Fawlty Towers: A Review of Cultural Capabilities

The report analyzes the importance of cultural capabilities and safe spaces in work environments and academic institutions. It reviews a multimedia clip from Fawlty Towers and determines whether the scene encouraged safe spaces and promoted cultural capability or not.

Running head: FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Executive summary
The importance of generating cultural awareness and encouraging cultural capabilities among
individuals is to promote culturally safe spaces and a sense of cultural diversity in the
environment to foster mutual bonding and growth in work places and public spaces. Cultural
capability is the capacity of an individual to integrate the knowledge, empathy, and
compassion for other communities and not discriminating them based on their identity. With
the growing space of work due to globalisation, the importance to understand and practice
cultural capability is indispensable. Along with, it is equally important to respect human
values and beliefs different to one’s own to create mutual respect and sense of belonging.
This report will look into how cultural capabilities should be encouraged, and the necessity to
create safe spaces in work environments and academic institutions. The report will analyse a
situation from a given video source and determine critically whether the scene encouraged
safe spaces and the characters promoted cultural capability or if they did not.

2FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 Background.....................................................................................................................3
1.2 Aim of the report..............................................................................................................3
1.3 Scope of the report...........................................................................................................4
2. Summary and Observations...................................................................................................4
2.1 Summary of the Video Clip:............................................................................................4
2.2 Observations.....................................................................................................................4
3. Analysis..............................................................................................................................5
4. Recommendation....................................................................................................................6
5. Conclusion and summary.......................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

3FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
Introduction
Humans have evolved with time and have been able to realize the worth of their
existence. The changing environment allows us to interact with various people belonging
from different communities, and ethnic background. The main aim of the report is to
understand the concept of safe space and cultural capability and to review its necessity in
creating a culturally diverse space for every individual. The report will be subdivided in to
several sections and will describe in detail the concepts in a hierarchical fashion. The report
will also analyse a multimedia clip to understand the situation and the presence of safe spaces
in day to day scenarios. Thereafter the report will provide recommendations to improve the
safety of the space where necessary or will suggest ways to develop an environment into a
safe space. The concept of cultural capability will also be discussed in the report and any
suggestions if required would be made in the recommendation section. The report will also
look into how these parameters mould an individual into being culturally competent.
1.1 Background
The paper revolves around cultural capability and safe spaces. While defining these
terms it should be noted that the concept of cultural capability are very much in tune with
cultural competence, and cultural intelligence. Cultural capabilities is referred to the set of
skills, knowledge, the belief systems, and the behaviour of individuals with respect to their
surroundings and are used to formulate a plan or course of action to deliver services that are
culturally unbiased and does not reflect a certain community are termed as cultural
capabilities. It is the capacity to develop and modify heterogeneous environment around them
to provide equal scope of growth and development for all and to foster the sense of equality
among individuals from diverse social and cultural backgrounds. The concept of space has
developed from the physical space where there is absolute freedom for an individual to
express him or herself without being judged from the conservativeness of the society. The
existence of safe space is generally evident in various academic institutions and work spaces
that have been marked as a safe space (Brislin et al., 2006).
1.2 Aim of the report
The major aim of the report is to understand the concept of safe space with respect to
cultural capability. The report will analyse an audio-visual sample and try to evaluate the
situation in the scenario from the perspective of cultural capability. As mentioned earlier the
safe spaces are physical zones created to share freedom of thought and expression for the
marginalized sections of the society. Universities in general allow zones to create safe spaces
to allow their students to voice their thoughts and express their views. The cultural
capabilities of an individual allow an individual to identify and respond to safe and unsafe

4FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
spaces. The cultural competence and cultural intelligence of an individual allows one to take
decisions in safe and unsafe zones and enable them to cope in unsafe spaces as and when
required. Unsafe spaces can be referred to those which create a biased environment and do
not allow freedom of expression for all section of the society.
1.3 Scope of the report
The scope of this report will be identified through the analysis of a virtual situation
being expressed in an audio-visual format. The following sections of the report will evaluate
the video clip from the famous British television series Fawlty towers, which revolves around
the story of an abusive hotel owner who along with his wife, waitress, and a waiter tries to
manage clients and run a business in the sea side town of Torbay.
2. Summary and Observations
This section will cover the description of the visual in the summary and the analysis of the
same will be done in the subsection as observations. The observations will look into the way
the characters develop and the interpretation of their social structure. The observations will
justify the presence of safe or unsafe space.
2.1 Summary of the Video Clip:
The visual sample is an episode of the famous British comedy series called Fawlty towers
(Spiers, 1979) created by John Cleese and his wife Connie Booth. The clip is a section from
the first episode of the second season. It was first broadcasted in 1975 and then later in 1979.
The scene is based in the backdrop of a hotel reception and the opening scene creates a sense
of comfort, with the interaction going on with various customers from different backgrounds.
This establishes the place as a safe space and encourages comfort of the scene. Both the
receptionist attends the customers in a very jubilant mood until the entry of Mrs. Richards,
who thinks herself to be the cynosure of the scene. She completely neglects the gentlemen
MR. Thirsten, who has however been attended by the receptionist at first, does not react to
the rude behaviour that the old lady exhibits. There are three major characters in the scene,
which include the receptionist Poly Sherman, the old lady Mrs. Richards, the old man Mr.
Thirsten and the waiter Manuel. The main aim of the scene is to add satire through the
characters.
2.2 Observations
The scene opens up with a reception scenario which shows the main characters interacting
with each other. The scene of the interaction develops with notion that the place is a safe
space. As the scene develops over, it moulds into a different mood with the entry of the old
lady named Mrs. Richards. She enters with a loud approach and expects herself to be treated

5FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
differently. The receptionist Ms. Poly Sherman, requests the woman to wait since she is
attending to an elderly gentleman who has arrived earlier than the lady. Mrs. Richards
expects herself to be treated in spite of her delayed entry, which the receptionist does not
entertain. The conflict was about to start, when the receptionist cleverly guides the waiter,
Manuel, to cater to the old lady. This buys her some time, to attend to the old man. Mr.
Manuel is the waiter of the hotel and is not fluent with the tongue of the lady. This is a satiric
representation of the event that occurred. The first scene of attending to the customers is an
evidence of cultural safety and cultural capability. The scene proves the fact that all the
customers are treated equally, irrespective of their background or influence. The receptionist
Poly Sherman displays positive body language and treats every person equally. She shows
signs of high cultural intelligence.
3. Analysis
The scene depicts a conflict scene with the receptionist and a customer who request
urgent favour and totally disregards the space of others. According to Brislin, the capacity to
understand other cultures and respect their differences is the key to creating cultural
capability, which has been rightly reflected by Mrs. Poly Sherman. She adjusted her body
language and tone of voice after analyzing the situation, which proves her competence for
other communities rather surrendering to the unjustified acts of the old lady. There had
always been a positive approach maintained by Ms. Poly Sherman, in dealing with her
customers. She even made the old man comfortable by giving a stiff resistance to the lady for
her unjustified demands. She finally handles the situation by changing her concentration to
the old waiter, asking him to guide the old lady. This is a sign of good management as she
catered to the both the issues at the same time (Flanja, 2009). The body language of the lady
Mrs. Richards was though very aggressive, Ms. Poly was wise enough to divert the energy
away in a clever manner by avoiding further conversation. This also proves that her cultural
intelligence was also higher, which made the scene a safe space.
In dealing with the customers they come across several eccentric customers to which
their response was a witty humor (Garneau & Pepin, 2015). The place does depict a safe
place, yet the director had tried to create a balance by keeping four different characters with
different levels of social competence. The report in the following section will identify the
safe spaces, the nature of the characters and their cultural capability. The visual includes a
series of events happening in the reception of the hotel where an old lady is seen to argue
with the staff for not being attended to her. The reply to the lady is a witty sequence and
proves that the place is safe for individuals, but does not entertain people having
preconceived mindsets regarding their social exclusiveness.
The safety of a space (Holley & Steiner, 2005) can only be improved with increasing
cultural capability among individuals and focusing in inculcating cultural competence among

6FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
them. Apart from this it is important to create a safe environment all around rather than
segregating separate zones as safe spaces. It is necessary for the community to develop as a
tolerant community altogether. The behaviour of Ms. Poly shows that the place is a safe
space. Ms. Poly eases the tension that was being created by the interfering old lady. She
explains her priority and takes control of the situation by addressing the lady to the waiter and
attending the old man at the counter. This balance of attention to the customers makes the
place culturally safe.
4. Recommendation
The place can be regarded as a safe space due to the cultural competency shown by
Ms. Poly. It is her cultural intelligence that makes the place a safe space. A space does not
become safe by its virtue but rather it becomes safe by elimination of conflict in the place.
The activity that Ms. Poly did was that she avoided the conflict and therefore transformed the
place into a safe place. This could only be done because of her cultural intelligence. The lady
claiming privileges over the old customer was attended with proper care by Ms. Poly which
makes the place culturally safer.
5. Conclusion and summary
Thus from the above report we can infer that the cultural competence and cultural
awareness should be promoted to bring about a change in the environment. There should be
adequate education regarding cultural competence and its necessity in making the work
places a safer space. as we have seen from the video, that it was the avoidance of the conflict
that led to the space being a space and not any special character that transformed it into a
culturally competent and safe place. It should be noted that proper knowledge and
compassion should be taught to individuals to understand the importance of cultural
competence and the need for safe spaces be reduced to make the whole world a safer place.

7FAWLTY TOWERS: A REVIEW OF CULTURAL CAPABILITIES
References
Brislin, R., Worthley, R., & Macnab, B. (2006). Cultural intelligence: Understanding
behaviors that serve people’s goals. Group & Organization Management, 31(1), 40-
55.
Flanja, D. (2009). Culture shock in intercultural communication. Studia Universitatis Babes-
Bolyai. Studia Europaea, 54(4), 107.
Garneau, A. B., & Pepin, J. (2015). Cultural competence: A constructivist definition. Journal
of Transcultural Nursing, 26(1), 9-15.
Holley, L. C., & Steiner, S. (2005). Safe space: Student perspectives on classroom
environment. Journal of Social Work Education, 41(1), 49-64.
Quappe, S., & Cantatore, G. (2005). What is Cultural Awareness, anyway? How do I build
it.
Spencer-Oatey, H., & Franklin, P. (2012). What is culture. A compilation of quotations.
GlobalPAD Core Concepts, 1-22.
Spiers, B. (Director). (1979, Feb 19). Fawlty Towers, Communication Problems, Handling
Complaints, Season 2 Episode 1 (BBC Television program) Retrieved from
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_cDmwlbVkg