Can a family from Ethiopia’s Hamar tribe prove as riveting as the Kardashians? British television broadcaster Channel 4 is banking on it.
This week, the network aired the first episode of “The Tribe,” a reality show set in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. The show follows several generations of the Ayke Mukos family using fixed-rig cameras — a format that has proved successful for other Channel 4 shows, including One Born Every Minute, the American version of which premiered on Lifetime Television in February 2011. By rigging the Hamar family homestead (four huts and a goat pen) with cameras, the subjects soon forget they are being filmed, making their behavior less guarded and more interesting to watch.
But does such a format showcase its subjects as identifiable, or is its purpose more to highlight their ‘otherness’? We asked those involved in the production and an independent expert to weigh in.
The director
There is much that sets the Ayke Mukos apart from viewers in the West: Marriage negotiations, the initiation rite of cattle-leaping and the distinctive Hamar hair. However, Paddy Wivell, the series director, believes that though the show’s characters come from a different background, the issues they contend with will be familiar to viewers.
“What we learn is that concerns about well-being, issues about education and retirement are all universal themes. The way they are dealt with are different of course but love, compassion and care are all universal.”
The lead characters in this assemble cast are the male head of the family and his first wife, Kerri Bodo, who, Wivell says, are established elders in their community and strong characters.
“She is loving, warm, wise, funny and takes care of everyone in the family. He’s the grumpy, old granddad, always swearing at the kids and cantankerous.”
Filming the Ayke Mukos’ didn’t come easy, says Wivell. A total of 50 people (20 of them Ethiopian) worked on the project during the month of filming though Wivell himself was with the family for two months.
From the clips online, “The Tribe” will make for heart-warming viewing, but it’s hard to ignore the irony of using lots of technology and power to film a community that doesn’t have any.
“There is no doubt that we are bringing technology and wealth into a community only for a limited period of time,” Wivell admits. But he is keen to make the point that the experience was as much about cultural exchange as it was observation.
“(In the show) you hear the matriarch talking proudly about what she has taught us. Yes, we’re dealing with people who don’t have a TV and it’s impossible to fully know how much anyone understands about the implications (of being on reality TV), but we had long and painstaking conversations with the family about what we were doing and how we were doing it to make sure they were complicit and happy.”
Watch the trailer below:
The veteran journalist
Suzanne Franks, professor of journalism and author of “Reporting Disasters: Famine, Aid, Politics and the Media,” has expressed doubt with Wivell’s assessment. She is worried that despite claims that the new show will find similarities between ‘us’ (the viewers) and ‘them’ (the rural family), we will instead be fixated by their differences.
“Speaking personally, I’m not entirely comfortable with this kind (of coverage). It is one-directional: us, looking at them and saying how funny they are. What if an Ethiopian crew pitched up in a Worcestershire village and began filming them…it would be inconceivable,” says Franks.
The participants
The Ayke Mukos family seems to greet the filming positively as a cultural exchange, judging by their reactions in a Channel 4 promotional video showing the filming of the series.
Arrada, one of Ayke Mukos’ sons, notes that the experience is new for them.
“We’ve never seen anything like this in all our lives,” he says.
“Now that everything is here… the cars, the crew, the equipment… you will see what our culture is like, and we will see what your culture is like.”
His older brother, Zubo, concurs.
“It’s great that you are filming us, to show people in your country who can’t come here,” he tells the crew.