Jason J. Crawford

Imagine one day that a Kobe Bryant or Peyton Manning decided to fall off the map of the competitive world and disappear on a spiritual journey in an effort to find their respective sport as it organically occurred out in the world. That they would remove their locale as a player on a commercial court or field and wander aimlessly to reflect about the community and followers around them. Doesn’t sound likely but this is what surfing’s golden boy Rob Machado, a king to the modern corporate surfing aristocracy, struck out to do in The Drifter.

The 1980s surfing world reached a new competitive level with the rivalry of Mark “Occy” Occhilupo and Tom Curren. A comparison of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson proportions triggered a commercial frenzy to sponsor competitive surfers and bring in a new generation of sponsor-identity marketing to the sport. As the 1990s began to shape as the decade of synergistic mass-consumption, the extreme sporting world found sponsorship as a tool to build a persona-driven subculture around athlete identities. Along with Kelly Slater, Rob Machado became the mold for corporate surfing to manufacture a style and culture that expanded surfing products, clothing lines and accessories. The period was about wearing a brand and claiming faithfulness to the products identity with stickers covering your board just like the pros.

In a relatively short period, the wave of manufactured counter-culture ushered in by companies like Quicksilver, Volcom, Hurley, Billabong among others increased the visibility of the sport to a commercial level. However, the consequence of this rapid growth has been a tragedy of the commons in the sport, combined with coastal growth (ironically influenced by the ‘tropicalist’ beach culture that surfing has promoted). What were once isolated and secret locales exoticized for generations have become ground zero for a globalized economy of surf tourism.

The Drifter is a subtle recognition of this change. From Rob being at the top of the competitive surfing chain to becoming engulfed at surf breaks by crowds and frenzies of photographers looking to manufacture the next Machado, he ventures into isolation to get away from what has been built from his image.

This isolation begins with a sad but ironic literal self-reflection when Machado comes across an advertisement outside a Hurley outlet in Bali, Indonesia that has been defaced.

One major problem for me is that we never know what triggers Machado’s emotional reaction to this, whether it be guilt or nostalgia (however he recalls a negative comment made after winning a jr. surf contest about the value of the win). But as I intend to explain, the fact this entire soul-searching journey is sponsored by Nike subsidiary Hurley International, I’m willing to tend to the latter being nostalgia and believe that Machado’s question to rediscover surfing is as much a reinvention of the corporate surfing world who has burst at the seems in it’s growth. Out of this journey is to promote a new medium of surfing, free surfing.

Discovering a non-competitive surfing

Rob’s isolation from society is as much a figurative separation from the corporate surfing world as the self-discovery that he launches into is to discover a secondary surfing culture and community outside of the what the mainstream has created. His geographic detachment of locale as he constantly repeats he doesn’t feel home anywhere is experienced by his years of surfing on tour. The competitive surfing world has facilitated much of this detachment as it’s required to constantly be on the move and be recorded for media and advertisements. Seeing as the film is sponsored by Hurley (with other companies running various contests around the DVD release), there is never any explicit condemnation of the corporate surfing world. Instead Director Taylor Steele (and rather bravely) creates two worlds of surfing to illustrate a juxtaposition between the surfing world Rob is trying to escape from and the other he is trying to drift around in, with the earlier being streets in Indonesia lined with corporate surfing billboards and brand logos plastered everywhere.

Bali has become a mecca for surf tourism and while the island has embraced and built an economy around it, this has been largely absorbed by transnational capitalism and Westerners looking to enhance to market of facilitating more foreign travelers. Much of Machado’s soul-searching involves getting out with the people and interacting at a perceptually local level. Even though much of this is arranged by Steele, in an interview on CNN, Machado explained that he did have a lot of alone time to wander without a crew by his side. What he discovers is something he is ultimately looking for, a non-competitive world of surfing.

Throughout the movie there are a lot of allusions to Christ with Rob laying in the crucification position. Whether intentional or not, this provides for a rather interesting reading of his relationship to the rural society when he begins to tour the island via motorcycle. Machado acts as surfing’s Che Guevara, another Christ-like figure in the position of having this journey of self-discovery, as illustrated in The Motorcycle Diaries, act as a travelogue for a revolutionary idea. Both finds themselves in situations as saviors to the community around the:, for Che it’s the notion of a pan-Latin Americans egalitarianism and for Rob a transition to promote “free surfing” to save the surfing world from collapse.

How will Commons Function in the Free Surfing Economy

In many ways the free surfing trend is a “green” prescription to a potential social collapse of a surfing commons. And for this reason and much like the green economy out there, we have to wary that this is a market answer built around a trend to go green. This is also another problem for me because there is a lack of direction in what Machado is ultimate trying to preserve. His travels by motorcycle, bus, hitchhiking and foot produce a virginal side of Bali that the West has long idolize, one that hasn’t been exposed to the commercial surfing world and ultimately detached from modern society. For Westerners the prospect of unspoiled paradise has been a long standing pursuit that ultimately falls to a tragedy of the commons when others arrive.

Rather than build a perspective with the inhabitants he encounters, Machado becomes immersed in an ambassadorial type of soup-kitchen politics. He picks up a shovel and works to build a well for the villagers who have to travel 3-4 Km away on foot for fresh water. The moment is described for it’s feel-good qualities, “surfing is a selfish activity. In the course of doing so, giving back is what makes the waves we ride that much better.”

The conundrum is this; Machado has fulfilled an ambition of what he wants to see Indonesia and the surf touring world become, free to the extent it caters to less crowds and has a small organic footprint that is left behind. However without a dialog with the Indonesians, he among the corporate surfing world who want to promote free surfing and seek to preserve an anachronistic version of Indonesia (one with cattle herders roaming grassy open fields along pristine beaches) are going to find a problem with the question of the modern mobilization that’s taking place in the country. Ever since Suharto’s “new order” form of neo-liberal economic policies, the country has exploded with investment in industrial manufacturing. Ironically enough it was corporations like Hurley’s parent company Nike who promoted much of this industrial growth as a way to generate reluctant prosperity to the developing world (and in return manufacture cheap goods with low labor costs, lack of employer standards and laxed environmental restrictions). How are Indonesians suppose to respond to this? Reject growth so they maintain an antiquated world that seems novel to surfers who want a paradise to escape to?

If free surfing is going to exist and be promoted, then the Rob Machado’s, Donavon Frankenreiter’s, Dave Rasrovich’s out there who will have their bohemian identities manufactured to promote it are going to have to be clear on dialogging with the communities that they want free surfing to grow from. Otherwise it will be the 1990s all over again.