"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.
December 12, 2006
Trend: non-Westerners as savages
'Apocalypto' does disservice to its subjectsThe 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. For some similar thoughts, see Great White Hopes vs. Screaming Hordes.
"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.
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3 comments:
Writerfella here --
This one took a bit of reading and re-reading before it dawned that 'non-Western' natives meant those not in a 'Western'. Reason being that the US usually is considered a part of the 'Western world', as opposed to the 'Eastern world'.
Okay, so much for that, as writerfella remembers being at the 1973 premiere of Ray Harryhausen's THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD at the Univ/Iowa at their yearly film festival. Gordon Hessler and Ray Harryhausen introduced the film and the two leads, John Philip Law and Caroline Munro, to an excited and enthusiastic crowd of fantasy and sci-fi filmgoers. Partway through his talk, Harryhausen said to especially watch for the native primitives depicted in the later parts of the film. Since there already were politically-correct forces plaguing the film industry, the British producers had decided that the natives should be green, to the great delight and hilarity of the audience.
And surely enough, upon release, the film flew right over the heads and under the knee-jerk radars of what writerfella now calls 'the politically erect' and the 'irony-deficiency anemics'. Perhaps today's films should take a page or two from Charles Schneer's filmbooks...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
"Non-Westerners" includes Arabs, Africans, Asians, South Sea Islanders such as those in King Kong, and traditional Native people such as those in End of the Spear, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Apocalypto.
Writerfella here --
And that is not to forget the South Orkney Islands, Transylvania, Grand Fenwick, Sunlandia, Freedonia, Concordia, Mukkanesia, Mu, Lemuria, Atlantis, and most especially, Antarctica. Heaven forfend that any of those should get left behind a politically-erect back door...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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