ABSTRACT
In November 2007 the US reality hit The Amazing Race aired two episodes filmed in Burkina Faso, a seldom visited or televised West African country. Contestants raced in pairs to milk camels, teach schoolchildren, catch chickens, learn dance moves, pan for gold, and navigate a congested market. Their remarks indicate a range of reactions: ignorance about Burkina Faso, excitement to visit Africa, disgust with flies and hygiene, discomfort with African poverty, and a renewed appreciation for the material comforts of home. In contrast, the many Africans encountered on the race are entirely silent beyond their few scripted lines. While Burkina Faso’s appearance on the programme counters the historic neglect of Africa in Western media, the silent Burkinabé2 also mirror a central critique of modernist development paradigms, that is, their top-down approaches, with little voice for local people in decisions and strategies that affect them. Imperialist development aid is supported by media concentration and globalization, resulting in the spread of Western values via popular culture, which helps sustain and extend neoliberal discourses. Over the past decade US primetime reality programmes such as CBS hits The Amazing Race (TAR) and Survivor have greatly increased the presence of developing countries in Africa and elsewhere in globalized Western media, a trend that has been praised for increasing audience awareness of these countries. Others have critiqued the representations for reinforcing colonial narrative patterns and commodifying cultures (e.g. Delisle 2003; Hubbard and Mathers 2004; Jordan 2006; Wright 2006; Steeves 2008). Few studies, however, have followed these programmes to their destinations to find out how they are experienced and negotiated at the grassroots and how the programmes may benefit and harm host countries. This study therefore explores the impressions and responses of Burkinabé involved with TAR, as the programme was being filmed in July 2007. Briefly, TAR is a global pairs race, with pairs related in some way. Pairs compete in contests (‘challenges’) as they race; the first team to arrive at the end point for each episode or ‘leg of the race’, wins a prize, which is often a trip courtesy of Travelocity, the programme’s main sponsor. The last team to arrive is usually eliminated. The team to arrive first at the final destination wins US$1
million. TAR debuted in the United States in September 2001, and the first destination was Zambia. TAR has since earned eight Primetime Emmy Awards, including seven for ‘Outstanding Reality-Competition Program’. The programme has been lauded for providing positive representations of seldom-seen destinations. In fact, up to season 12, when two episodes were filmed in Burkina Faso, 14 different African countries had been the primary sites for 23 episodes. Hence, Africa had appeared 15 per cent of the time, much more than on Survivor or on any other primetime network programme (Steeves 2008: 429).3
