Anthropological Analysis of Mel Gibsons Apocalypto - Essay Example

of Anthropological Analysis of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto Apocalypto by Mel Gibson remains one of the finest examples of a lack of cultural relativism while dealing with subjects that are outside the pale of the understanding of western rational thought. There is inherent in such a mindset the racism and sense of racial superiority that members of the white races felt when they were faced with any kind of a cultural encounter with the other races of the earth. In a postcolonial context, it is important that such a movie is analyzed employing the critical tools that are available to a postcolonial scholar. The depiction of the characters in the movie is not only racist in more ways than one, it is also extremely sexist. It takes historically inaccurate facts and places the burden of a sexist society upon the tribes of America. The vision that the director and the makers of the movie endorse is extremely problematic and make for disturbing viewing when looked through with a postcolonial and feminist approach. The dissection of the movie in this paper shall then proceed with the gaze of an anthropologist. Another factor that shall be looked into is the fact that Gibson’s movie was a mainstream one and hence factors in popular notions regarding other cultures. This then brings in the elements of reception and the cultural attitudes that are prevalent in the American and also global population. What sections of the population are targeted is also something that needs to be discussed here. This paper shall seek to look at these elements of the debate and also a psychoanalytic approach into the understanding of why certain races are depicted as they are in popular culture. However, there is another side to this debate. The changes that are introduced into the idea of the Mayans represent the idea of difference between the city and the forest within Mayan culture. The movie is then an indictment of Mayan elite culture that according to Gibson had degenerated into a set of mindless rituals. The city becomes the center of all forms of evil that Gibson associates with Mayan culture. This is then contrasted with the culture that is prevalent within the geographical confines of the village. This village is then the site of family and bonding between different members of the same society. It is a self-sufficient unit that is understood to be a space where traditional aspects of Mayan life are followed without there being a corruption of these ways. There is however, also the presence of technology in the form of traps and other devices that smoothen the life of the people in the villages. There is thus, an endorsement of the idea of the “noble savage” as Jean Jacques Rousseau thought of it. It discussed the idea of man in a pure state which made him not merely a savage but also a noble one that was purer than the man who had been corrupted by civilization (Basic Concept: Primitivism and the Noble Savage). Throughout the movie, aspects of Mayan culture are denigrated and the only character whose perspective is taken for a large part of the movie is that of the protagonist, Jaguar Paw. The movie traces the life that this character leads where a process of colonization takes place between different tribes within America. The fickleness of power is made clear in this kind of transfer of power takes place very frequently. One of the people who were met by Jaguar Paw is later seen as a captive within a matter of a few days. All of this leads to the series of human sacrifices that take place at the Mayan temple in an effort to appease the Mayan god Kukulkan. The degeneration of the culture of the elite and those that live in the city are talked of in this movie. The connection between Jaguar Paw and the nature of his homeland is repeatedly stressed. This can also be seen in the way in which the forest decimates the people of the city who seek to kill Jaguar Paw. The connection between Jaguar Paw and his homeland’s nature can be seen in the challenge that he throws to the people of the city. Traci Ardren notes that the manner in which the human sacrifices and the arrival of the European forces have been shown in the movie are indicative of a colonial attitude. This can be seen in the fact that Gibson twists facts of history to suit his purpose. She says, 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 (Ardren). The Mayans are thus used as nothing but a metaphor to explain the decline of a culture that declines with what is considered to be the wrong set of values by Gibson. As a result of this, there seems to be a condoning of the crimes that were then committed by the colonial powers. They are then seen as the civilizing force. This is akin to the civilizing mission that was undertaken by many of the colonial powers. In the name of the civilizing mission and religion, many a native culture was destroyed and many forms of atrocities were perpetrated on such populations of people. Gibson chooses to focus on what he feels are the reasons for the decline of the Mayan civilization and places the blame squarely on the shoulders of its indigenous inhabitants and their culture of violence. The movie, while it explores certain aspects of masculinity that are very disturbing such as the taunting of a person who is seemingly impotent, also seems to make a case for the natural state of gender roles that existed in this culture. The hierarchical nature of the relationships between man and woman may have been largely true as far as history is concerned; however, in the movie, there is a naturalization of such roles and they seem to be the same in different parts of the same culture. Gender relations existed in a state of flux and there was very little uniformity as far as its practical aspect was concerned even within the same community. One can then look at Simone de Beauvoir’s ideas that differentiated between sex and gender as two very different categories. Beauvoir discusses the constructed nature of gender roles and terms the biological roles that historical periods assigned to cultures of women to be social constructs meant to continue certain existing power structures (Beauvoir 5-10). This is then similar to the arguments that were made by Michel Foucault who argued that existing power relations in a society are controlled to a large extent by the ways and means through which the sexualities of the members of that society are controlled (Foucault 4-18). The roles that the different members of the village that Jaguar Paw belonged to play as far as their gender identity is concerned , are based on the continuance of patriarchy and the rule of Flint Sky and his male successors. This is important as the female members of the tribe as well as the male ones have no role except that which is necessary for the continuance of the tribe. The opening scene where Blunted is made to have the testicles of a wild animal so as to cure his impotence is proof of this extremely patriarchal and misogynist attitude that leads to the oppression of both men and women within a culture. This then becomes a metaphor for the whole of the culture which has become incapable of innovating when it came to its traditions. There is thus, according to Gibson, the need for the colonial powers to come and establish their powers over the Mayans as they were in no condition to rule themselves. This is also sought to be conveyed when it comes to the infertility of the civilization as a whole, seen in the persistent droughts that afflict its agricultural prospects. There is then the element of orientalist thought that can be ascribed to Gibson’s movie. Orientalism, as articulated by Edward Said, is the manner of thinking where the West seeks to construct its own self-image on the basis of the image that it attributes to the other, that is, the colonized. The colonized then assumes the role of the other that contains the traces of the colonizer’s self (Said 24-8). The self-image of the colonizer is also created in opposition to that of the colonized and this can be seen in the violent images that are used to describe the colonized Mayans in Apocalypto. The image of the colonizing West is constructed in opposition to that of the Mayans who sacrifice humans and whose decisions are based on the chance movements of the planetary bodies. Rooted in rationality and the ethics of progress, Gibson’s conception of the West talks of the ‘white man’s burden’ that was often the excuse for the barbaric acts that were perpetrated by the colonizers upon the inhabitants of non-Western areas of the world. The Native Americans in the movie appear to be divorced from their own culture as well. This is however, not true of the people who live in the villages. They are rooted in the culture of the Mayans and thus, have not fallen prey to the corruptions of the city. Their purity of mind is depicted through the innocence of the tricks that they play on each other and the communitarian nature of such jokes. This then brings one to the concept of the uncanny as Sigmund Freud talks of it. The uncanny involves the process of making strange that which is otherwise considered to be a very familiar territory. This can produce effects that are wide-ranging and can introduce changes into the human psyche both at an individual and collective level (Freud 1). What Freud attempts to do here is to make clear the changes that something that is thought to be familiar can introduce into human beings at the individual and collective levels. Mel Gibson’s movie however, looks at the familiar in a light that is already explored and hence there is no possibility of introducing changes. The movie does not depart in any significant way from the public perceptions of the Mayan culture and civilization and this leads to a smooth process of incorporation whereby the movie is made part of a neocolonial enterprise. There are however, subtler ways in which the mind works. The very fact that the movie creates in the mind certain doubts regarding the veracity of the cultural facts and research on the part of the filmmakers proves that there are more complex aspects of the mind that are influenced by the movie than are immediately apparent. It then requires a greater effort on the part of the critic or the anthropologist to understand the exact implications that a movie like Apocalypto has upon the viewing masses. To place into the midst of the masses a movie such as this is to initiate a cultural dialogue even if it is not the avowed aim of the makers of the film. This would then lead to a greater process of cultural tolerance. This kind of cultural translation may start with efforts that are similar to the movie under discussion; however, it would lead to a process where the familiar myths regarding the Mayan gods and the cultures that were built around them are questioned. This may begin by making those familiar sights strange and hence, uncanny. Movies like Apocalypto speak of a culture that is excessively masculinized and this can be seen in the male-centric approach of the movie. This may also owe in part to the patriarchal nature of the societies that existed in Mayan societies and hence, to blame the filmmakers entirely would be a wrong step to take. To create an awareness regarding the nature of the cultures that are usually othered, politically and socially, would also result in a greater understanding between people of different races. More changes however, need to be made. For instance, the research that goes into such movies needs to improve. The Mayans were a largely agricultural community as opposed to a hunting-gathering group that is shown in the movie. They also were a much more advanced civilization than the one that is shown in Apocalypto. The movie does not show any positive aspect of the culture except the idyllic village that is ravaged by the elite of the culture. Such a naive portrayal fails to capture the complexity of the Mayan civilization and the progress that it had made as far as its society was concerned. Gibson’s movie may have been set in any other part of the world except for the fact that the jungle and its surroundings seem to be an intrinsic part of the action that is delivered in the movie. There is therefore an implicit understanding of the audience that the movie is catering to and there is no pretense as to creating an accurate portrait of a separate culture. There are a lot of reasons that one may cite to say that Apocalypto as a movie should not have been made. One may even go so far as to say that it reveals many of the undesirable aspects that are a part of the Unites States of America as a national culture. The neocolonial power that the Unites States exercises is evident in such ventures. However, there are also several aspects of such a production that make it possible for one to believe in the possibilities of a united future. This future needs to rest on a sounder knowledge of cultural differences; however, Apocalypto as a movie can be seen as a start which may set off this process. Works Cited Apocalypto. Dir. Mel Gibson. California: Touchstone, 2006. DVD. Ardren, Traci. “Is Apocalypto Pornography?” Archaeology Archive. 5 Dec, 2006. Web. 5 Jan. 2013. “Basic Concept: Primitivism and the Noble Savage”. English 2327: Survey of American Literature. Web. 5 Jan. 2013. Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage, 2001. Print. 5-10. Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Vol.1. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print. 4-18. Freud, Sigmund. “The ‘Uncanny’”. Web. 5 Jan. 2013. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Penguin, 2002. Print. 24-8. Read More