VivirLatino

Looking to Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, set to open on Friday, as a source of historical accuracy regarding Maya culture makes as much sense as looking to this book for information about the Aztecs. Call me a judgemental, oversensitive woman of color (really, it wouldn’t be the first time) but I don’t need to see the movie to have a bad gut reaction, you know what I’m talking about Latinos, that something here just ain’t right. I sure am not gonna drop $10 plus to prove myself right and at least one group of indigenous activists in Guatemala, where a large population of Maya still live agrees.

“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 deserved, in fact, needed, rescue,” said Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture.

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