--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "authfriend" <authfriend@> wrote:
> >
> > I'll have more to say this evening about Barry's
> > hysterical meltdown, but in the meantime, here's a
> > post I made back in 2007 after Barry had brought
> > this up again. The Maya expert in the Salon
> > article I quoted was, um, not exactly the only
> > knowledgeable person to have been upset by the
> > movie:
> 
> Please note that the only hysterical person here is 
> the Judester herself, which she will hopefully 
> demonstrate for us all later tonight. :-) 
> 
> Please also note that she has said NOT A WORD about 
> the real issues at play here. 
> 
> That is, it's NOT ABOUT whether the movie was 
> historically inaccurate. No one has suggested 
> that it was. Any attempt to get people to focus
> on that is a diversion from the real issues.
> 
> What those issues are -- the ones that Judy will 
> continue to avoid dealing with -- revolve around:
> 
> 1. Why did she feel competent to comment on a film she 
> had never seen, and obviously has *still* never seen?
> 
> 2. Why did she choose to characterize Mel Gibson as a
> "Christian bigot" (again, based on a film she'd never
> seen), when the article she was originally taking as
> gospel did not mention a word about Christianity?
> 
> Please note also that not a single one of the "sources"
> she cites below say anything about Christian supremicist 
> themes in the movie, either. 
> 
> JUDY MADE THAT UP.
> ABOUT A MOVIE SHE HAD NEVER SEEN.
> SHE'S STILL SAYING IT, SIX YEARS LATER.
> ABOUT A MOVIE SHE'S *STILL* NEVER SEEN.
> RATHER THAN ADMITTING THIS,
> SHE'S GOING TO DOUBLE DOWN.
> SHE'S A NUTCASE.
> 
> :-)
> 

So, it's all about Judy.

> 
> > A few selections from articles discussing
> > the historical inaccuracies in "Apocalypto"
> > 
> > From the San Diego Union-Tribune, 12/6/06:
> > 
> > 'Apocalypto' a pack of inaccuracies
> > 
> > Maya experts say Gibson's violent film wrong historically
> > 
> > By Mark McGuire
> > NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
> > 
> > December 12, 2006
> > 
> > Mel Gibson's historical drama "Apocalypto" certainly has a veneer of
> > authenticity. If you have to scramble to remember your fifth-grade
> > lessons on Maya culture, you'd certainly believe you're watching an
> > accurate, detail-rich depiction of Mesoamerican life.
> > 
> > "A lot of people will think this is how it was," said Walter Little,
> > an anthropologist and expert on Maya language and culture at the
> > State University of New York at Albany. "Unfortunately."
> > 
> > Little and two other Mesoamerican scholars at the Albany campus
> > recently screened the big-budget, subtitled epic, which opened Friday
> > and was last weekend's No. 1 movie, grossing $14.2 million.
> > 
> > All three said they were disappointed by the plot and taken aback by
> > the graphic violence, which to these eyes suggested "Braveheart" as
> > directed by Quentin Tarantino in a particularly vile mood.
> > 
> > But even if they could sponge away the blood, these experts found the
> > devil – or at least a set of thumbs-down reviews – in the details.
> > 
> > "This was not a film about the Mayas," said Robert Carmack, a retired
> > anthropology professor from SUNY Albany's lauded Mesoamerican
> > program. "It's a big mistake – almost a tragedy – that they present
> > this as a Maya film."
> > 
> > In any genre film, experts and geeks alike will pore over the
> > minutiae. In their estimation, a movie rises or falls on the little
> > things.
> > 
> > Seafaring experts debate the minor gaffes of "Titanic," while experts
> > on ancient Rome talk about minor historical imperfections
> > in "Gladiator."
> > 
> > Most moviegoers won't catch these mistakes or willful fact-
> > doctorings. Does it matter to the average ticket holder that Gibson
> > apparently fudged some facts? Not really, especially if you're just
> > looking for a period adventure featuring, by my unofficial count, 12
> > wildly different modes of killing.
> > 
> > There are no guns, but lots of lethal weapons. To those in the know,
> > however, the flaws stick out like Roseanne Barr in a Broadway musical.
> > 
> > Take the film's depiction of a major Maya city that serves as the
> > setting for much of the film's third act. Many of the architectural
> > details are correct, but they're cobbled together from different
> > locations (including ancient cities in Guatemala and the Yucatan) and
> > different eras, the experts said.
> > 
> > So what, you say? Try picturing 16th-century explorer Giovanni da
> > Verrazano navigating the east coast of the New World, and then ending
> > his journey by traversing the New York City suspension bridge that
> > bears his name.
> > 
> > You get the idea.
> > 
> > The experts said they thought, during much of the movie, it was set
> > sometime between A.D. 300 and 900 – until a closing scene places it
> > closer to the early 1500s.
> > 
> > "It was a postmodern collage," Little said. "It was a hodgepodge."
> > 
> > Carmack grew more and more steamed in his post-screening analysis. In
> > particular, he seethed over the portrayals of human sacrifices and
> > other spectacles, which he said more closely resembled practices used
> > by the Aztecs or even the ancient Romans.
> > 
> > The sadism that permeates the movie was simply not part of the
> > culture, the experts said. Yes, the Mayas practiced human sacrifice,
> > but in ways that were highly ritualized and usually involved a single
> > victim. Not pretty, to be sure, but a far cry from the slaughterhouse
> > of mass sacrifice depicted in "Apocalypto" – a virtual conga line of
> > the soon-to-be headless, followed by desecration of their bodies.
> > 
> > The body count was high, and the treatment of the dead cavalier, all
> > three anthropologists said.
> > 
> > The Mayas, an agricultural society, also would not have had an open
> > field of rotting corpses situated near their crops.
> > 
> > Modern-day descendants of the Mayas "would be totally disgusted by
> > this film," Carmack said. "It was all invented. The ritual was a
> > disgusting perversion of human sacrifices among the Mayas."
> > 
> > Edgar Martin del Campo, a newly arrived faculty member who begins
> > teaching at SUNY Albany in January, talked about religious glitches
> > and other flaws. Examples: Mayas would not have been awed by an
> > eclipse as they were in the film – they were, in fact, early
> > astronomers. Villagers would not have been dumbstruck by a city; most
> > lived in or around metropolises. The costumes were contrived.
> > 
> > Give the film this, the scholars said: Gibson was brave enough to
> > make the movie in the Yucatec language. But just as the use of
> > Yucatec isn't exactly a guarantee of boffo box office, the historical
> > inaccuracies of Gibson's latest will zoom right by the average
> > viewer. The gore will not.
> > 
> > Gibson's last subtitled period piece, 2004's "The Passion of the
> > Christ," was an international hit. Even so, that graphic drama drew
> > criticism similar to that already levied against "Apocalypto,"
> > angering many scholars and Jewish leaders for its depiction of
> > Christ's final hours.
> > 
> > "The Passion" was a cultural phenomenon that sparked mainstream
> > debate over the Gospels and the history of anti-Semitism, among other
> > topics. It's doubtful the history behind "Apocalypto" will prompt
> > widespread research by moviegoers – most of whom will be in search of
> > nothing more than two hours of action. Regardless, the experts will
> > be howling. It will be up to you whether to listen.
> > 
> > "The problem is when you misrepresent (a subject to) somebody, they
> > don't always seek out the correct version of things," Little
> > said. "They're going to accept that as reality. So why would they go
> > search out what it really is?"
> > 
> > http://tinyurl.com/2u3vas
> > 
> > 
> > Excerpt from an article in National Geographic News,
> > an interview with Zachary Hruby, a Maya expert at the]
> > University of California, Riverside (the full article
> > details many more historical inaccuracies):
> > 
> > Hruby: By the time the Spaniards arrived, the social problems
> > associated with the Classic period collapse, as portrayed in
> > Apocalypto, did not exist.
> > 
> > NG: In terms of historical accuracy, the arrival of the Spaniards is
> > a problem in itself, right?
> > 
> > Hruby: The movie ends with the Spaniards coming [which didn't happen
> > in Mexico until long after the Classic Maya collapse]. So basically
> > we're looking at a 400-year difference in architectural style and
> > history.
> > 
> > The movie is mixing two vastly different time periods. This Classic
> > form of kingship ended around 900 A.D.
> > 
> > http://tinyurl.com/ylo7ql
> > 
> > From an article at Archeology Online, a publication
> > of the Archaeological Institute of America, by Tracy
> > Ardren, an assistant professor of anthropology at the
> > University of Miami:
> > 
> > But 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?
> > 
> > I loved Gibson's film "Braveheart," I really did. But there is
> > something very different about portraying a group of people, who are
> > now recovering from 500 years of colonization, as violent and brutal.
> > These are people who are living with the very real effects of
> > persistent racism that at its heart sees them as less than human. To
> > think that a movie about the 1,000 ways a Maya can kill a Maya--when
> > only 10 years ago Maya people were systematically being exterminated
> > in Guatemala just for being Maya--is in any way okay, entertaining,
> > or helpful is the epitome of a Western fantasy of supremacy that I
> > find sad and ultimately pornographic. It is surely no surprise
> > that "Apolcalypto" has very little to do with Maya culture and
> > instead is Gibson's comment on the excesses he perceives in modern
> > Western society. I just wish he had been honest enough to say this.
> > Instead he has created a beautiful and disturbing portrait that
> > satisfies his need for comment but does violence to one of the most
> > impressive of Native American cultures.
> > 
> > http://tinyurl.com/ya5kd7
> > 
> > A comment on a review:
> > 
> > Ignacio Ochoa's [director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes
> > Mayan culture] comment that "Gibson replays... an offensive and
> > racist notion that Maya people were brutal to one another long before
> > the arrival of Europeans and thus they deserved, in fact, needed,
> > rescue" articulates what I was feeling, especially towards the end of
> > this film. When the Berkeley crowd started booing at the end of the
> > film as the Spanish-Christian missionaries arrive, I'm sure it was in
> > response to this sense.
> > 
> > 
> > From India Times via Yahoo News:
> > 
> > Washington, Jan. 11 (ANI): A Guatemalan official has reportedly
> > blasted Hollywood filmmaker Mel Gibson for the insulting depiction of
> > the Mayan civilisation in his new film 'Apocalypto'.
> > 
> > Guatemala's presidential commissioner on racism, Ricardo Cajas, feels
> > that Gibson's movie has caused a drastic setback to the image of the
> > Mayan people in Apocalypto.
> > 
> > He says that that the movie seems to be an attempt at imposing the
> > Western viewpoint about other civilisations of the world.
> > 
> > "It's a case of Western civilisation imposing its view about other
> > civilisations," Contactmusic quoted him as saying.
> > 
> > "It shows the Mayans as a barbarous, murderous people that can only
> > be saved by the arrival of the Spanish," he added....
> > 
> > http://tinyurl.com/2uqhys
> >
>


Reply via email to