Dr. David Sutton has written about the anthropology of movies before, but the film Arrival, he says, is something special. Arrival debuted in 2016, starring Amy Adams as a linguist who was tasked with making first contact with an alien species. Like an anthropologist in a foreign culture, she has to orient herself to an entirely different way of being and communicating. The film is science fiction, but draws in sociolinguistic theory and cultural concepts of time, all while it illustrates the emotional rushes and pitfalls of trying to understand someone who doesn’t share your perceptions of how the world works
Most successful movies and television shows are popular because they connect with some cultural elements in their audiences, which makes them rich material for anthropologists striving to understand how communities think about everything from family to gift-giving to social class. But Arrival goes further, not only representing cultural elements but also showing what many cultural and linguistic anthropologists actually do.
In this episode, Dr. Sutton breaks down why fictional films and television shows can be important in revealing implicit cultural models, and discusses what Arrival tells us about language, time, and anthropology.
*WARNING: Spoilers abound in this episode, so listeners beware!*
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For more information on Dr. Sutton:
Dr. Sutton’s faculty page: http://cola.siu.edu/anthro/facultyandstaff/faculty/sociocultural/sutton.php
Dr. Sutton’s Academia page: https://siu.academia.edu/DavidSutton
Books and articles by Dr. Sutton:
Memories Cast in Stone: The Relevance of the Past in Everyday Life (Mediterranea Series)
More information on co-workers, organizations, or institutions referenced in our conversation:
Dr. Sutton would like to acknowledge the extensive dialogue with Peter Wogan and Leo Vournelis in shaping his thinking about Arrival.
Dr. Peter Wogan’s blog: Blockbuster Anthropology: Cultural Analysis of Movies and Sports
More Anthropology of Hollywood, language, and time:
Sherry Ortner’s ethnography, Not Hollywood: Independent Film at the Twilight of the American Dream
Hortense Powdermaker’s ethnography, Hollywood, the Dream Factory: An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie-Makers
John McWhorter’s podcast episode “On the Linguistics of the Movie Arrival”
One linguist’s take on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as seen in Arrival
Dr. Richard Wiseman’s “Pace of Life” study
Dr. John McCall’s work on the Nigerian film industry, dubbed “Nollywood”: https://siu.academia.edu/JohnCMcCall
My relevANTH blog post on “An Anthropologist’s Obsession with Outlander”
Other links referenced in the episode:
Physical Anthropologist Dr. Kristina Killgrove’s blog, Powered by Osteons, in which she analyzes the anthropology of the television show Bones
Ursula Le Guin’s book Dancing at the Edge of the World
Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where aliens speak a metaphorical language: “Darmok”
Wikipedia page for the opera Nixon in China
IMDB link to the film Arrival
