The following
post has been inspired by a recent visit to the University of Central
Lancashire’s Institute for Dark Tourism Research (iDTR) 2013 Symposium, which was held
at Inholland University of Applied Science, in Diemen, a suburb of Amsterdam in
the Netherlands. The symposium featured a range of excellent presentations
exploring a variety of issues in dark tourism research.
Death is a part
of life, and in certain societies, particularly religious ones, it is a sacred
subject that may be prohibited from discussion, and certainly not under any
circumstances associated with entertainment. As (overall) societies become more
secular, subjects such as death that were previously taboo are becoming more open
for discussion (Stone, 2013). Even in a secular society, one of the greatest
responsible challenges faced by the entertainment industries is their sensitive
representation of actual human tragedy, particularly death and suffering. This
is principally the case where audience members may have a personal connection
or resonance with something tragic that has occurred, and where commodification
of these occurrences may be perceived as being ghoulish. The modern day
entertainment industry has to some extent de-sensitised audiences to death and
suffering through their continual portrayal of these through the media, in
particular dramatisation and fiction in television, films and books. However
dark entertainment is not about fiction, and its responsible provision should
consider that when tragic or dark occurrences have taken place, audience
members may be genuinely affected by interaction with entertainment based upon
that occurrence.
Dark
entertainment has been happening for millennia, consider Roman Gladiators
fighting to the death or slaughtering animals in the name of entertainment for
crowds of cheering spectators, or public executions that drew spectators from
far and wide. The very notion that in this day and age dark entertainment could
and should be responsible itself presents a paradox, when what is generating an
audience activity is (typically) human suffering in the first place. However,
dark entertainment is created to meet a demand in interest around tragic
occurrences that have happened ‘in the past’, and not for the specific purpose
of entertaining an audience by causing additional suffering or prolonging a
tragic event.
There is a general
misconception that entertainment is something that should be happy or have a
positive resonance. The true meaning of entertainment is much deeper and
involves audience captivation with something that emotionally resonates with
that audience. Not all emotions are positive or happy ones, and many are the
exact opposite. Dark entertainment through: the provision of media products; the
staging of events; or the development of facilities through preservation and
commodification of sites that have become visitor attractions, due to their
association with tragedy, death or suffering, is perhaps one of the most
controversial and contested areas within the entertainment industries.
Dark
entertainment is a part of dark leisure, which according to Rojek (2000)
describes leisure choices made by individuals, which go against what may be
seen as traditional societal norms, and that may disturb other members of
society. Spracklen (2013) states that dark leisure rejects the mainstream and
transgresses norms and values. Some may consider providers of, and audience participants
in dark entertainment as being deviant. Williams (2009) defined leisure
activities that “violates criminal and noncriminal moral norms” (p.208) as
deviant leisure, however it should be noted in secular society that those society
members who would consider participants in dark entertainment as deviants are in
a minority (Stone, 2013).
Like all forms
of industry created entertainment, the vast majority of dark entertainment is
media borne, be that through broadcast media, the Internet or print media. Dark
media based upon a tragic occurrence reduces in volume and changes in focus
over time. At the time of a dark occurrence, dark media is news focused, which
subsides as time passes and is replaced by ‘special’ outputs that are dedicated
to the occurrence explaining it in greater detail. Following this, documentaries
are often made, and memorial outputs produced. The volume of these depends on
the scale of the dark occurrence and the number of people who have been
affected by it. Over time dark occurrences may be dramatized leading to outputs
that may incorporate fictitious elements.
An example of the above in practice would
be the 26th December, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, which triggered
a tsunami that had tragic effects in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, The
Maldives and the East Coast of Africa, leading to deaths in the region of 280,000
(BBC, 2005b). In the immediate aftermath, news bulletins were filled with
footage taken by tourists as well as interviews with survivors and experts.
Eventually extended bulletins began to be produced, and documentaries made such
as ‘Seconds from Disaster’ Season 3, Episode 13 ‘Asian Tsunami’ and PBS NOVA’s
‘Wave That Shook The World’. Alongside this, countless amounts of literature
were produced in global newspaper and magazine pages as well as online, from a
human interest, environmental and socio-political perspective. Numerous factual
books about the tsunami have been published, including: ‘The Asian Tsunami
2004: When Disaster Struck (2007); and ‘The Asian Tsunami: Aid and
Reconstruction After a Disaster’ (2010). In 2012, ‘The Impossible’ - the first
big-screen movie featuring a dramatized account of actual events which occurred
in the tsunami was released, almost 8 years after the original tragedy.
Dark media needs
to be accurate and factual, after the 2005 floods in New Orleans caused by
Hurricane Katrina, various media outlets promoted stories about rapes,
pedophilia, sniper attacks and murders, all of which proved to be false
(Devine, 2005). There are also boundaries that should be considered in relation
to taste and legality, particularly in relation to showing images of the dead,
television channel Al-Jazeera faced heavy criticism for showing the dead bodies
of British and US serviceman in Iraq, in its news bulletins, something which
was possibly in breach of the Geneva Convention (Kafala, 2003).
Dark
entertainment is closely interlinked with dark tourism through the creation of
visitor attractions or staging of events to mark or commemorate dark
occurrences. Tarlow (2005) defines dark tourism as “visitations to places where
tragedies or historically noteworthy death has occurred and that continue to
impact our lives” similarly Stone (2006, p.146) defines dark tourism as “the
act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly
macabre”. The relationship between dark leisure, dark entertainment and dark tourism
is highlighted in figure 1 (below).
Figure 1 – Dark
leisure, dark entertainment and dark tourism.
Dark tourism involves
people travelling to destinations or events specifically because of their
connection with a historic dark occurrence, for example the small town of
Lockerbie in Scotland, is synonymous with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103,
which was flying from London Heathrow to New York John F. Kennedy Airport on
the 21st December, 1988. The aircraft was a Boeing 747, which
crashed after being bombed by terrorists, with much of the wreckage from the
crash falling on Lockerbie. In total the tragedy took the lives of 270 people,
making it the worst terrorist atrocity on British soil to date. Today dark
tourists visit Lockerbie for a variety of reasons, particularly to see the
town, and to visit memorials, which were created as a focal point for grievers,
respect payers, pilgrims and those interested by the event. The Lockerbie Air
Disaster Memorial and Garden of Remembrance was created at Dryfesdale Cemetery
near the town (see Figure 2, below), and is the main memorial to the disaster,
the site also now has a visitor centre. As well as this there is a memorial in
Lockerbie Roman Catholic Church, where a plaque lists the names of all 270
victims, there is also a book of remembrance at the town’s library and a second
book at nearby Tundergarth Church. Lockerbie Town Hall has a stained-glass
window, which depicts flags of the 21 countries whose citizens lost their lives
in the disaster.
Figure 2 – The Lockerbie
Air Disaster Memorial and Garden of Remembrance.
Van Maanen
(2013) stated that heritage belongs to those who claim it and identify with it.
This is certainly true in Lockerbie where the air disaster is a major historic
event, and has become a firm part of the cultural heritage of the town of
Lockerbie, in that it continues to shape and influence the town’s present
character. Considering this, figure 3 (below), denotes dark tourism as a subset
of heritage tourism, which Ryan (1991) classified as a part of cultural
tourism. Figure 3 also demonstrates a range of types of dark tourism, base upon
the work of Lennon and Foley (2000) and Sharpley and Stone (2009), all of which
may have an association with a dark historic occurrence or occurrences.
Figure 3 – Types
of Dark Tourism.
Figure 3
highlights the key sub-divisions of dark tourism, these are explained as
follows:
· Battlefield and conflict tourism:
the visitation of sites associated with war, where battles or significant
events may have occurred, e.g. the battlefields of Lexington and Concord, USA, where
the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War took place.
· Crime tourism: the visitation
of sites that are synonymous with crime and criminality, e.g. mafia tourism in
Sicily, Italy.
· Disaster tourism: the
visitation of sites that have been the locations of a disaster, either natural
or man-made, e.g. people visiting New Orleans after the flooding caused by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
· Funerary tourism: this is the
visitation of events and attractions relating to funerals, e.g. the funeral of
Diana, Princess of Wales in London, UK, which took place on 6th
September, 1997 attracted over a million people along the route of the funeral
cortege (BBC, 2005a).
· Memorial tourism: this is the
visitation specifically to memorials or graves to those who have been the
victims of tragic events, e.g. the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery, The
Netherlands.
· Thanatourism: this is the
visitation of places that denote or have a relationship with death, e.g. the Bodyworlds
exhibition created by Gunter von Hagens.
Figure 4 (below)
demonstrates three dark visitor attractions: (top) the entrance to the former
concentration camp known as Aushwitz 2, at Birkenau, Poland; (bottom left) war
graves at the Arnhem Oosterbeek War Cemetery in The Netherlands; and (bottom right)
Mdina Dungeons, Malta, where visitors may pretend torture the human exhibits.
Figure 4 – Dark
visitor attractions
The creation of visitor
attractions or the preservation of dark sites, such as the Auschwitz-Birkenauconcentration camp in Poland, may cause disdain amongst critics who view these
as being in bad taste, deviant or immoral (Stone, 2013), and preserving a
terrible crime of the past. However, such facilities also serve to educate
future generations about such atrocities, in the hope that they will never be
repeated.
Dark tourism is
not a universally liked or agreeable term, particularly amongst stakeholders of
locations that are synonymous with tragic occurrences, who may view the term
dark tourism as being sensationalist or ghoulish. Research by Werdler (2013) noted
that some attractions considered the ‘dark’ label as “bad for marketing”,
however he also noted that dark tourism was a more accepted term amongst dark
visitor attractions which have a ‘thrill’ element to them, such as the
‘Dungeon’ attractions operated by Merlin Entertainment. Neering (2013) stated
that the Heligoland Tourism board were unhappy with the term dark tourism
(Heligoland is a small German island, which during the Second World War was
carpet bombed by the British, and was the location of the World’s largest
non-nuclear explosion). It would seem that there is disagreement between
academia and industry as to when it is appropriate to use the ‘dark’ term, but
from an academic perspective the ‘dark’ label works well to identify the
association of a leisure form with a historic tragic occurrence.
Stone (2013) noted
that the length of time that has passed between a dark occurrence happening and
the perceived connection that an audience has with a dark occurrence impacts
upon the motivations of consumers of dark tourism, the same may be said of dark
entertainment. This is demonstrated by the matrix in Figure 5 (below), which demonstrates
that those who have or perceive that they have a personal connection with a
dark occurrence are more likely to be grievers in the time after the occurrence
has happened, however as time passes, they and others may become pilgrims who
visit sites or attend events in respect of, and memorial to those who have been
victims of a dark occurrence. Those with less of a personal connection to a
dark occurrence may be attracted to dark entertainment through an interest or
fascination with what has occurred, and as time passes and a dark occurrence
becomes more historic, they and others may wish to learn more about it, why it
happened, how it happened, where it happened, who it happened to, and what the
longer term impacts of the dark occurrence have been. In order to help people
understand this, over time dark occurrences may be commodified into dark
entertainment.
Figure 5 –
Motivation matrix of consumers of dark entertainment
Figure 5 can be
contextualized using the examples of serial Killers ‘Jack the Ripper’, and
Peter Sutcliffe (who became branded through the media as the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’).
Both were / are notorious serial killers who operated in the UK and targeted
women. Jack the Ripper was active in the late 19th Century, and the
Yorkshire Ripper was active from 1975 to 1980. Jack the Ripper has become
something of a legend, and there is a great demand for commodified
entertainment products around the crimes he committed, and where there is
demand, there is supply of products. These include websites such as the JTR
Forums - http://www.jtrforums.com which
has the sensationalist tag line ‘THE place to be for all things Ripper’, to
‘Ripper Tours’ - guided tours around the Whitechapel area of East London, to visit
sites that are synonymous with the Jack the Ripper murders.
The crimes of
the Yorkshire Ripper are still in many people’s minds. Peter Sutcliffe is still
alive, and so are many people who are family members or friends of Sutcliffe’s
victims. As these crimes were committed more recently, and with a greater level
of perceived connection with them, perhaps through not wanting to appear
ghoulish, there is a lesser demand for entertainment products relating to them.
To match this, there has been less inclination to commodify the Yorkshire
Ripper crimes into entertainment products such as guided tours of sites
relating to murders by the Yorkshire Ripper. Stone (2006) states that there is
amongst western society’s an “apparent contemporary fascination with death,
real or fictional, media inspired or otherwise” (p.147). It is likely that at some
point in the future, possibly after the death of Peter Sutcliffe, something
which itself will be well publicized, a renewed interest in his crimes may cause
demand to create a supply of new audience attracting Yorkshire Ripper products.
Responsible
operation of dark attractions, should consider the entire spectrum of visitors
to them and not only ensure that all visitors are catered for, but that
visitors are educated as to what constitutes appropriate behaviour at such
sites. Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp attracts visitors from a wide
variety of locations and cultures. It has been a personal observation of mine on a visit to Aushwitz-Birkenau in 2013, that a group of teenagers were
singing and laughing as they walked amongst other visitors – is this
appropriate behaviour at a site where an estimated 1.1 million people were
killed?
The use of tour
guides to personally explain to groups of visitors how they are expected to
behave is a method which has been adopted successfully at the villages of Albreda
and Juffureh in The Gambia. Here tour guides explain to visitors before arrival
at these locations how they are expected to behave in terms of interaction with
villagers and also rules around dressing modestly so as not to cause offence. Albreda
and Juffureh are considered dark locations, due to their historic association
with the slave trade, Albreda today features a slavery museum.
In summary, the
extremely diverse entertainment industries do not only provide output that
evokes positive emotions amongst audience members. Tragic occurrences which
involve death and suffering are also highlighted and demonstrated through the
media, the staging of live events and the creation of visitor attractions. This
is dark entertainment which is a part of dark leisure and closely linked with
dark tourism, which is more acceptable in a secular
society, but still causes conflict where it may be seen as being in poor taste,
or where the labeling of something as being ‘dark’ may be considered ghoulish. Consumers
of dark entertainment have a range of motivations, which are affected by their
personal connection with a tragic occurrence, and the length of time that has
passed after that occurrence. Dark entertainment products are often supplied to
meet audience demands or needs for them. Diverse audiences require sensitive
management in order for the dark entertainment experience not to cause harm to
other audience members and stakeholder groups.
Further iDTR information and resources on dark tourism can be found here: http://www.dark-tourism.org.uk and on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/darktourism.
An edited version of the above text will appear in a chapter on 'Responsible Entertainment Management' in my next book - Entertainment Management: Towards Best Practice, which will be published by CABI towards the end of this year.
References
- British
Broadcasting Corporation (2005a) 1997: Diana’s funeral watched by millions.
[Internet] URL available from:
- British Broadcasting Corporation (2005b) Indonesia quake toll jumps again. [Internet] URL available from: < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4204385.stm> [Accessed 1st June, 2013].
- Devine, M.
(2005) New Orleans fights on after low blows. [Internet] URL available from:
- Kafala, T.
(2003) Al-Jazeera: News channel in the news. [Internet] URL available from:
- Lennon, J. and Foley, N. (2000) Dark tourism. Andover, Cengage Learning EMEA.
- Neering, A. (2013) Current dark tourism research in Germany. The iDTR International Dark Tourism Symposium 2013. InHolland University of Applied Science, Diemen, Amsterdam. 21st May, 2013.
- Rojek, C. (2000) Leisure and culture. London, Sage.
- Ryan, C. (1991) Recreational tourism: a social science perspective. London, Routledge.
- Sharpley, R. and Stone, P.R. (2009) The darker side of travel. The theory and practice of dark tourism. Bristol, Channel View Publications.
- Spracklen, K. (2013) Leisure, sports & society. Basingstoke, Palgrave-Macmillan.
- Stone, P.R. (2006) A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions. Tourism, Vol. 54, No. 2, Pp. 145 – 160.
- Stone, P.R. (2013) Deviance, dark tourism & ‘dark leisure’: (Re)configuring morality in contemporary society. The iDTR International Dark Tourism Symposium 2013. InHolland University of Applied Science, Diemen, Amsterdam. 21st May, 2013.
- Stone, P.R. & Sharpley, R. (2013) Deviance, dark tourism and ‘dark leisure’: Towards a (re)configuration of morality and the taboo in secular society”. In Elkington, S & Gammon, S. (Eds.) Contemporary perspectives in leisure. Abingdon, Routledge.
- Tarlow, P. E. (2005) Dark tourism: The appealing ‘dark side’ of tourism and more. Pp. 45 - 78 in Novelli, M. (ed.) (2005) Niche tourism – contemporary issues, trends and cases. Oxford, Butterworth-Heinemann.
- Urry, J. (2003) Global complexity. Hoboken, New Jersey, Wiley-Blackwell.
- Van Maanen, E. (2013) What do you do with a World Heritage site that nobody wants? The iDTR International Dark Tourism Symposium 2013. InHolland University of Applied Science, Diemen, Amsterdam. 21st May, 2013.
- Werdler, K. (2013) InHolland dark tourism research. The iDTR International Dark Tourism Symposium 2013. InHolland University of Applied Science, Diemen, Amsterdam. 21st May, 2013.
- Williams, D.J. (2009) Deviant Leisure: Rethinking “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” Leisure Sciences, Issue 31, Pp. 207 – 213.
