'Apocalypto' does disservice to its subjects

SF Chronicle ^ | December 11, 2006 | Zachary X. Hruby

[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.

[Lurker]

history shows that the most dangerous force is always government and the crime syndicates that grow up around it.

Let's see if this fits as a tagline.

With just a bit of editing it works.

Thanks glorgau.

L

[neb52]

"Northern Africa are speaking German...what would be your answer!?"

Vandals?

[lentulusgracchus]

Well, how do you explain the fact that there are still more than 1.5 million people in central Mexico speaking Aztec (Nahuatl) language?

On top of that, besides Aztecs, there are their stay-behind cousins who didn't migrate down from Colorado and Utah in the 14th century with the Aztecs, but stayed behind and became the Utes, the Comanches, and (I think) the Flatheads. The language group is called Uto-Aztecan.

This migration episode is the basis of the Mexican ethnocentrists' claim on "Aztlan" as ancestral Aztec territory.

The Aztecs' migration down to central Mexico was followed, two or three generations later, by that of the Na-Dene speakers (Navajos, Apaches) down into the area vacated by the Anasazi and proto-Aztecans.

[lentulusgracchus]

"Further, inaccurate representations by Hollywood of indigenous peoples as amoral, inhuman or uncivilized"

This is part of the continuing legacy of Franz Boas's struggle against the eugenicists, cultural supremacists (I think there is another term for them) and Nazis, on the one hand, and Margaret Mead's Barney-the-Dinosaur evaluation of Samoan society. It turned out the Samoans were "on good behavior" for Mead, who ate it up with a spoon because it met her own biases; she came pre-loaded, apparently, with an intellectual agenda that said that Western Civ is crazy-making bad and wicked and evil and stuff. As a result, she didn't record accurately some pretty dark things that were commonplace in Samoan society.

[A. Pole]

So we will all end up looking like Central Asian Kazakhstanians

You mean like him?

[MSSC6644]

. . .such soullessness as human sacrifice, barbarism, and slavery are the natural state of man without God. Sooner or later, it's going to have to be recognized that Christianity plays a unique role in better futures.

This seems to be the thread that ties all of Gibson's films together.

[dsc]

"As a result, she didn't record accurately some pretty dark things that were commonplace in Samoan society."

Worse, the Samoans flim-flammed her six ways from Sunday, filling her head full of outrageous nonsense that she reported as the truth.

[dsc]

There are a lot of good things in the review, but this:

"manufactured monsters and imagined foreboding"

Is truly moronic. There's nothing manufactured or imagined about the fact that Satan's creation, Islam, is once again on the march.

Think orcs.

[Clemenza]

True. However, with all due respect, who else will do the gardening in Boca? Its not like you have a large, native born working class in that part of the country.

10-15 years ago, it was the Haitians, 40 years ago, it was the Bahamanians. Who knows who will do the schlepp work in 15 years.

[Moonman62]

Maybe we can use ships to bring workers in from Africa.

[Clemenza]

Putting a wall at the border and THEN inviting Africans (and/or Filipinos, Hondurans, etc.) in on visas would not be a bad idea.

[Aikonaa]

I saw Apocalypto I and think it actually portrayed the forest-living Mayans in a very favorable light. As portrayed, the life of a hunter-gatherer in a rain forest is filled with challenges modern a Westerner never has to deal with. It took real perseverence to survive in those conditions.

[Ciexyz]

Hope you enjoy the film! Thanks for your vote of confidence (tee hee) in my judgement!

[justa-hairyape]

Yikes. What a picture. That is what Globalization and the loss of individual countries and individual ethnic identities will end up doing to us all. We will go backward in time 30,000 to 40,000 years.

[dennisw]

Saw it and liked it. The Mayans were loony toon savages