstrates that yes, the drug is quite inspiring. And that's before (presumably) all the real crazy stuff happens - vomiting, running through the woods, crouching down and picking at the ground, talking gibberish (all of which can be viewed on the actual show).

Wild stuff to be on a TV show - especially one rated TV-PG! I suppose it speaks to the power of the notion of "traditional culture" on how we interpret the things we see.


But the whole thing demands a certain consideration. The camera crew! These two guys are supposed to be endearing themselves to a uniquely traditional tribe, partaking in rituals, avoiding reliance on any modern technology - and with a camera crew?

The show takes on an entirely different attitude when we remember this fact. To us, the cameras are supposed to be invisible, the crew is supposed to be distinctly separate from the human experience that we are viewing (indeed, during the episode I watched we only see briefly see a single crew member when Mark has to be restrained during the ayahuasca incident). But to the actual Machigenga tribesmen?

How far must the reality of the experiences undergone by Mark, Olly, and the rest of the crew diverge from the edited product we see on television! At the end of the episode, they go rafting down rapids. We see a lot of camera shots, a lot of angles that must have been staged or at least discussed. But the story we get is "Olly and I were left behind by the rest of the tribe because we were holding them back" (they are not naturals at Machigenga-style rafting).

The reality, the "story" that must have existed during those moments had to have been quite different. What about the camera crew? How did they get down the river? Did everyone have to learn the traditional rafting style? What did the Machigenga have to say about all this? Surely there must have been a serious discussion of the logistics of the whole project, right? Wouldn't that be interesting for us to know?

Questions like these can be asked at every turn. Ultimately, it leaves me very unsatisfied.

It's like this: you went into the jungle, and you say you're going to show me what it was like. But you don't - you show me something, maybe you even show me a part of everything. But you don't show me all of anything. Instead you pretend as if an important component of your experience didn't exist at all!

And it is frustrating, trying to decide what is real and what is not.