Disaster tourism anybody?

I just finished watching this weeks episode of Treme. This is a great show with great actors playing vivid characters set in post-Katrina New Orleans. But that is not really what I am writing about.

What I am left with at the end of this show is a strange question. At the end of this episode there is a small funeral type gathering with family and friends only. They are playing music and singing outside of a destroyed home where earlier in the episode a long missing person was found dead. Long story short (really just watch the show) a tour bus drives up to the small intimate gathering, everybody stops playing and singing, the people in the bus proceed to take pictures and the driver crassly asks what is happening. Of course the mourners are understandably pissed and tell the group of insensitive gawkers to drive the hell away.

While I find this sort of scenario to be completely and totally with out any shred of class I am also not surprised and unfortunately totally believe that this has happened in real life. Now I come to the question that popped into my head as I literally asked the world at large "what the f#ck?!"

A while back I traveled to Rio de Janeiro to visit a friend who is by the standard of Brasil quite well off and noticeably aloof about the poverty gap that is nearly impossible to ignore. And while there I inquired if it might be possible to go and see first hand a favela such as Cidade de Deus or Rocinha. At the time I didn't think that that was crass or uncouth as I had visited similar places in other countries before (for research purposes). And of course it is possible and there are even people and services that will take you there and secure the needed permissions and such (yes even such lawless places have rules and rulers). Now, I didn't actually visit a favela but I had every intention of doing so and if the situation had been a little different I definitely would have gone. However, after watching this scene in Treme I am left wondering if that would have been an equivalent amount of crassness. As I would have been going there out of my own curiosity and not for any other purpose but to see what could be seen the same as I might (and did) visit Christo Redentor, Pão de Açúcar or Estádio do Maracanã; so I ask the question Is disaster/poverty tourism a bad idea? Am I a bad person for having wanted to do that?

Probably the answer is yes. But then again it's not like I would have been barging into a private situation like a funeral procession. I guess that visiting an on going, non-natural disaster area and being respectful about it is a few rungs higher on this particular ladder but I still wonder if this sort of thing is acceptable.

Ultimately I think that this scene shows just a little glimpse into the rotten and warped sensibilities some people in the world today are starting to accept. So as we march on it is always a good idea to stop and think about topics such as these and I applaud the writers of this program for making me stop and think about my own path. Hopefully it will make others do the same.