Scarlett Moffatt and the family moved to Namibia for The British Tribe next Door streaming on TVNZ On Demand
Scarlett Moffatt and the family moved to Namibia for The British Tribe next Door streaming on TVNZ On Demand
With racial tensions at a critical high, a show about a family of Brits moving to a remote village in Africa for a culture swap feels like a disaster waiting to happen.
But despite its incredibly problematic premise, The British Tribe Next Door actually manages to be surprisingly sweet, and quite wonderful.
BTND is a four-part docu-series in which the Moffatt family (of Gogglebox fame) move next door to the Himba tribe, the indigenous people of Namibia who still live traditionally, purposefully removed from the modern world.
We're talking small clay huts, communal living, traditional dress and methods of personal hygiene, no technology, speaking only in their native language.
The Moffatts, meanwhile, come with iPhones, WiFi, high heels, makeup, oh - and a full replica of their terraced home, complete with the kitchen sink.
The series aired on TVNZ 1 over the past four weeks but if you didn't know it was coming you'll probably have missed it - I only stumbled across it by accident because the TV happened to be on the right channel at the right time.
The good news is that it's still streaming on TVNZ On Demand so you can catch up - and you should because if you missed it, you missed out.
Given the current political climate and this country's history of colonisation, I expected a heap of white saviourism (Google it) and general voyeurism, but I'm pleased to report BTND was actually a really pleasant surprise.
Was it a little too centred on the white experience for my liking? Yes, but I can see how that's necessary when relatability equals audience numbers.
And even so, it wasn't just a bunch of white Brits pointing and laughing at, or trying to "fix" the noble savages, as has been the case with these cultural exchange shows before. Instead, it was a really beautiful exchange of knowledge and customs as both the Brits and the Himba learned from each other in turn.
Scarlett Moffatt and the family moved to Namibia for The British Tribe next Door streaming on TVNZ On Demand
The Himba looked wildly uncomfortable in the Moffatts' replica home, purpose-built for the series. The women sat on the kitchen floor instead of in chairs at the table, they marvelled at the small people inside the TV set, questioned why their British hosts owned so many things, piled praise upon their cooking skills (over jam on toast), and mercilessly mocked them for not being able to keep up with their physical workloads.
The Moffatts, meanwhile, were challenged almost every step of the way as Dad, Mark, tried - and failed - to care for cattle (the most valuable commodity known to the Himba), eldest daughter Scarlett tried to wrap her head around the women having to do all the work - a notion at odds with her Western feminism, and the whole family partook in traditional celebrations, smoke baths and more.
Mark offered the most insight as he struggled to get a grip on Himba life. He was not only rubbish at keeping cattle but consistently had his masculinity questioned and mocked because he did not do as the Himba did - even helping his wife around the house apparently emasculated him. He also struggled to watch the young Himba boys go hunting, unsupervised, armed with machetes at as young as 8 years old.
When, in the final episode, the Moffatts were challenged to live overnight as Himba do, Mark struggled again, watching his wife and two daughters fetching wood and water, preparing food and cooking while he did nothing.
Scarlett Moffatt and the family moved to Namibia for The British Tribe next Door streaming on TVNZ On Demand
Yet every step of the way, Mark and the rest of the Moffatts, took it all on the chin and rather than question the Himba, questioned themselves.
Even when the Himba women demanded they get to have sex with Mark, his wife Betty politely declined and despite her shock, she conceded that it's simply different, not wrong.
That's the important part of this show. The differences are always so clearly highlighted but no way of doing things is made out to be right or wrong.
The Himba were as perplexed as the Moffats: puzzling over concepts like monogamy, putting elders into homes and the fact that the Moffatts all slept separately, they shrugged it off because "that's their culture".
It really is a wonderful look at what could have happened if colonisers weren't obsessed by white supremacy; if they'd simply observed and shared with cultures instead of trying to replace them with what they thought was "right"; if they actually learned from other cultures instead of erasing them.
At the end of the experiment, the replica terraced house was entirely dismantled and every trace of the Moffats' visit was erased, as if it had never happened.
All any of them had left were photographs and memories and there's something really simple and beautiful about that.
