The Sober Racism of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto

[Sequoia]

Film critics appear split on how to handle Mel Gibson's newest production, Apocalypto. A few refuse to patronize the film in symbolic protest of Gibson's drunken rants over the summer. Others suggest we should temporarily suspend judgment about Gibson's anti-Semitism and judge this action film on its own merits.

Remarkably, none of the critics seem to be asking whether Mel Gibson has produced a film any less racist than his summer tirades about Jews. Hollywood seems willing to admonish Gibson for certain kinds of bigotry, while oddly excusing other kinds of racism - especially if targeted at poor, brown, and indigenous peoples.

As a cultural anthropologist who has worked for thirteen years among different Maya peoples of Mesoamerica and who speaks the Q'eqchi' Maya language fluently, I found Apocalypto to be deeply racist. The Maya in the film bore no resemblance to the hardworking farmers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, businessmen and women of Maya descent that I know personally and consider among my closest friends.

I fear the repercussions Apocalypto will have on contemporary Maya people who continue to struggle for survival and political governments under discriminatory governments that consider them stupid, backward, and uncivilized for wanting to maintain their customs and language. Gibson's slanderous film reinforces the same stereotypes that have facilitated the genocide of Maya peoples and the plunder of their lands starting with the Spanish invasion of 1492 and continuing through the Guatemalan civil war to the present.

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1217-24.htm

[Kerrytravelers]

1. I'm not a bit surprised this perspective hasn't been discussed.

That would require thought and insight, perhaps some research. The talking heads wouldn't be able to say "some say this and some say that..." which is all they do anymore.

I had no intention of seeing this tripe the moment I heard about it. Can't stand mel gibson. I don't knowingly pay money to anti-Semite bigots.

On the same note, I won't watch anything with particia heaton because I find her to be sickening. She went on a hunger strike until Teri Schiavo's feeding tubes were used again and is part of the christo-fascist zombie brigade.

The First Amendment gives nutcases all over our country the freedom to be racists idiots. And, as a consumer, I have the right to spend my money on worthwhile people and beliefs.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Pulling 66% at Rottentomatoes.

Which is roughly the same as other Gibson stinkers The Patriot and What Women Want.

These big budget Hollywood movies by famous celebrities always seem to be overinflated when it comes to critic reviews. I wonder if it's just because many of the critics want to suck up to people like Gibson, land interviews and whatnot.

[KamaAina]

3. Ha! They used the words "sober" and "Mel Gibson" in the same sentence!

Quite a tour de force, if you ask me. :P

[Swede]

4. So,I guess this guy thinks Scandanavians were peaceful socialist 1000 years ago,too?

:shrug:

[FedUpWithIt All]

5. With all due respect...

the movie is a fiction set in different time.

Only the very narrow and limited mind would see this film and equate it with the modern maya culture.

It is a story about people who never existed in situations that never happened. That is what fiction is.

I don't mean offense and i have incredible respect for the Maya people, i just don't get it. The film was about the positive and negatives in society. It could have been ANY society depicted.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. "people who never existed in situations that never happened."

Just like Braveheart!

[FedUpWithIt All]

7. Yes, like Braveheart.

in that it was a fictional story. Braveheart was "loosely based" on a living person. No claims were made that the story being put forth was factual.

Apocolypto was NOT "loosely based" on anyone's life and never claimed to be.

You do realize that nearly every movie ever made would be sliced and diced if you took the same knife to them, don't you.

It was a fictional movie. Not a documentary.

[leftofthedial]

8. ain't going

ain't interested


there are already too many rich repuke fucks on this planet and I refuse to give a particularly vile one any more of my money than king george has already given him

[Westegg]

9. I wouldn't worry much about this film's impact...

I appreciate your perspective, as you're an expert on the Maya people and I certainly am not. But I don't see Gibson's movie having much impact, because it's just not a good movie, despite some (few) reviews to the contrary. Also (and not the same thing), it's had a decisive and major downturn in its box-office revenues, and is not garnering accolades from the year-end critics' round-ups, and so it's not going to be a hit. It will be a money-loser, in fact. As a professional journalist who covered Hollywood and its product for a numbers of years, I feel confident I'm right about this.

Even if you separate the artist from the art, "Apocalypto" plays like the fever dream of a man with "too many dollars and not enough sense," as my grandfather used to say. That's my take. People aren't flocking to see it because they've heard that it's not entertaining. Or insanely violent, or meandering, or... If they've read the reviews (most people don't do much of this), they've also probably concluded that it's a film better suited for analysis by mental health professionals than any kind of coherent statement about a people, their history, and their worthiness.

My personal take on this film-- leaving aside for the moment who made it--is that it was made by a man with severe emotional problems. My take on Gibson, the man who did make it, is that he has been for a long time a deeply troubled man, and one of the more reprehensible people to have achieved huge power in Hollywood in the last two decades. I have sat across from him on several occasions, have conversed with him, listened to him-- and I have looked deeply into his eyes.

He's essentially a nut-job. And yes, based on his status, a dangerous one too.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

10. What "film critics" have "refuse(d) to patronize the film"?

The author makes the claim that "a few" have, but doesnt specify.