Keeping it real
It is, by now, an established Oxford tradition to scoff at the tourist hordes which descend on the city each weekend, open-mouthed and slow-moving in their awe. One has, of course, no choice but to shout "Excuse me!" as loudly as possible while elbowing past the people who cluster in college lodges peering into front quads as into some sort of magical tableau, or to respond in a polite yet firmly condescending fashion when confused visitors ask where the university campus is (this has in fact happened in recent memory).
All of this can be written-off as the hazards that come with living and studying in a picturesque, medieval university city, but the gradual commercialisation of the otherwise well-meaning and enthusiastic tourist trade raises the possibility of creating two Oxfords: the one in which the townspeople actually live and work, and the one which is sanitised, simplified, and prettied up for the benefit of tourists.
The most obvious culprits of this Disney-fication are, of course, the Oxford Story Exhibition and the omnipresent open-top tour buses which troll endlessly along the town's thoroughfares. For the time-pressed visitor, these present themselves as the best way to quickly see the "real" Oxford: the one in which students endlessly play croquet, cricket, and rugby in between tea parties and black-tie balls.
The Oxford Story tour features a video on student life, screened in a "JCR" that looks something like the back room of the KA on a good day, which follows a girl writing a letter home about her exploits on the "rowing team," her suspiciously modern laboratories, and the mysteriously sunny weather. This is followed by a theatricalised indoor dark ride through Oxford's past which sports a medieval cat with red laser-beam eyes, a speech in Olde English by John Wyclif, and a papier-mache model of a dodo bird. The Union is also mentioned, mainly as a factory for the production of Prime Ministers, but also as a throbbing social centre for the University. Amanda Gaynor, an American college student who went through the Oxford Story exhibit, said, "I'm only here for the day, and I didn't know what I should see here. But I think I got a good picture of what Oxford is like." Asked what sort of picture that was, she responded, "I guess it's just really traditional, with all this stuff going on in Latin and people in gowns and black-tie events. I can't imagine having to dress up to go to class and to dinner and everything."The walking tours of the university are considerably less edited, as tourists are actually taken at street level through town. Yet, one wonders how many innocent French schoolchildren leave England convinced that Oxford students are required to wear gowns as a school uniform, as one guide was recently overheard saying.
Even tourists who resist the temptations of the commercial tours don't entirely reject the notion of Oxford as a town preserved for their edification. A group of confused Italian visitors found their way into a college library during Finals last year, apparently not at all dissuaded by the "private" notices, and proceeded to photograph students at their desks until they were ushered out. While walking through the impressive front quad of All Souls', one man declared, "I don't see why they don't just close the university and make the whole place a museum!"
It is fair enough for visitors to stop and gawk at students marching past in full sub-fusc dress on their way to matriculation, exams, or degree days, and the medieval pageantry of Encaenia is unrivalled. It is logical that visitors should be struck by the loveliness of the college quads and chapels. It is striking and bizarre that tourists persist with the "It's so cute!" attitude even when students are at their least Oxonian.
As last Sunday's anti-tuition-fees march stopped at several places in town as it wended towards Headington, tourists went wild with their cameras, begging tour leaders to let them stop and take photographs of themselves in front of genuine Oxford student protesters bearing "F**K FEES!" signs. One German visitor, Simone Herman, said, "I am very excited to see this during my visit to Oxford. It is a little bit of real student life!"
Is all of this a problem? Perhaps it is only harmless fun for people who otherwise would have a difficult time gaining a sense of the city. But it is frustrating for students to be peered at and turned into bit players in the tourist's view of Oxford. Naomi O'Brien, a Balliol student, said, "They don't seem to understand that this is actually my life. And they can't seem to tell the cycle paths from the pavement either."
Maybe the best answer to such commercialisation is simply to make the most of it, as did the heroes of Oxford's longest-running urban myth: the legendary two students made it a Sunday afternoon pastime to dress up in sub-fusc and invite tourists up to their rooms for a "genuine" Oxford moment, all for a handy fee of ten pounds a go.
7th Oct 1999