Common Machine » Plastic Paradise: A Swingin’ Trip Through America’s Polynesian Obsession https://commonmachine.com Thu, 30 Aug 2018 14:15:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 Plastic Paradise https://commonmachine.com/plastic-paradise/ https://commonmachine.com/plastic-paradise/#comments Thu, 29 Aug 2013 18:16:25 +0000 http://commonmachine.com/?p=651 In the 1940s and 1950s, the return of American GIs from the Pacific helped launch a postwar Polynesian craze that lasted more than three decades. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition, James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, and Hawaiian statehood all fueled the phenomenon. This “tiki” culture — so named after the large, wooden sculptures found […]

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]]> In the 1940s and 1950s, the return of American GIs from the Pacific helped launch a postwar Polynesian craze that lasted more than three decades. Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki expedition, James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific, and Hawaiian statehood all fueled the phenomenon. This “tiki” culture — so named after the large, wooden sculptures found throughout Polynesia — included candy-colored, rum-infused cocktails with names like the Zombie and the Missionary’s Downfall, crazy Hawaiian shirts, exotic instrumental music fused with space-age pop, and a nonstop party scene inhabited by self-styled nonconformists and swingers.

Today, the spirit of tiki endures among a new generation of Polynesian popsters like musician Denny “King Kukulele” Moynahan, cocktail anthropologist Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, and tiki historian Sven Kirsten.

Plastic Paradise explores this fascinating, little known, and surprisingly enduring subculture. Making stops in Los Angeles, New York City, and South Florida, the film culminates with a visit to Hukilau, the largest gathering of tikiphiles on the East Coast, held every year at one of the last great holdovers from tiki’s golden age, Fort Lauderdale’s famed Mai-Kai Restaurant. 

Plastic Paradise premiered in 2013 and has aired in major markets coast-to-coast, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Miami.

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