I just caught Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, which was sort of like Die Hard in a jungle with naked guys and pointed sticks. I'm not complaining because Rudy Youngblood, playing lead Jaguar Paw in this tale of Mayan decadence, was even hotter (and more naked) than 1980s-era Bruce Willis. What did bug me was the way this fairly OK action movie masqueraded as some kind of accurate historical portrait of the Maya. In countless interviews, Gibson has stressed the flick's authenticity, right down to using the Yucatan Mayan language instead of silly accents ala Dances With Wolves. But many of the facts are wrong. Some are stupid-wrong, and others are Gibson-is-kinda-racist wrong. Let's have a little smackdown between the myths of Apocalypto and the world of facts, shall we?
MYTH: There were jungle bumpkins like hero Jaguar Paw who had no idea that his patch of trees was a day's walk from a huge Mayan city full of gigantic, blood-soaked temples.
FACT: Mayan life centered around cities. Nobody who lived near a Mayan polis and spoke the Mayan language would have been ignorant of city-dwellers and their love of capturing people for slavery and sacrifice. Source: Op-ed by anthropology professor Zachary X. Hruby [via the San Francisco Chronicle]
MYTH: The Maya worshipped the sun, and considered themselves the"sun people," as Mr. Slaughterpants says when he cuts out those guys'
hearts.
FACT: The Maya had a pantheon of gods, the most important of whomwas probably the Maize God because he signified the changing ofseasons. So no, they were not sun-worshippers – Gibson has clearlyconfused the Maya with another city-building pagan group, the ancientEgyptians. Source: Wikipedia entry on Maya religion [via Wikipedia]
MYTH: Mel Gibson is a homo.
FACT: Mel Gibson directs movies about mostly-naked men smeared in oiland blue paint who often run really fast so we can see their musclesflex or bend over and show off their ass cracks. Source: Apocalypto.
MYTH: When the Spanish arrived in the Yucatan, the Mayan way of lifedied instantly, just as the syphillis-smeared prophet chick says in Apocalypto.
FACT: It took the Spanish almost 200 years to conquer the regions ofMexico and Guatemala where Mayans lived. Partly this was because theMaya were spread out into many different urban areas and each had to bedefeated. Source: Maya Civilization Timeline [via the Canadian Museum of Civilizations]
MYTH: The Maya were evil and therefore deserved to be colonized by a bunch of white guys with crosses.
FACT: Colonialism is an economic system, not a moral punishment. Andnobody who is colonized deserves it. In fact, many have argued that colonizers are unethical and the colonized should always revolt. Source:
Political philosopher Albert Memmi. [via Emory University].
