'Apocalypto' does disservice to its subjects

[Sequoia]

"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.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/11/DDG5KMSDK51.DTL

[JacksonWest]

1. Yawn.

The movie was great. They were not portrayed as evil. It was an advanced society with many flaws, just like our own. The comparison between the decline of their culture and our own is the point of the movie.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

2. A friend of ours holds a degree in Mayan history

and he is quite upset by the film's distortion of facts. I have often wondered why filmmakers insist on embellishing or changing history when the true story is much more interesting.

[kenny blankenship]

4. Directors use known stories to tell stories & make points of their own

In this case the story being pushed is that the European brought Christianity to the Maya just in the nick of time to save them from themselves. Lucky Mayans! Mayan history has to be altered (the collapse of the Mayan civilization's Classic phase has to be moved several centuries closer to our time) to give the story the sense of urgency that justifies the subsequent mass conversion to Catholicism.
Sometimes we find the alterations of screenwriters and directors insightful and justified artistically. The fudging of a known story or history or the appropriation of a form can becomes the basis of a metaphor that makes points or forces questions that are (we might agree) of equal worth or even superior worth than the truth of the original source material. Or on the other hand it can push a point that we do not agree with or find to be disgusting as in the present case. There is no intrinsic reason to object to filmmakers using or distorting source material, unless they are presenting a story as literal history (documentary) and they are found to be deliberately falsifying the record. Whether their use and abuse of source material is objectionable depends rather on our evaluation of their aims and interests, an evaluation on the content that is external to the artwork.
It's not the alteration of the Mayan Classical civilization's timeline that makes this movie objectionable, but Gibson's tedious proselytizing and apologetics for Euro- Christian Colonialism for the sake of which the alteration was made.

[Javaman]

6. I'm sure saint bigot mel made sure to include the facts...

of the spanish bringing small pox and VD to the natives as well.

those two things did more to wipe out native Americans than anything else if my memory serves me.

[Godhumor]

7. I really don't think that's the point

If you've seen the movie...

Spoilers:

The girl with the plague foretold the end of the Mayan civilization being brought on the heels of the man named Jaguar. Ergo, the movie implied that the arrival of the Spanish effectively destroyed the Mayan city at the center of the movie. Ergo, the Spanish didn't save the Mayans they spelled the end.

End Spoilers


I watched it and at no point did I get any sort of impression that it was a story about the savages being "saved". It was a "hero's journey" movie that happened to be set at the collapse of the Mayan civilization and ends with the process that will make the culture disappear. Yeah, there's a lot wrong with the history in the movie, but I'd rather focus of that than read into conspiracy theories about Gibson showing the Mayans in need of Christianity.

[Annces]

3. Why not just ignore these yokels who do movies

I bet Mel Gibson has not read a book about the Mayans in his life. He is like Madonna looking to push buttons.

[Squatch]

5. I read the Da Vinci Code.

Found it an entertaining piece of fiction.

[Lilith Velkor]

8. I am so sick of idiots who can't tell the difference between drama and documentary.

How the fuck do these people breathe, let alone get their bullshit published and taken seriously?