Good neighbours
British TV show provides a refreshing take on cultural exchange
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, wi-fi, 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.
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