Staging the Pacific: Framing Authenticity in Performances for Tourists at the Polynesian Cultural Center

Abstract

As visitors to Hawai'i's famous Polynesian Cultural Center disembark from their buses, they find themselves standing next to a huge, grass-roofed house nestled in lush tropical growth. In front of it stands a large carving of some kind of warrior god that glares at the guests as they enter. As most of the visitors will have come directly from the high-rise congestion of Waikiki, they may feel for a moment that they have moved back in time, and that the promise of the Center's brochure, islands as you always hoped they would be, has been fulfilled.1 Should their eyes chance to glance a little to the right, however, they will catch a glimpse of a McDonald's restaurant on the far side of the carpark. This initial visual impression, which conflates the primitive with the commercial, is the first of what will be a whole series of contrasting images. The first stop on the usually nine-hour encounter with seven Polynesian cultures is the Samoan village. Here tourists are treated to an extended stand-up comic routine by a Samoan chief, who, among other things, demonstrates traditional coconut-husking techniques, while members of the tourist audience are required to sing Jingle Bells in their respective languages. By this point even the most culturally disinterested visitor could not deny that the promise of authentic material culture offered by the publicity material is somewhat negotiable. The apparent paradox of a negotiable authenticity will become clearer as the tourists make their way through the landand mindscape of the forty-two-acre complex.