Owned?

I've felt it before. In about half of the foreign travel videos you will see it, and it makes me uncomfortable. But why? There they are, shooting on location in some country of little brown people and the crew thinks it is necessary to get a shot of the local police smiling and saluting for the camera. It never looks right.

Today while watching a preview of Sipping Jetstreams on the shralp surf! podcast, it clicked. There is fear behind those smiles. These cops in foreign lands have been told that if they ever come across English speaking white tourists with cameras, be nice and do what they say or it is ten years hard labor and weekly beatings. Or was it ten years hard beatings and weekly labor? At least it looks that way to me.