Arthur Frommer laid out his “do as the Romans do” philosophy of tourism in the 1989 edition of his book New World of Travel: “[Travel] at all price ranges is scarcely worth the effort unless it is associated with people, with learning and ideas,” wrote Frommer, who has published dozens of travel books since his famous Europe on $ 5 a Day came out in 1957. “To have meaning at all, travel must involve an encounter with new and different outlooks and beliefs. At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, make us broader-minded and more understanding.”
But in one of his latest travel books, Frommer ignores his own advice and sharply criticizes the customs and beliefs of the destination he is writing about. Although he likes some of the attractions, he urges the community to change its folkways if it doesn’t want to lose tourism dollars. He encounters challenges to his preconceptions and most cherished views but does not come away more broad-minded. Where is this exotic destination with a culture that can shake up the ever-so-tolerant Arthur Frommer? Branson, Missouri, U. S. A., home of country music and cultural conservatism.
This tiny town in the Ozarks has become, as Frommer puts it in Arthur Frommer’s Branson, “the nation’s newest music capital.” Although Branson has fewer than 4,000 residents, its tourists number more than 5,000,000 annually. According to the Economist (that the town would be the subject of an article in a magazine of this prominence speaks for itself), Branson is the most popular destination for coach tours in America and is second only to Orlando as a getaway for motorists.
Many factors are responsible for Branson’s boom. or decades, about 100,000 tourists visited Branson each year for its campgrounds, fishing lakes, hillbilly jamborees, and a theme park called Silver Dollar City. A few country singers built theaters there in the mid-80s, but the boom really began in the past few years as the country music scene it. Nashville became dominated by younger stars such as Garth Brooks and Travis Tritt. Veterans found a niche in Branson, and tourists from across the country were thrilled to see the likes of Mel Tillis, Glen Campbell, and Loretta Lynn all in one visit. Noticing the nostalgia for older country singers, pop musicians of a time gone by, such as Andy Williams and Tony Orlando, also headed for Branson and built opulent theaters there. Today, Branson tourists can visit over 30 theaters that revisit musical eras from the 40s to the 70s.
Yet what attracts people to Branson is not just the music — it is also the town’s values. In a day when much American entertainment is characterized by vulgarity, hostility to religion, and even hostility to America itself, Branson, in columnist Cal Thomas’s words, is the “town that slime forgot.” Parents know they can take their kids to Branson for wholesome entertainment. Scarcely a “hell” or “damn” is uttered in a show, and most Branson productions feature segments that pay tribute to America and religion.
The patriotism and piety of Branson are too much for Frommer. The man who once recommended communes, eco-villages, “Marxist Scholar” tours of the then- Soviet Union, and other ventures of travel entrepreneurs with left-of-center ideologies devotes an entire chapter and several other passages of his Branson guide to criticizing the town’s “right-wing excess” and “exclusionary policies.”
Frommer, who worked at Adlai Stevenson’s law firm in the 50s before becoming a travel writer, states that although he enjoys many features of Branson, he doesn’t believe a travel writer should “write only in breathless style about the warm and comfy aspect of a destination, and not about its negatives as well.” Yet most of Branson’s “negatives” that Frommer points to are not issues of interest to the average tourist, but merely the author’s own political quibbles with themes in Branson’s shows.
Frommer, for instance, complains that “Glen Campbell sprinkles his show with remarks critical of President Clinton” and that “the Osmond Brothers place a large color photograph of Nancy and Ronald Reagan at one of the two indoor entranceways to their theater, and a similar color portrait of George and Barbara Bush at the other.” He asks indignantly, “[Are] they not saying, in effect, that their show is meant to advance right-wing politics (something you discover for the first time only after you have purchased tickets to it)?” Frommer also complains about the “domination of certain elements of the Branson scene… by the religious right.” In some shows, he writes, “the gospel segment is preceded by an audible change of mood, lighting, and sound. The performers, who have hitherto worn a mix of costumes, reappear in white, the women in long lace dresses up to lheir chins … Unprepared, the visitor is bemused at least but often stunned and offended.”
Contrast that statement with Frommer’s glowing description in New World of Travel of New Age resorts where people “search for a single, universal force that may animate all living things on earth, holding out hope for eventual communication between species (animals, plants).” Frommer explained, “I happen to be, in my own beliefs, very much a rationalist, agnostic, suspicious of spiritual claims or sudden panaceas. And yet the most rewarding travels of my life have been those when I exposed myself to diametrically opposing belief, in a residential setting, among adherents to those other beliefs, and with an open mind.”
Frommer is also aghast at public displays of patriotism. He can’t stand Branson’s in-theater fireworks, laser flags, and stars-and-stripes costumes. ” [The] near-obligatory patriotism number is heard over and over in the course of one’s visit, almost as if a municipal regulation required it,” he writes, before resorting to even more overheated prose. “A quiet pride in our freedom of speech and religion, our diversity and our democratic traditions becomes a tool to frighten dissenters.
The nation that is shocked by eruptions of violent nationalism in other countries is suddenly portrayed by these affluent Branson performers as equally nationalistic, a place whose citizens are expected to follow unquestioned orders regardless of conscience — my country right or wrong.'”
Lest anyone confuse Branson with Bosnia, I will describe my experience during one of Branson’s patriotic numbers when I visited there with a friend last June. One of Branson’s most popular performers is a Japanese-born fiddle player named Shoji Tabuchi, who can make his fiddle sound like a cow or train and do a host of other fiddle tricks. At the end of his show, which was filled with excellent fiddling as well as about 50 singers and dancers with lavish costumes and scenery, a narrator told the story of how Tabuchi came to America determined to make it as a country musician. He worked as a dishwasher and struggled in various gigs until he eventually attracted enough local notoriety to build his own theater in Branson.
A laser flag then appeared and Tabuchi began singing and playing “America the Beautiful” on the fiddle. My friend and I, along with everyone else in the theater, rose to our feet and put our right hands over our hearts. To get back to Frommer, my friend and I were not intimidated in the slightest into our patriotism, and it did not look like any other audience member was either. We stood up because we admired Tabuchi for achieving the American dream, and we were proud to live in a country that makes these opportunities possible.
Frommet writes that Tabuchi’s performances are “probably the most heavily booked of all of Branson’s shows.” But the immense popularity of an Asian- American entertainer doesn’t deter Frommer from making his most serious, unfounded criticism of Branson: that the town is racist.
It’s not as if Frommer ran across any bigots in Branson. Rather, to Frommer, “ugly racism” is “painfully evident in most Branson shows” simply because there aren’t many black cast members. To remedy this, Frommer suggests that Branson theaters spend extra money to recruit cast members in large cities.
Not even Tabuchi gets off the hook for contributing to the atmosphere of ” racism.” He is criticized for not having any blacks in his show (at least not when Frommer attended). Frommer thinks that because Tabuchi is a minority who made it big in Branson, he has a special duty to bring in other minorities. In a passage of political correctness extreme even for this book, Frommer actually criticizes Tabuchi for making fun of rap. (Never mind that black musicians such as Wynton Marsalis and Ray Charles have expressed similar opinions.) Frommer admits that while it may be “a bit churlish of me to complain about the racial casting of his show,” he finds it “sad” that ” [after] cracking the color barrier to an extent no one else has and becoming immensely rich in the process, Shoji has apparently decided to bring no one else of color along in his show.”
Frommer never seems to grasp that Branson’s shows may simply reflect performers” musical tastes and preferences. Black country great Charley Pride, who himself heads a successful theater in Branson, recognized as much in his autobiography. “It still puzzles me that more black singers have not followed [from Pride’s breakthrough into country] and that there are so few blacks at country music shows. But if a barrier exists now, it is most likely in their own minds and in their own tastes and preferences.”
Frommer’s book does contain some valuable information for tourists. He notes special features of hotels, reprints restaurant menus, and gives concise but comprehensive information about Branson- area stores, malls, and daytime attractions. At his best, Frommer gives his reviews a persore,1 touch, and readers feel almost as if they’re getting travel advice from a friend.
Readers more tolerant than Frommer may come away from his guide thinking Branson is the perfect getaway. It is, after all, a destination where they can kick back to some country music, not worry about exposing their children to sex and violence, and express their patriotism without fear of ridicule from the likes of Arthur Frommer
John Berlau is a policy analyst at Consumer Alert, a Washington-based free-market group.
