Shrinking the World, Part 2: A Tale of the Tropics

[pulpdecameron]

The enormous popularity of CBS's island series and its various spin-offs directed the popular imagination towards banal fictional worlds and superficial conflicts among bland, one-dimensional characters. Thus the lives of real people who must live and survive on islands on a daily basis were trivialized and eventually such people were completely

Comments

[insuoanno]

"For what use was there for tall buildings, noise, and large concrete subway stations anyway?"
"the need for meticulous control of Time and its various units was one part of Western culture she would never leave behind"

"No man who is in a hurry is quite civilized." --Will Durant
What's the point of traipsing off to exotic lands if only to experience them as an American?

If rum cocktails bring out drag queens, why is the absinthe fairy always female? Chalk it up to cultural differences?

[velina13]

The main problem with this story is that I was its author. Had it been written by the person it claims to speak for, I'm sure it would have given a very different picture of Martinique. My story is based only on my own superficial impressions from my visit to the island and my interpretation of what I'd heard about the country from the story's protagonist. Both are heavily colored by my own cultural biases. As should be clear by now, the statement that this is the story of "real people" that the media doesn't tell us about is outrageously ironic. This is by no means a postcolonial story; in some ways it is much closer to a 19th-century travel narrative. But this is where my apologetic defense ends. If conservatives who lack irony like the first half of this story for their own reasons, I'm sure they are likely to change their minds about it when it suddenly turns into a "fairy" tale. Finally, this story also critiques Western culture, and is thus a subjective deconstruction of culture in general.

[velina13]

P.S. The story's protagonist is more than welcome to add her own comment if she so desires.