Cultural Safety and Cultural Capabilities

This report analyzes the concept of cultural safety and cultural capabilities by examining a video clip from the TV show Fawlty Towers. It discusses the issues of cultural intelligence, cultural awareness, and cultural shock portrayed in the scene, and provides recommendations for improving cultural safety and capabilities.

Running head: CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2
1.1 Background............................................................................................................................2
1.2 Aim........................................................................................................................................2
1.3 Scope......................................................................................................................................2
2. Summary and Observations.........................................................................................................2
2.1 Summary of the video............................................................................................................2
2.2 Observations..........................................................................................................................3
3. Analysis.......................................................................................................................................4
4. Recommendation.........................................................................................................................5
5. Conclusion...................................................................................................................................6

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
The meaning of cultural capability is that one has the ability, behavioral systems and
knowledge to plan, encourage, improve and deliver services effectively to people irrespective of
culture. It majorly means the delivery of services in safe environment in terms of culture.
Cultural capability leads to the formation of a culturally safe space where people from all
cultures have the freedom to express them without any fear or prejudice.
1.2 Aim
The aim of the report is to analyze the safe and unsafe spaces in terms of culture and the
cultural capability in different working environments such as a workplace, an organization or a
workplace. The report will first present a clear explanation of cultural capability including the
cultural intelligence along with other terms associated with culture. This will be followed by the
recommendations that will be provided to improve the unsafe spaces in terms of culture.
1.3 Scope
The major focus of the report is to analyze a particular sequence from a television
program with the title Fawlty Towers. In doing so, the report will explain each of the scenes that
contain instances of culturally unsafe spaces and issues related to cultural capabilities.
2. Summary and Observations
2.1 Summary of the video
The specific video clip is taken from the Season 2, Episode 1 of the popular British
sitcom Fawlty Towers that released in 1979. Bob Spiers is the director of the particular season.
The particular scene in discussion features Mrs. Alice Richards (Joan Sanderson), Manuel
(Andrew Sachs) and Polly (Connie Booth) as the main characters (Imdb.com, 2019).
The video demonstrates the reception desk of the Fawlty Towers Hotel where the
employees are hurriedly attending to their works. In the very beginning of the scene, the butler,
Manuel is seen coming down the stairs with a heavy luggage in his back. On the other hand,

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Polly attends to the guests politely and professionally. Then, Mrs. Richards enters with a loud
voice interfering Polly demanding change for her taxi fare. She interferes in Polly on many
occasions and then Polly sees Manuel and asks him to attend to her regarding her reservation
issue.
2.2 Observations
From observing the video thoroughly, several issues of cultural capabilities and cultural
safety could be identified.
Table 1: Observations from the video (Handling complaints 2, 2019)
Time in
sequence
Sign of cultural
safety
Body
language
Tone
1:59 Manuel is asked
to deal with a
demanding
woman who
does not have
any knowledge
about his
language and
culture, neither
Manuel has any
hold on English
culture or
language.
This is a clear
sign of cultural
safety and
capability issue.
Manuel is
shown as a
partially
dwarf man
with his a
weird, dumb
look. Mrs.
Richards, on
the other
hand, is quite
adept in
speaking
although she
has some
hearing
problems.
The tone of
Polly while
she asks
Manuel to
help Mrs.
Richards in
her
reservation
clearly
showed the
way she
downgraded
Manuel
2:02 to 2:21 Manuel being a
Spanish butler
fails to
understand the
words said by
Mrs. Richards
who then
complains to

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Polly about it.
Polly then
informs Mrs.
Richards that
Manuel is from
Barcelona, thus
indicating his
weakness in
communication.
3. Analysis
According to Bruhn (2005) culture is responsible for shaping an individual’s outward
appearances although less obvious but more significant is the individual’s inner differences
including the goals in an individual’s life, sense of justice and personal feelings. The video clip
from Fawlty Towers also shows that people are shaped by their cultures in both their outward
and inward appearances. While Mrs. Richards is shaped by her culture of being sophisticated and
demanding, Polly is shaped by her culture of being polite and yet rude at the same time. Manuel,
on the other hand, is wrongly represented in the video because one cannot assume that people
from Barcelona could be bad at speaking and understanding English. The beginning scene in the
video depicts Manuel with a heavy luggage on his back climbing down the stairs and then later
entering the scene looking lanky with hands on the back, expression depicting he has no idea
what is going on. This is a clear demonstration of a lack of culturally safe space and lack of
cultural intelligence. As Brislin, Worthley and Macnab (2006) explain, cultural intelligence
means the success people achieve while “adjusting to another culture”. They further explain that
using aspects such as cognition, emotions, behavior and awareness, cultural intelligence could be
developed. The authors argue that an individual could be culturally intelligent if he or she
considers others’ behaviors while interacting with them in their cultural space find reasons for
their behaviors and become culturally capable.
In the video, the scene where Polly tries to avoid Mrs. Richards, she could have done that
by being polite because she knew that the woman had hearing problems. Here, Polly
demonstrated a lack of cultural awareness as explained by Quappe and Cantatore (2005). As per
their views, cultural awareness is the “ability of standing back from one’s own selves and

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
becoming aware of her or his cultural values, beliefs and perceptions”. It means that Polly should
have known her own cultural values first to understand the problem of Mrs. Richards and behave
accordingly. The scene involving Manuel and Mrs. Richards also brings forth the case of culture
shock. In the words of Flanja (2009), “culture shock is the state of discomfort experienced by the
intellectual traveler, in a more or less profound way, once he or she is place in an unfamiliar
environment”. The unfamiliar environment in this case was for both Mrs. Richards and Manuel.
Both the characters faced culture shock because both had no familiarity with each other’s
culture.
Apart from lacking cultural capabilities, the video also showed that the space was not
culturally safe as well. A culturally safe space is where every individual is allowed to express her
or his views without any prejudice and having the freedom to stay the way they are (Holley &
Steiner, 2005). Manuel being a Spanish has been shown to be inferior to the British customers
and employees. He has not been given the space to demonstrate his abilities because he belonged
to another culture. Humpage (2009) explain that a culturally unsafe space could be the one where
people from other cultures feel unsafe to practice or follow their own culture. This could be an
organization, a workplace or even a classroom. The scene in the video has been shot from the
cultural perspective of the British people who found it amusing to mock a person of another
culture by showing him to be short-heighted, lanky with weird expressions. He is also shown to
have no hold over the \English language and becomes a character of laugh. The makers hence,
did not exhibit stronghold over their cultural awareness. According to Quappe and Cantatore
(2009), misunderstanding arises in culture when an individual views another culture from his or
her own perception. In the particular video clip, the perception is about the Spanish person being
incompetent to be in a higher position in companies or in this case, hotels within the British
culture. the scene also demonstrates that the British people consider people from other cultures to
be funny and incompetent as compared to them.
4. Recommendation
After analyzing the scene in the video clip carefully, it could be stated that a lot has to be
changed when it come to demonstrating cultural capability and ensuring a culturally safe space.
Therefore, the following recommendations should be made to change the situation:

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
First, it must be recommended that Manuel be allowed to have a better position in the
hotel where he is able exhibit great skills of communication and cultural awareness.
Second, it is recommended that Polly should behave more cordially with Mrs. Richards
especially after when she learns that the woman has a hearing problem.
Thirdly, it is also recommended that when Manuel and Mrs. Richards interact, they are
shown as competent individuals having good awareness about each other’s culture.
Lastly, it is recommended that the hotel does not engage an individual from another
culture to do works such as carrying luggage for the guests.
5. Conclusion
Thus, it could be reiterated that the report explained cultural capability and culturally safe
and unsafe spaces by analyzing the video. The video from the episode one of Fawlty Towers
season two was analyzed using credible sources to understand if it demonstrates a culturally safe
space. Further, it was also analyzed to see if the characters have cultural capabilities or cultural
intelligence to be able to interact competently with people from other cultures. The various term
and concepts related to culture such as culture shock and cultural awareness have also been
discussed in the report.

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CULTURAL SAFETY AND CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
6. References:
Brislin, R., Worthley, R., & Macnab, B. (2006). Cultural intelligence: Understanding behaviors
that serve people’s goals. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 40-55.
Bruhn, J. G. (2005). Culture-brain interactions. Integrative Physiological & Behavioral
Science, 40(4), 243-254.
Flanja, D. (2009). Culture shock in intercultural communication. Studia Universitatis Babes-
Bolyai-Studia Europaea, (4), 107-124.
Handling complaints 2. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=6_cDmwlbVkg
Holley, L. C., & Steiner, S. (2005). Safe space: Student perspectives on classroom environment.
Journal of Social Work Education, 41(1), 49-64.
Humpage, L. (2009). A ‘culturally unsafe’space? The Somali experience of Christchurch
secondary schools. New Zealand Geographer, 65(1), 73-82.
Imdb.com. (2019). "Fawlty Towers" Communication Problems (TV Episode 1979) - IMDb.
Retrieved from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0578586/?ref_=ttep_ep1
Quappe, S., & Cantatore, G. (2005). What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build
it. Retrieved July, 17, 2008.