ABSTRACT
The idea of the tourist being an outsider in an unfamiliar setting and occupying a liminal state well-rehearsed in the study of tourism. This chapter examines these issues in relation to the 2014 HBO drama True Detective. The chapter explores questions around the symbolic role of the ‘other’ and ‘stranger’ in narratives of place and mobility – focused here on the liminal landscapes of rural Louisiana and the strangeness of the outsider – embodied in the character of Detective Rust Cohle. We also consider the real-and-imagined geographies of the Louisiana swamplands as a mythic space and the implications for their representation in tourism imagery.
