Predator Anthropologists, Anthropologist Predators: Anthropological Metaphors in Popular Movies

Abstract

Displacement and disorientation are key to the anthropologist’s experience. Anthropologists usually leave a homespace and go out into the “field,” a new place populated by locals who live by unknown rules which the anthropologist must learn well enough to explain to people back in the homespace, especially the academics. Thus, there are usually two places, homespace and “field,” and two main characters: the anthropologist and the locals. This article compares how anthropologists acquire and explain the knowledge they gain in the “field” with representations of how people gather information in unfamiliar places from popular movies, including The Relic (1997), Kong: Skull Island (2017), Predator (1987) and Predators (2010). It explains the dangers of static frames of reference to both researchers and action movie heroes. Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, movie, film, anthropology, cultural studies