Invasion of the "African" body through technology - Consuming the Masai Masai

Dear readers of Hi Tricia, hello again!  I've been traveling around the world for two months and finally am now back in the states.  I have lots of posts to write about my work and play  in India, China and Sweden - and some cities in between - but honestly i've been so overwhelmed with all the stories I want to tell that I just haven't been able to pull myself together to do it until I had all my thousands of photos uploaded to my flickr! 

Now that I am almost done with uploading my photos, I came across one of the photos that I had uploaded earlier this summer on my way to India - and this photo pissed me off so much when I saw it that I knew this would be the photo that would get my blogging ass back into the webosphere!  So more posts will now!

So I saw this Canon advertisement of the Maasai (Masai) - a group that sustains their way of life through tourism business in Kenya - on a photo light box my 500 hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany (actually it was 12 hours but it did feel like 500).  When I saw this photo after deboarding the plane I immediately I took the picture and at the same time some stupid German boys came up to me and said, " that's a pretty cool picture huh!"  I tried my best with my jet lagged brain to penetrate their eyes with  daggers of complete filth and disgust shooting from my forehead.  I didn't have the energy to say anything back.

THERE ARE SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THIS CANON LIGHT BOX ADVERTISEMENT!!!! WHERE DO I BEGIN! hmmm help me on this one if I miss anything! I am too upset to even write in full sentences

1.) portrayal of Africans as "tribal"
2.) invasion of the African body through the x-ray
3.) the capitalistic and exploitive use of African bodies for Western consumption
4.) problematic boundaries over the visual and symbolic exploitation of AFrican male's genitals (referring to the male in the front with the x-ray over his pelvis)
5.) technology as triumphing over more "traditional" lifestyles
6.) technology as more revealing and useful than indigenous knowledge
7.) highlighting the notion that Westerners bring englightening technology to backward-nature-hunting Africans
8.) a return to colonial relationships and images
9.) exoticizng the "tribal" through technology