Anthony Bourdain’s major issue with Woody Harrelson: “Classic worst-case xenophobic tourist”
“Be a traveller, not a tourist!” That was Anthony Bourdain’s advice, and perhaps the quote that sums up his entire legacy best. Beyond his work as a chef, Bourdain spent his life travelling around, documenting food, the people who make it and the role it plays in our lives on his worldwide travels. It was his ultimate passion as his TV shows didn’t just see him going to a country, trying to find the best restaurants and gawking at delicacies. No, he treated each and every meal with respect, and he expected others to as well.
That’s where the issue lay between Bourdain and actor Woody Harrelson. It’s an unusual pairing, two people no one would ever draw a line of reference between. But in one instance, Harrelson became the epitome of everything Bourdain rallied against.
Harrelson is a lucky man. His fame affords him significant privileges that others can only dream of. He gets to travel expensively for work, but he also has the money to really go where he wants, do what he wants, and eat what he wants. If he wanted to, he could eat at all the best restaurants worldwide without worrying about the bill. He gets to live a life of incredible access; fame opens those doors for him.
But in Bourdain’s eyes, he not only wasted that but failed to understand it at all. The actual story is simple – Harrelson went to Thailand and returned to America, oddly boasting that he wouldn’t try the local cuisine. For Bourdain, that was not only embarrassing, but also captured so much of what’s wrong with people’s interactions with food.
“Who would listen to anyone who can visit Thailand—a country with one of the most vibrant, varied, exciting culinary cultures on the planet (including a rich tradition of tasty vegetarian fare)—and refuse to sample its proudly served and absolutely incredible bounty?” Bourdain said, basically pointing his finger and laughing at the actor for actively missing out on one of life’s richest experiences. To him, food was living. It was the easiest and purest way to engage with the world, and especially to engage with travel and cultures; that was always his ethos. So to witness someone like Harrelson reject that? He took issue with it.
But it’s not just that Harrelson himself refused the food; it was the fact that this actor with a platform was bragging about that. For Bourdain, it was almost dangerous as Harrelson seemed to be furthering this tired and somewhat xenophobic discourse he was exhausted of. “To my mind, there’s no difference between Woody, the New Age gourmet ensuring a clean colon by eating the same thing every day, and the classic worst-case, xenophobic tourist—the one who whether in Singapore, Rome, Hanoi, or Mexico City insists on eating every meal in the hotel restaurant,” he said, cutting the actor down to size.
Harrelson’s obsession with clean eating and the suggestion that Thai food was too ‘dirty’ to fit in with that was insulting to Bourdain, who laid out the hypocrisy. Harrelson certainly wouldn’t throw himself in with the lame tourist masses, but Bourdain would, stating, “One fears ‘dirty’ water, ‘unsafe’ vegetables, ‘ooky,’ ‘weird,’ and unrecognisable local specialities. The other fears ‘toxins’ and ‘impurities.’”
Clean eating was a plague to Bourdain. But more so, people’s refusal to open their eyes, minds and stomachs to the world, especially when they had every privilege to do so, was a crime. “What kind of cramped, narrow, and arrogant worldview could excuse shutting oneself off totally from the greater part of an ancient and beautiful culture,” he said, with the Hollywood actor becoming the face of this gripe.
