Archive for the ‘Surfing & SUP’ Category
Once a week we dive into the video archives of filmmaker and SURFER Magazine founder John Severson. This week features the opening sequence of his final film “Pacific Vibrations.” Released in 1970 and filmed during the transition era of board design, “Pacific Vibrations” features a heavy amount of pintail single fins. More importantly, Severson’s inspiration for the film was to bring awareness to the changes he was witnessing happen to the ocean.
“This is a film that contrasts the beauty with the problems [environmental] and in the end makes a statement that would maybe prompt a few people to take action and start doing something,” Severson said about his film.
For some Native Hawaiians, surfing’s Olympic debut is both a celebration of a cultural touchstone invented by their ancestors, and an extension of the racial indignities seared into the history of the game and their homeland.
The Tokyo Summer Games, which open July 23, serve as a proxy for that unresolved tension and resentment, according to the ethnic Hawaiians who lament that surfing and their identity have been culturally appropriated by white outsiders who now stand to benefit the most from the $10 billion industry.
“You had Native Hawaiians in the background being a part of the development of it and just not being really recognized,” said Isaiah Helekunihi Walker … More