Howdy y'all,
Interesting interview by the learned Demarest, which
eventually leads to absurd absolutes.
He inserts 3 facts ... ("Demarest expressed
frustration at many aspects of the movie, including
what he expressed as egregious errors regarding issues
such as the Maya's jewelry, the size of their temple
and the description of human sacrifice".) ... then
plays the race card to support his opinion ... nice.
The last statement of the article may have been better
placed as the first statement.
I did not see Passion of the Christ.
I plan to see Apocalypto (a movie, not a documentary).
ad
Note: forwarded message attached.
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I managed to avoid PASSION OF THE CHRIST and I don't think I'll need
to see this piece of junk either. Mad Mel.
Here's a piece from THE TENNESEAN about Vanderbilt University
archaeologist Arthur Demarest who knows a little bit
more about the Maya than Gibson does. What is amusing is that Gibson
concocts all this stuff while posing as a moralist.
Give me a B R E A K .
K.
By MICHAELA JACKSON
Staff Writer
Nashville theatergoers are flocking to see Mel Gibson's latest movie,
Apocalypto, but Vanderbilt archaeologist Arthur Demarest came away
unimpressed after seeing the movie Saturday night.
In fact, he was downright indignant.
"I'm sorry that I brought you to this," said Demarest, who assigned
two of his Vanderbilt classes, one on the collapse of civilizations
and one on the Maya, to screen the movie as part of their class work.
"It had nothing to do with the Maya. Nothing."
Demarest is a renowned expert on the Maya civilization, having
published three books on the subject. He also contributes to
publications such as National Geographic. He is based out of
Guatemala and said he spends more time there than Nashville. He works
with modern-day Maya on developmental projects.
Demarest expressed frustration at many aspects of the movie,
including what he expressed as egregious errors regarding issues such
as the Maya's jewelry, the size of their temple and the description
of human sacrifice.
"Why did they go to all that trouble to get even the littlest details
wrong?" he said.
"I figured the thing would be politically incorrect, but because they
had archaeological advising that the technical details would be right."
Professor says film racist
Demarest also cried foul because, in his opinion, the entire Maya
nation is stereotyped in a way that constitutes racism.
The movie focuses on a man who is captured by the Maya to be offered
as a human sacrifice but escapes.
"Some are saying it's good and some are saying it's bad. What if you
made this kind of movie about any other culture?" he said. "It was
amazingly racist.
"The Maya leaders are going to go nuts. I don't know how they can do
this. It's just because it's not a known ethnicity."
He took issue with the fact that, in his mind, the movie presents an
overly simplified situation that sets up civilization as evil and
unfettered life in the jungle as pure.
"But you learned from this that civilization is bad, and all that
learning stuff is bad, so I hope that you've learned from this to
wander off from Vanderbilt, not even finish your exams and go off
into the woods and hunt pigs sadistically," he told his students.
Demarest's students shared his disdain for the historical treatment
of the Maya people, but some of them were able to appreciate the
movie as just that, a movie.
"I enjoyed it as a cinematic work, absolutely," said junior Terence
Christian.
"(Gibson's) a master storyteller." But, he added, the film is
historically inaccurate and should not be the basis for understanding
the Maya civilization.
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