Tourist Productions 2007

In her “Spectacular Nature: Corporate Culture and the Sea World Experience,” Davis spends a lot of time talking about the practice behind training the animal stars at Sea World. Interestingly, the training of the animals constantly produces feedback for the humans, as they learn from each interaction with the animals, whether it be play time, a performance, training time, etc. The feedback loop of animals and trainers reminded me of the larger feedback loop between Sea World as a corporation and its customers. In particular, I thought of the management’s own constant revision, such as in the lines used in performances, or in Sea World’s look and performance themes. Sea World’s capacity to adapt to changing customer demands is something available only to an institution without a strong moral or ethical position in regards to the issues it deals with. Clothing animals is considered humiliating by the public? Away with the clothes and accessories! But why were they put there in the first place? Because at that point, they had an appeal to the customers. Sea World provides something of a mirror to current popular views, but never takes the initiative to introduce challenging or complex ideas. As a corporation, it has a parasitic relationship to the culture in which it lives, its own survival depending on how well it can accommodate to the needs emerging in the “customer body”. Like the animal performers, Sea World’s performance is positively reinforced when it behaves well, by the numbers and statistics on which it depends. Unlike the animals, however, a mistake in Sea World’s corporate behavior will result in punishment as a decrease in profit.
And what about the customers/visitors? They play their part in reinforcing corporate behavior. Customer behavior itself becomes a way through which Sea World learns how to better behave itself. Depending on complaints, public attacks, (such as those by animal rights activists) or the popularity of a particular show, Sea World is able to keep remodeling itself. Furthermore, in coming to Sea World, visitors buy into the production of smoothness and organization created by the institution. Visitors are buying the performance and good behavior of the park, as shown by the management’s focus on choreographing space and movement in order for everything to run seamlessly.
The feedback loop between corporation and customer also works in the other direction. That is, not only does Sea World learn to behave itself to keep costumers coming, but it actively creates a market for itself through education. Sea World’s influence on education creates a very particular definition of freedom and choice, reminiscent of the way in which animals’ “freedom of choice” is described by the management. While we are told that animals always have the choice not to perform, ultimately the animals are constrained to the swimming pools. Freedom is defined relatively to the Sea World closed system. Similarly, while it is true that schools should not necessarily relay on Sea World as an education resource, the economic restraints that teachers and students are faced with limit their choice range. As a result, Sea World’s free educational packages and “Shamu TV” become better alternatives than no alternative at all. Additionally, Sea World’s educational investment creates future customers who will remain dependent on Sea World’s factual knowledge and performance of responsibility for their own relationship to the environment and, specifically, the marine world. (By “performance of responsibility”, I mean the front of research and love for the environment that Sea World presents to its customers, while additionally offering it as an indirect bonus for attending the park: “Just being here means you care!”) In other words, freedom is defined by a relationship of dependency between customer and corporation, reinforced by economic necessity and the drive to profit.
As Susan Davis notes, at Sea World nature’s “universal appeal” is turned into a “machine for mass consumption,” (Davis 30) where everything is based on appearance and control of the customer’s experience. Ironically, Susan Davis herself has had to attend many shows and visit the park regularly in order to make sense of the Sea World production, participating in Sew World’s profit making process. And while Davis’ work exposes the complexity behind Sea World’s apparent smoothness and direct connection with nature, the institution’s skill at simplifying or ignoring complex readings that might pose a threat leaves me a little discouraged. Similarly to how Sea World has been able to respond to attacks from animal rights activists, I am afraid they would be able to develop a good catch phrase to respond to the complex analysis offered by Davis, or a way to ignore her questions through inarticulate answers. In fact, Sea World is not interested in complexity. And, supposedly, neither are its visitors, expected to “check their brains out at the door.” (164) And even if a couple of visitors might express frustration with the content of Sea World’s material, do they matter in the numbers and statistics that train the corporation’s behavior? As long as it can create a market for the institution, Sea World has no moral obligations towards ameliorating its message or presenting a more complex perspective on the marine world. This is its “free will,” Sea World’s freedom to do as it pleases, as long as it’s making a profit.
Ultimately, where can the corporate feedback loop be interrupted? Whose responsibility is it to intervene on a market economy that increasingly interferes with education in order to sustain a consumer body? And what can non-profits do when faced with such competitive attractions? These are important questions for imagining a more socially responsible society, especially within the context of a tourist industry which increasingly defines social behavioral patterns.