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THE GROWING LURE OF 'DEATHSITES'  |
People are strange
when they visit graves
By MICHAEL JOHNSON
of TheColumnists.com
The last time I wandered through Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, I was amazed to note “This way to the Lizard”, and “Jim over there” spray-painted on the expensive tombs of dead Frenchmen. The Americans had taken over this place and made it a huge, 20-acre shrine to Jim Morrison.
I followed the arrows down the manicured pathways and finally came upon half a dozen scruffy 40-year-olds with tiny little cigarettes peeking out of their palms. When they realized I was safe, they relaxed and resumed puffing openly.
I had come looking for the gravesite of Oscar Wilde and found a pot party among the dead souls of the most famous cemetery in Paris. These people were precursors of what’s now known as “dark tourism”--travel to places, no matter how far away, to view death sites or graves of people they don’t know.
To the obvious displeasure of the cemetery police, they are still squatting around Morrison’s tomb, listening to “Riders on the Storm” or “People are Strange” on a portable CD player while reminiscing about the happier days of the 1970s. Morrison is buried there only because he happened to OD in Paris.
These worshipers were harmless enough but I had to wonder about the thousands of others who drive out of Los Angeles expressly to view the intersection where James Dean creamed his new Porsche and himself in 1955, or the more recent hole in the ground where Anna Nicole Smith and her stunning pair are interred near Nassau in the Bahamas.
Or the Dianamania that still grips the
Western World and some Egyptians 10 years after her Mercedes
turned into an accordion in an underpass in central Paris. Her
fans buy perfectly good flowers and toss them down there. What
kind of satisfaction could that possibly deliver?
“Dark tourism” is a European term for trips to sites
of violence, death or suffering, and it is catching on fast.
Locations of genocide, plane crashes and assassinations lead
the way. Graves of the famous or notorious also qualify. For
the very adventurous, a few tour operators organize trips that
“chase wars”, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
I decided to ask the experts who, where and why.
“Dark stuff is inherently interesting,” says Prof. J. John Lennon, director of the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. But I thought tourism was for kicking back, walking along beautiful beaches, daydreaming. Prof. Lennon corrects me. “There is a real appetite to touch death. In some ways, this dark fascination reflects the worst of what we are.”
My theory is that we’re seeing a consequence of the violent, media-driven culture in which we live. There are more sites with each passing year and we are instantly made aware of them by obliging people like Anderson "Kewper" of the gunmetal hair and tight pants.
New Orleans, Ground Zero in New York, the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania, the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee; Dealey Plaza in Dallas, and the “killing fields” of Cambodia are popular destinations among the ghoulish.
The sixth floor at the Book Depository in Dallas gets more visitors than the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park.
Robben Island, the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 27 years, is a favorite day trip and is aggressively promoted out of Cape Town on a couple of internet sites. “Come on down and have a look,” they seem to be saying. “It’ll be fun!”
The most popular attractions are the holocaust camps in Poland and Germany, which draw well over 3 million visitors per year, all slickly reconstructed and signposted for efficient one-hour tours, then back on the bus to Warsaw or Munich for a cold beer and sauerkraut.
In his book “Dark Tourism”, Prof. Lennon quotes writer and Oxford professor George Steiner, referring to holocaust visits, as saying that “bending too fixedly over hideousness, one feels queerly drawn”.
I was puzzled as to why we would want to let ourselves be queerly drawn to anything, so I asked a friend, London psychologist Paul Thorne: “It’s about grounding the vision,” he said. “You’ve seen the images on television, in your newspaper, now you need a reality check--to see the real thing. You want to participate rather than just observe.”
Thorne says the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, exemplifies the “contagious nature of emotions, especially in crowds”. Her London residence and Paris death site continue to attract thousands of curious visitors 10 years after the fact. “Our stiff upper lip disappeared with Diana, never to return,” he says.
The phenomenon of dark tourism is not as new as the term suggests. Large crowds gathered in London to watch public hangings 200 years ago and Marble Arch, where they were staged, is still a prime tourist attraction. The first battle of the U.S. Civil War, at Manassas, Virginia, was a paying tourist site within days of its conclusion.
Nor are the participants in dark tourism particularly sick. A cross-section of travelers plan itineraries to catch a glimpse of these sites or add on casual side-trips when in the neighborhood. Low-cost air travel in Europe has boosted tourism generally, including the dark variety.
In a creative flip, the better-known John Lennon left a legacy related to “Imagine”, the song that became the signature tune for peace activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The upright piano on which he composed the song is on a continuous road trip to sites of violence worldwide. They call it a “Peace Tour”.
Although the tour is an organized series of events, it has acquired such spiritual pull that many people say they believe the piano simply appears on its own, guided by the force.
Earlier this year the piano, owned by singer George Michael, was brought to Ford’s Theater, Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865. Before that, it had stood outside the Texas State Penitentiary during an execution. It has visited Columbine High School in Colorado, scene of a mass shooting of students, and Waco Texas, where 80 members of a religious sect died in a clash with police.
In each case, it was clearly delivered and taken away by hired hands. I have seen the images. Now I want to see the piano.
©2007 by Michael Johnson. The cartoon, augmented with new words, is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. This column first posted Oct. 22, 2007.
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