Posted on 12/11/2006 5:04:28 PM PST by veronica
"Apocalypto," Mel Gibson's new thriller about the ancient Maya civilization, is exactly that: thrilling. But this entertainment comes at a price.
The Maya at the time of Spanish contact are depicted as idyllic hunters and gatherers, or as genocidal murderers, and neither of these scenarios is accurate. The film represents a step backward in our understanding of the complex cultures that existed in the New World before the Spanish invasion, and it is part of a disturbing trend re-emerging in the film industry, portraying non-Western natives as evil savages.
"King Kong" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" show these natives as uncaring, beastlike and virtually inhuman. "Apocalypto" achieves similar goals, but in a much subtler fashion.
As in "The Passion of the Christ," Gibson utilizes native language to invoke a veneer of credibility for his story, in this case Yucatec Maya, a technique that unfortunately does much to legitimize this rather strange version of Maya history.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I couldn't get the link to work.
I am certain that the movie will be a huge hit in SF area......Yeah right.
Hey Zach, can only Caucasians be depicted as evil savages? Would that make you happy? What if Mayans were evil savages sometimes? Would it still offend you to portray them that way?
Oh, by the way, Zach, you might not know this because you are only an expert on such a race of absolutely perfect and non-violent people as the Mayans, not on anything else, but many ancient civilizations, even relatively advanced ones, did have their share of "evil" and "savage" practices. Did you know, Zach, that ancient Carthage engaged in the systematic killing of babies? Huh, Zach? The priests threw the newborns off the cliffs into pits called toffets. But we couldn't actually show anything like that in a film, now could we, Zach, seeing as how that would offend you. And we really CARE about your personal view of history, Zach, really we do.
Hey Zach, why don't you keep you politics out of my face and go away.
This man is no expert.
Hruby's article is misleading in some respects, accurate in others. As portrayed in the movie, the Mayans of the early 16th century were in fact jungle dwellers whose great civilization had collapsed centuries earlier.
Hruby is correct in saying that there is no evidence of Mayans practicing human sacrifice on the same enormous scale as the Aztecs. That isn't saying much, however, since there is no doubt at all that the Mayans did practice it. The most famous example is the original form of the Mesoamerican game ulama, which included sacrifice of the entire losing team. Tlachti, the Aztec version of the game, did not involve sacrifice. Some of the remains of sacrifice victims recovered from the Mayan "cenotes" show evidence of unusually cruel and barbaric methods, notably "de-fleshing."
Academics like Hruby consistently mislead their students about this, as well as about cannibalism and ritual torture among native Americans, apparently in pursuit of some political agenda.
Large Mayan population in South Florida now. Most of the gardeners in my parents' gated community in Boca speak Quiche Mayan, NOT Spanish.
What do you expect a liberal San Francisco Chronicle movie critic to say? He said what all of us on Freerepublic could have predicted - the Politically Correct statement about the Noble Savage. If Mel had wanted praise from the San Francisco types, he would have made a movie showing the evil white Spanish Catholics beating innocent minorities (Mayan natives_ to death with crosses.
What the hell is a "non-Western native?"
"The guys who cut my lawn are either White or Black but nice try at thread hijacking."
The guy who cuts my lawn is a fat, balding white guy.
Me.
Same here.
***Hruby is correct in saying that there is no evidence of Mayans practicing human sacrifice on the same enormous scale as the Aztecs.***
But they DID practice it. How much Human sacrifice is "not as much"?
Funny thing: In Mel Gibson's last movie, he depicted a civilization that took delight in engaging in a form of torture in which the victim's extremities were pierced and used to hang him so that the pressure on his body caused him to suffocate. He would push himself up, upon the spike in his feet, to try to breathe. Exhausted, he'd then collapse, suffocating again.
This civilization had some of the greatest innovations in the ancient world and is the necessary precursor to all of Western Civilization.
I didn't hear anybody complaining about Mel Gibson maligning the Romans.
Hard to say with absolute certainty what the Mayans did and did not do. Pretty thick jungle down there.
"portraying non-Western natives as evil savages."
Most present-day interpretations of the Mayan civilization indicate that the Mayans were warring and engaged in ritual human sacrifice. Now, if that's a fact, what is inaccurate about Gibson's movie?
I thought the violence in "Saving Private Ryan" was a little overdone, but that doesn't mean that World War II wasn't, in fact, savage and bloody.
Must be, Hruby is a typical Mayan name, it means "a fat one" :)
"King Kong" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" show these natives as uncaring, beastlike and virtually inhuman."
The natives in these two movies are fictional people in fictional places, and shouldn't be taken seriously as anything but plot devices.
Seriously, these movie reviews tell you more about the reviewer's prejudices than they do about the movies.
The White House strangely buys at least half that story..
"I didn't hear anybody complaining about Mel Gibson maligning the Romans."
That's different. You just don't understand.
The author has a PhD. He is an objective scientist with no agenda other than the truth.
All cultures are equal. Tearing peoples hearts out and eating them is not wrong if it is part of their indigenous culture, especially if they only do ten or twenty at a time.
Give them credit that they don't do thousands at a time.
(sarc)
Well, I have a PhD, too. But mine's in mathematics.
Anthropology...why do they even bother?
*Gag*
All the while conveniently ignoring the fact that everywhere Christianity has touched down and held, societies have improved and prospered. The Western World's foundation is rooted in explicitly Christian tenets that go back what, 1,000 years? They have become so ingrained that secularists take them for granted.
It's why this is going to be a long war.
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