Traveler or Tourist? "The Rum Diary" Reflection

The Rum Diary is a film based on the novel by American journalist Hunter Thompson, which portrays the story of Paul Kemp, a young, American writer that finds a job writing horoscopes with The San Juan Star newspaper during the 1960’s in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Kemp moves to the island mainly because he wasn’t a successful journalist back in the United States, but later finds himself struggling and battling alcoholism, as we can perceive when Kemp says “I tend to avoid alcohol….[Drinks a bottle of alcohol] …when I can”.

As many other foreigners, Paul Kemp came to the island for the first time without any knowledge about the island’s issues, history, status, culture, and traditions; he was only interested in his job offer, and came to Puerto Rico to take upon that opportunity. However, Kemp later meets Bob Sala, another reporter from the newspaper that offers him a place to stay, and Moburg, who was always inebriated. Soon he also meets Hal Sanderson, a wealthy entrepreneur planning to build a hotel in the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, and his fiancé Chenault, who becomes romantically interested towards Kemp throughout the movie. Chenault then hires Paul as a journalist to write good reviews and articles promoting his venues, but when Kemp starts relating and bonding with Sala, he becomes aware of Puerto Rico’s reality. However, although Kemp wanted to write about the island’s problems and issues for his newspaper, it was very difficult due to his job position, mainly because these deep issues could affect the tourism industry.

In the film, Paul Kemp starts off being a tourist because he wasn’t interested in Puerto Rico’s people and culture, yet we can see him transition into a traveler throughout the movie because he submerges into the island’s issues and realizes the poverty and struggles Puerto Ricans face on a daily basis. However, Sanderson definitely stays being tourist because he felt very alienated from Puerto Rico, and we can see that when Kemp says "I will need a place to stay" and Sanderson responds: "That is easy. I will find you something with a view." Sanderson was only interested in his business and basically having a great view and a private beach, which is clearly not the island’s reality.

The Rum Diaries can be directly related to Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place because, as Kincaid portrays, many tourists are very disliked by locals due to their attitudes and sense of superiority, which is seen when Sala gets in trouble with the locals because he tries to get special treatments for speaking English. Another aspect is that tourists tend to disconnect emotionally from the places they travel to, and just focus on the main attractions and their own tight schedule, which can be seen when the random tourists are interviewed at the bowling alley and they say “We never leave the hotel. It is not safe. But you are having fun, right? Oh yeah, lots of fun!”. Tourists usually ignore the reality of countries, and tend to stay their entire trips in resorts and five-star hotels, instead of taking the time to truly explore, adventure, and experience the country they’re getting to visit.