Is "Apocalypto" Pornography?I find the visual appeal of the film one of the most disturbing aspects of "Apocalypto." The jungles of Veracruz and Costa Rica have never looked better, the masked priests on the temple jump right off a Classic Maya vase, and the people are gorgeous. The fact that this film was made in Mexico and filmed in the Yucatec Maya language coupled with its visual appeal makes it all the more dangerous. It looks authentic; viewers will be captivated by the crazy, exotic mess of the city and the howler monkeys in the jungle. And who really cares that the Maya were not living in cities when the Spanish arrived? Yes, Gibson includes the arrival of clearly Christian missionaries (these guys are too clean to be conquistadors) in the last five minutes of the story (in the real world the Spanish arrived 300 years after the last Maya city was abandoned). It is one of the few calm moments in an otherwise aggressively paced film. The message? The end is near and the savior has come. Gibson's efforts at authenticity of location and language might, for some viewers, mask his blatantly colonial message that the Maya needed saving because they were rotten at the core. Using the decline of Classic urbanism as his backdrop, Gibson communicates that there was absolutely nothing redeemable about Maya culture, especially elite culture which is depicted as a disgusting feast of blood and excess.
Before anyone thinks I have forgotten my Metamucil this morning, I am not a compulsively politically correct type who sees the Maya as the epitome of goodness and light. I know the Maya practiced brutal violence upon one another, and I have studied child sacrifice during the Classic period. But in "Apocalypto," no mention is made of the achievements in science and art, the profound spirituality and connection to agricultural cycles, or the engineering feats of Maya cities. Instead, Gibson replays, in glorious big-budget technicolor, an offensive and racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserve, in fact they needed, rescue. This same idea was used for 500 years to justify the subjugation of Maya people and it has been thoroughly deconstructed and rejected by Maya intellectuals and community leaders throughout the Maya area today. In fact, Maya intellectuals have demonstrated convincingly that such ideas were manipulated by the Guatemalan army to justify the genocidal civil war of the 1970-1990s. To see this same trope about who indigenous people were (and are today?) used as the basis for entertainment (and I use the term loosely) is truly embarrassing. How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?Comment: Christian crusaders "saved" the Maya, according to Gibson. Similarly, they "saved" the other indigenous people of the Americas from themselves--starting with Cortés's conquests and continuing through our proxy wars with the Sandinistas. Now they're saving the brown-skins in Iraq and Afghanistan from their own savage follies. Get the connection?
Why include the Spaniards at all, since they didn't arrive till 300 years after the Maya civilization disappeared, unless it was to send a message? Clearly we should infer a message of some sort from the ending. The question is, what message?
ReplyDeleteArdren's interpretation is "The end is near and the savior has come." Your interpretation is "The end is near and things are about to get worse." I'm not sure these messages are inconsistent. "The end is near and the 'savior' has come. Things are about to get worse (from the Maya perspective) or better (from the Euro-Christian perspective)."
If the message is that things are about to get worse from the Maya perspective, they must've been better before then. That would imply Apocalypto offered some positive views of the Maya and their culture. If so, what were these positive views? From what I've read, the movie was wholly negative concerning the Mayas' cultural accomplishments.
Incidentally, your experiences at the University of Miami occurred when...40 years ago? I imagine most universities were insensitive to Indian claims in that era. That tells us next to nothing about the quality of scholarship at UM today. If the choice is Dr. Ardren or Mad Mel when it comes to archaeological and anthropological issues, I'll go with Ardren any day.
Let's recap: Jaguar Paw, the good Indian, rejects and escapes from the coming Christians. The Maya, the bad Indians, presumably succumb to the Christians. None of this happened in reality because the Maya civilization predated the European advent by at least 300 years. It's a fiction concocted by Gibson to send some message.
ReplyDeleteThe only message you see here is "things are about to get worse"? How about "things are about to get worse" for the Indians who deserve it? Which, judging by the movie, is the vast majority of Mesoamerican Indians. According to Apocalypto, they were evil, their evil did them in, and now the Christians are going to punish them for (i.e., save them from) their evil ways.
You say the Maya were the ancestors of your Kiowa. Do you endorse the view that your ancestors didn't accomplish anything worth noting? That they were cruel, bloodthirsty, and barbaric? Because that's the message most people will take from Apocalypto.
By the time its run is over, I bet most viewers will conclude the Maya were as bad as the Aztecs. I.e., that all Mesoamerican Indians--or maybe just all Indians--were sadistic butchers and monsters. Congratulations, Mel, for demonizing another ethnic group.
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but Apocalypto's ads have stated Gibson's message quite plainly:
ReplyDelete"No one can outrun their destiny."
If that isn't blatant enough, the movie begins with a quote offering an explicit message. As the LA Times reported:
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-et-apocalypto8dec08,0,275059.story?coll=cl-movies-top-right
Gibson unblushingly intends "Apocalypto" as a clarion call warning modern man to watch his step or risk following the Mayas into decline and near-extinction. To this end he opens the story with a famous quote from historian Will Durant about the fall of Rome: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
Goldwyn's quote refers to putting messages in a movie intentionally. In addition to his explicit messages, Gibson may have included implicit messages he wasn't aware of. Whether or not a filmmaker intends to include a message, a message is often there. From Birth of a Nation to Citizen Kane to Star Wars, you can find a message in many movies.
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen The Naked Prey, but Ardren's point was that it was badly stereotypical and Apocalypto is just as stereotypical. In other words, two wrongs don't make a right. Or are you prepared to argue that The Naked Prey also doesn't stereotype indigenous people?
I see you couldn't touch most of my arguments. For instance, the one asking how Apocalypto portrayed the Maya positively. I'll simply reiterate that the movie stereotyped the Maya as barbaric savages rather than civilized people.
While I go on a date with Ardren, you can go on a bender with Gibson. If you'd like to play a tag-team game of Native American Trivial Pursuit, I'll take Ardren and me over Gibson and you any day. I'm betting we win in a landslide.
It certainly doesn't redeem his film in any way, but Gibson has publically stated that it is partly a political allegory against the war in Iraq. He likens our sending soldiers to Iraq to the supposedly widespread human sacrifice of the Mayas: “What’s human sacrifice if not sending guys off to Iraq for no reason?” The message that the Maya civilization somehow deserved to be conquered is still really disturbing though.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15001985/
Good point. Gibson has stated his themes and messages, they're in the ads and the movie itself, and many critics have noted them. You really have to work not to see a message in Apocalypto--to read it only as an action flick.
ReplyDeleteRe "Exactly this: those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it": That's a positive message derived from the Maya. Derived from attacking and stereotyping the Maya, to be specific. It's not a positive portrayal of the Maya. Try again.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you previously said Apocalypto had no message. Apparently you were mistaken about that. Oops.
Interesting points and thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI believe that any post-thought from Gibson or other 'reps' would be taken with a grain of salt, since such reasons could be to appease a wider audience or even an unrelated issue.
I agreed, there was no need to include non-Indians particularly at the end, and yes it did seem like it was the great non-indians who came to save the indians from their own demise, etc....
HOWEVER, that being said;
My own personal humble opinion is that such an element may have been necessary in order for it to get the media stamp of approval for wide distribution, since media as we know it will only take a certain standard for profits, and when it comes to Indians, they need to have a connection from the non-indian view and unfortunately that is the way of the world...
THAT being said, I will say this much for the good of the movie...
whether you are cheering for the good guy, or that bad guy, you are cheering for the Indian...also, whether it is completely accurate or not to the culture of the Maya, it did captivate the viewer into a questionable world where for once it is indian content in itself(aside from the references and boat at the end).
It also gives a platform for those who are outspoken about true Mayan culture to correct what may not be correct.
At the end of the day, I would say it was a cool movie and worth watching.
You think Gibson had to include the Christian scenes at the end to placate the powers-that-be? I don't. After the success of The Passion of the Christ, I believe he could've done, and did do, whatever he wanted. Apocalypto was exactly the movie he wanted to make.
ReplyDeleteCheering for good Indians and bad Indians doesn't sound like much of an advance to me. Besides, bad Indians are the norm in Apocalypto. If Jaguar Paw is a saint, the rest of the Maya are devils. He's the exception that proves the rule: that Indians are bloodthirsty barbarians.