Hip-hop crew El Vuh has posted a track called Apocalypto, named for Mel Gibsons most recent epic. The track addresses the racism in the film, which portrays Maya people as brutally savage, and depicts them killing each other before the Europeans arrived, essentially justifying colonialism’s “saving” of the Mayans from themselves.
The track is a good challenge to the overwhelmingly apolitical reviews of the film. As Juan Santos writes in an excellent piece that exposes the film’s racism, politics and historical inaccuracies, [Gibsons] portrayal is a conscious lie, one he uses to justify the premise that the Mayan city states collapsed because they deserved to collapse, and that they deserved to be replaced by a superior culture in the genocide known as the Conquest.
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three comments
Fabulous to see that at least someone's responding. Now what about The Passion?
(Or was that already done?)
Posted by Jean/Gene M. Beebe
January 27, 2007, 6:21 PM
When I first heard Mel was making Apocalypto, I thought it was kinda unusual that he would make a movie about how the Mayan society fell - i.e. partly through the vicious colonisation of Europeans. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find out what the film is really about.
I'm really glad that Santos wrote this piece - I think movie reivews in general are overwhelmingly apolitical, and there's always almost some troubling social/political context to probe in any movie.
Posted by Thea
January 28, 2007, 11:21 AM
I just read the article (ok I should've read it before I posted, so as to avoid egregious double-posting). Wow, what a freakin' horrible movie.
The one thing that I find really awful, is how it hasn't really been possible for the Mayan or Mayan-positive community to get the word out on how shockingly racist and obscene this movie is. In fact, for the most part, the only people I know who think the movie is problematic are people who already happen to know a bit about the Mayas and the genocide in Guatemala in the 80's/90's. Meanwhile, anyone who picked up a newspaper when the Passion of the Christ was released would know that its portrayal of Jewish people was troubling.
I think everybody should post this article on their blogs - we totally need to talk about the sickening racism in this film, and even more so how it managed to slip under the radar.
Posted by Thea
January 28, 2007, 11:43 AM
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