Thirteen years ago, on December 31, 1993, the Zapatista Nacional Liberation Army (EZLN) took up arms and said, “Enough is Enough!” It was time to stop being robbed of a life without dignity. Today, Mexicans from Chiapas, Atenco, Oaxaca, the rest of Mexico, as well as those living on the other side, unite with the Zapatista demands for our right to work, land, housing, food, health, education, independence, democracy, justice, and peace. Danza Mexica Cuauhtemoc invites you to celebrate the Zapatista New Year 2007 - Sunday December 31st at 6PM until 6AM on January 1st. Parque de México (Corner of N. Main St. Y Valley Blvd.-Lincoln Heights.) There will be videos, food, music, and Aztec Dance. For more information, e-mail: dancuauhtemoc@yahoo.com. ¡Zapata Lives! ¡The Struggle Continues!

William Booth wrote a brilliant critique of Gibson’s film for the Washington Post, titled Culture Shocker: Scholars Say Mel Gibson’s Action Flick Sacrifices the Maya Civilization to Hollywood. The December 9, 2006 article reveals what archaeologists and scholars of the Maya are saying about the Hollywood version of Mesoamerican history - and by all accounts, Apocalypto gets failing grades. To read the full article, visit the Washington Post, in the meantime, here are a few excerpts:

“Apocalypto depicts the Maya as a super-cruel, psycho-sadistic society on the skids, a ghoulscape engaged in widespread slavery, reckless sewage treatment and bad rave dancing, with a real lust for human blood. Think: Caligula of the Yucatan. Follow the bouncing heads! This is a problem because most scholars, while acknowledging the violence of this pre-Columbian society, universally applaud the Maya as among the New World’s most sophisticated and subtle civilizations. They were, especially at their height around A.D. 800, remarkable Stone Agers who erected avant-garde cities and towering pyramids in the jungles of Mexico and Central America, created sumptuous art, practiced a precise astronomy and (yes, there’s more) developed not only a written language, but a heady cosmology of time and space, built around a complex, ordered society of maize, kings and gods. The Maya flourished for a thousand years. They were winners.

But Apocalypto’s focus on the more, shall we say, extreme hobbies of the Maya (i.e., removal of still operating body parts) is giving the community of Maya researchers the fits. The archaeologists are shouting: slander! They’re circulating statements and editorials and e-mails. ‘It is a shocking movie to us,’ says Stephen Houston, professor of anthropology at Brown University, and like the other Mayanists quoted in this article, a scientist who has spent years excavating sites in Mexico and Central America. (…) The main gripe, says Houston, is that Apocalypto will make a bad impression on the general public. ‘For millions of people this might be their first glimpse of the Maya,’ he says. ‘This is the impression that is going to last. But this is Mel Gibson’s Maya. This is Mel Gibson’s sadism. This is not the Maya we know.’ Some of the scientists have seen the movie, others have watched the trailers, read reviews or summaries. David Stuart, professor of Mesoamerican art and writing at the University of Texas, saw a rough cut of the film with Gibson and penned an unpublished editorial with Houston that suggests Gibson’s Maya are so evil that they were “a civilization . . . that deserves to die.”

Arthur Demarest, anthropology professor at Vanderbilt University, says, ‘I don’t care about some minor historical inaccuracies. That’s Hollywood. What I’m very worried about is how the Maya themselves will perceive the film.’ As Demarest points out, the Maya are not a extinct lineage. Their descendants, 6 million or more, are still living in Mexico and Central America. (The film does not open south of the border until next year). ‘I can promise you that there will be a massive repudiation of this film, not only as a work of fiction, but as a systematic and willful misrepresentation of the Maya,’ says David Freidel, archaeology professor at Southern Methodist University.”

The multi-million dollar promotional campaign waged for Apocalypto by Disney, the film’s distributor, has made much of the fact that Gibson employed Richard Hansen as the film’s consultant. An expert in Maya studies and a professor of anthropology at Idaho State University, Hansen helped promote the movie when he appeared on TV with Gibson on ABC’s Primetime special with Diane Sawyer (Disney owns ABC). William Booth’s Washington Post article makes note of the fact that Hansen is the president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, which does preservation work and study in Guatemala. Interestingly enough, “Gibson, a generous contributor to the group, now serves on its board of directors.”

But lately, even Hansen has been distancing himself from Apocalypto. Booth’s Washington Post article quotes the anthropologist as saying, “there were things I didn’t like that they went ahead and did anyway,” and that “there was a lot of artistic license taken.” In the greatest of understatements, Hansen acknowledges the depiction of endless bloody human sacrifice by the Maya in the film does “give the feeling they’re a sadistic lot,” and adds, “I’m a little apprehensive about how the contemporary Maya will take it.”

Zachary X. Hruby, Ph.D., is a Maya expert, lecturer and research affiliate in the department of anthropology at UC Riverside. He divides his time between Southern California and Guatemala. National Geographic asked Hruby to pre-screen Apocalypto for them, and he gave it a thumbs down, saying, “The film feeds into old stereotypes about the Maya being savages. If it’s a hit, it could have a lasting effect on the way the public views the ancient Maya, and by extension, the modern Maya.” Hruby notes that in Apocalypto, “They are showing murals from the time of Christ, and saying that they were current in 1524. In the trailer for the film they actually repaint the famous Bonampak murals to show the king holding a human heart, instead of making a simple hand gesture.” Hruby’s comments are to be found on the National Geographic website in an article titled, Apocalypto Tortures the Facts, and in Apocalypto: A New Beginning or a Step Backward? published on mesoweb.com, a website dedicated to the scholarly exploration of the ancient cultures of Mexico and Central America. Here’s an excerpt from the mesoweb.com article, which everyone should read in its entirety:

“Although this film will undoubtedly create interest in the field of Maya archaeology by way of its spectacular reconstructions and beautiful jungle scenes, the lasting impression of Maya and other Pre-Columbian civilizations is this: The Maya were simple jungle bands or bloodthirsty masses duped by false religions, that their mighty but misguided civilization fell into ruin as a result, and their salvation arrived with the coming of Christian beliefs saddled on the backs of Spanish conquistadors. As we archaeologists struggle to accurately reconstruct ancient Maya society, obstructed by their decimation via Western diseases, destruction of their books, art, and history by Spanish friars, not to mention their subjugation and exploitation by the conquistadors, films such as Apocalypto represent a significant disparagement of that process. Further, inaccurate, irresponsible representations by Hollywood of indigenous peoples as amoral, inhuman, or uncivilized can only lead to greater misunderstanding and strife in contemporary society. This may be particularly important in a modern world where common ground is increasingly difficult to come by.”

The Avenue 50 Studio and the Arroyo Arts Collective in Los Angeles, invite the community to join us in a Candlelight Posada for Immigrant Rights, Sunday, December 17, 2006. In the spirit of the season, and in celebration of the United Nations International Day of the Migrant, walk with us through one of Los Angeles’ oldest, most diverse neighborhoods, singing together to the accompaniment of live musicians, and stopping at three art galleries along the route, where specific immigrant concerns will be highlighted with brief readings. Our walk will begin and end with music and refreshments at the Acorn Gallery, 135 N. Avenue 50, in Highland Park. Gather at 4pm in the yard behind the Gallery to learn the Posada song. The walk will begin at approximately 4:30pm, and will proceed, even in the event of rain.

The Posada is a traditional Mexican pre-Christmas procession inspired by the story of Mary and Joseph’s search for shelter in Bethlehem. It has been adapted for this event to draw attention to the fact that the doors to basic human rights such as housing, education and medical care, as well as our historic right to habeas corpus, are being closed to migrants. We are a nation of immigrants. Join us on our symbolic search for shelter that offers hope, justice and human dignity for all. When: Sunday, December 17, 2006 starting at 4:30 pm. Where: 131-135 No. Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA 90042. Contact: 323/258-1435.

Traci Ardren, is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Miami. Dr. Ardren has studied the Maya for over twenty years and has directed excavations at Chunchucmil, an ancient Maya trading center in the northwestern Yucatán peninsula that dates to the Classic period (200 - 900 A.D.) Dr. Ardren is well aware of the violent aspects of the ancient Mayan Kingdoms, but she takes Mel Gibson to task for his colonial mindset, and asks the question, “How can we continue to produce such one-sided and clearly exploitative messages about the indigenous people of the New World?” In her article, Is Apocalypto Pornography?, written for the Archaeological Institute of America and appearing in their publication, Archaeology, Dr. Ardren writes the following:

“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.

[….] 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.”

Professors of anthropology are not the only ones to rightly scorn Gibson’s film. J. Hoberman lambastes Apocalypto in a scorching review for the Village Voice: “Maybe the Mayans really did bounce human heads down the steps of their pyramids but, being as their civilization collapsed hundreds of years before the Spanish conquest, how would we know? ‘A lot of it, story-wise, I just made up,’ Gibson confessed to the Mexican junketeers who visited his set last year. ‘And then, oddly, when I checked it out with historians and archaeologists and so forth, it’s not that far off.” Or far out, for that matter. Irrational as it may be, Mel’s sense of history does have a logic: Jaguar Paw’s trip to hell ends when the Christians arrive.”

In his Violent Excess Mars Apocalypto, the movie reviewer for the Associated Press, David Germain, crowns Gibson as the “master of the epic snuff” film for the unrelenting gore and the scale of blood letting the director attempts to pass off as history. Noting how Gibson offers a distorted view of the ancient Maya, Germain writes “The panorama and bustle of the city are remarkably visceral, but the only sense Gibson provides of the heart of Mayan culture is that of a society of bloodthirsty lunatics.” Germain perceptibly gets to the core belief system behind Gibson’s film - which is not so surprisingly revealed in the film’s ending scene as the Spanish invaders come ashore prominently displaying a crucifix. Germain writes:

“What’s Gibson saying? That the Mayans already are rotting on the vine, so it’s just as well that self-righteous Europeans move in and start marking off their building lots? Like the more laughable violence of Apocalypto, the European arrival probably is best shrugged off and forgotten as just another weird apparition in a filmmaker’s grand but cruel and twisted vision.”

Grassroots opinions and reviews critical of Gibson’s film are starting to appear, and Xispas will continue to cover reaction to Apocalypto as the story develops. Gabriela Erandi Rico, a Doctoral Student in Comparative Ethnic Studies at U.C. Berkeley, wrote an essay about Apocalypto that is a review from a Native woman’s perspective. Circulating on the internet, it is as good a critique as you are likely to read anywhere, so we thought to reprint it here on the Xispas web log.

“Gibson’s film is far from a tribute to the Maya. During the past week or so, tickets were distributed to U.C. Berkeley’s Chicana/o community in order to attract Mexican-Americans to view the Mel Gibson’s new film, Apocalypto. I was one of the lucky ones who actually got into Shattuck Landmark Cinemas in Berkeley, where movie-goers lined up for the free screening around the theater’s street corner. When I first heard about the film, I was struck by Gibson’s investment in a project “reviving” an ancient Mesoamerican civilization not only because as a Mexican Indian (P’urhepecha/matlatzinca), I have great respect for the Maya but also because I’ve been fortunate to visit Catemaco, the wondrous place where the film was shot and was thus interested in how the site was used to capture the plot of the film. Curiosity got the best of me although I was a bit apprehensive about Gibson’s ability to accurately portray a Native American society or to present Native people in a positive light. I was right.

I came out of the theater with mixed feelings—mostly awe, disgust, rage and indignity. Although I admit that I was visually awe-struck by the awesome aesthetic reconstruction of Maya architecture and by sitting through a film mostly casted by Native American actors and listening to a dialogue completely in the Maya Yucatec language, there were many elements of the movie I found deeply offensive.

The central aspect of the film was undoubtedly violence. While I understand that violence is necessary to keep the plot moving along in an action film and while I can even entertain the notion that shock value is a gripping method effective in capturing the audience’s attention, I thought the use of violence in this film was grossly sensationalized, sometimes inaccurate and often unnecessary. The scenes that most stand out in my mind were those of unjust bloody battles, outright violent murder (including of women and children) with heavy and sharp weapons, and of course, mass human sacrifice. While I can see how human sacrifice can be a good attention-grabber for an adrenaline-hungry audience, I thought Gibson made his point after we saw one head falling from the steps of the central Mayan pyramid and that it was not necessary to have to sit through several scenes of sharp obsidian blades plunging into human flesh to extract pulsating hearts followed by fierce decapitations of sacrificial victims…all while onlookers of the Mayan king’s loyal subjects cheered and demanded more. The killers were portrayed as sadistic and bloodthirsty while the victims were other frightened, naïve (and apparently weaker) Indians. This nonstop violent carnage throughout the movie combined with the highlighting of human sacrifice portrayed the Mayans as bloodthirsty savages. While the stereotype is a painfully familiar one for Native people, I find it quite ironic that Gibson thought we would be somehow flattered at his interest in reconstructing our past “reality” or that we would find it at all glorifying.

While sacrifice was, indeed, an important part of Aztec and Maya spirituality, many of the accounts given by Spanish soldiers and priests have been widely contested because of the bias coming from the source (conquistadores and Christian converters). The depictions in Maya and Aztec codices indicate that various forms of sacrifice were practiced and that they were, indeed, violent—but archeologists have been unable to find the mass numbers Spanish accounts claimed—proving that their alleged “eyewitness reports” (like Gibson’s representation) were gross exaggerations. Furthermore, it’s widely acknowledged by scholars who study the art of warfare that Mesoamerican societies like the Mayas and the Aztecs followed a strict set of rules of war. Their warrior societies did set out to find captives, yet the honor of the warrior was experienced in confronting another warrior on an individual basis and having him submit to his strength and valor—not, as Gibson portrays, in raiding villages or burning houses and definitely not in killing/raping women or disposing of children. Such cowardly acts would bring shame and dishonor to aspiring warriors.

The truth (one acknowledged by Gibson on his Apocalypto site) is that the Mayas were one of the greatest civilizations in the Americas. They were highly advanced in astronomy, architecture, the arts and mathematics. They gave the world the concept of zero, came up with the most advanced writing system in the Western Hemisphere and designed a calendar far more accurate than the Gregorian one we live by today. Out of all these aspects of Maya society, Gibson chose to highlight sacrifice…this is far from paying tribute to the Mayas for their contributions.

I understand that Gibson’s intent was to make a fast-moving action film; however, if carnage was what he wanted, why not focus on the extreme performance of human violence in the mass genocide of Mayas during the Spanish Conquest? Or perhaps, the systematic contemporary genocide Mayas have continued to suffer well into the 21st Century during the Central American civil wars at the hands of various governments? It’s ironic (yet not surprising) that one of the greatest civilizations is reduced to their violent practices while they themselves have been the worse casualties of ongoing violent warfare at the hands of European colonizers, their descendants and their imposed governments. I realize, however, that no one cares about the plights of contemporary Mayas; it’s much sexier in Hollywood to continue killing the dead ones. In Gibson’s film, for example, their racialized bodies are portrayed as disposable and to make matters worse, they are blamed for their own conquest!

The film opens with a quote by W. Durant, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within,” somehow suggesting that the divisions and warfare a decadent Maya society was wreaking on itself were what essentially led to its downfall. This quote makes sense at the end of the film, when Jaguar Paw’s run ends at his and his persecutors’ surprise upon witnessing the arrival of European ships. The Spanish conquistadores (who were historically savagely violent in their own regard) are presented as mere bystanders to Jaguar Paw’s persecution; religious symbolisms such as crosses and bibles in the hands of friars indicate that the Spanish have arrived to Christianize the heathens in order to save them from the savagery they inflict on each other. The quote on the film’s billboards, “No one can outrun their destiny,” can thus be read as the tragic truth that Jaguar Paw’s exhaustingly heroic escape back to this home in the jungle is really in vain because he will still face destiny at the hands of the newly-arrived Spanish colonizers (and he will thus probably be killed or keep running). Such is the epic story of our tragic hero!—still destined to be extinguished by the canals of history and modernity. Not quite a flattering portrayal for Maya/Native people.

During a time when the portrayals of Native Americans in the mainstream media are scarce, all representations of Native people make a statement. This is what’s scary about continuing to see films like Apocalypto being undertaken by directors like Gibson. Indian cultures continue being capitalized upon by Hollywood and Indians continue being disposable, exotic (and in this case violent) others. Indigenous scholars like Vine Deloria and Shari Hundorf have already theorized why it’s so easy to appropriate and commodify the identities and histories of Native Americans. As a population, which has been continuously preyed upon, dispossessed and colonized, we are particularly vulnerable to such feats. The only good thing Apocalypto did for Native people was to leave money in indigenous communities in Mexico, expose audiences to the Maya Yucatec language (thus enlightening them), and of course, give jobs and jumpstart careers for a few indigenous actors. Otherwise, it’s just another example of a white man’s gaze following and misrepresenting American Indians.”

[ UPDATE: Dec. 6th - Indigenous activists in Guatemala condemn Gibson's film as "racist." The views of the Mayan activists in Guatemala are reported in a Washington Post article titled, Maya say Gibson movie portrays them as savages. ]

Every year the Tate Gallery in London awards it prestigious Tate Prize to those it considers to be the very best contemporary artists living in England. The controversial awards have international implications and help set the trends for artists around the world. The Tate seems to prefer giving its award to artists who do installation, video, conceptual, and other types of modern art - conspicuously ignoring artists who paint realistic images. At the just concluded Tate Prize ceremonies held in London, Yoko Ono announced the winner, an abstract artist - while declaring the city of London to be the new “center of the art world.”

The Los Angeles Stuckist Group, realist painters belonging to the International Stuckist Movement of modern painters in opposition to conceptual art, reacted by declaring the Mexican border city of Tijuana as the actual center of the art world. Here in part, is what the L.A. Stuckistas had to say:

“As a group of artists writing from the city of Los Angeles, we yawn in the faces of those who proclaim London the “end all, be all” of the art world. However, while we are proud of what L.A. and California artists have accomplished over the years, and we extol the contributions these artists have made to the history of art, we are not foolish enough to proclaim our city as the center of anything (except perhaps, boredom). We do however see ourselves as one sphere of influence. To be honest, since L.A. is such a multi-cultural city, and quite frankly, a cultural capital that has exerted far too much influence over the world, we’d like to proclaim the Mexican City of Tijuana as the new “center of the art world”. Henceforth, we think that all trends in contemporary art should be set by those artists residing in Tijuana, and that international artists should trek to the city along the U.S./Mexico border in order to find inspiration, make connections (and of course sales), and study and work with some of the finest artists in the world. If you think our idea preposterous then you might want to challenge your Eurocentric world view.”

[ Read the full statement from the Los Angeles Stuckist Group.]

Felipe Calderón, the right-wing presidential candidate of Mexico’s conservative National Action Party (PAN), a leader fraudulently “selected” by Mexico’s Federal Electoral Tribunal, has now been officially sworn in as President in the halls of the Mexican Congress building - but not without fist fights and shouts of protest by opposition Congressmen and women.

In a midnight ceremony held on December 1st, Calderón took over as Mexico’s president, but a huge brawl erupted at the ceremony in Congress when scores of opposition congressional representatives attempted to stop him from taking the formal oath of office. Opposition lawmakers hung a huge banner in the congressional chambers that read, “Mexico doesn’t deserve a traitor to democracy as president.” Rival lawmakers engaged in fist fights while water bottles, soft drink cans, and chairs were thrown. Opposition lawmakers built a barricade of tables and chairs at the front entrance of Congress in an attempt to lock Calderón out. Congressional deputy Adriana Diaz said, “He is not coming in the front entrance - thieves come in through the back door.” And eventually, with the assistance of riot police and body guards, the thief did enter through the rear entrance. Calderón took the oath of office to a cacophony of catcalls and boos.

Opposition lawmakers held up a banner that read, “Ulises Ruiz, Assassin!” - referring to the Oaxaca Governor of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and his brutal assaults on the people of Oaxaca. PAN-PRI cooperation is vital to president select Calderón, whose party has backed Ruiz’s military crackdown by supplying Ruiz with federal troops. Ruiz’s repression has killed an estimated 15 protestors in Oaxaca, including an American reporter for the New York chapter of the Independent Media Center.

On November 20th, the official anniversary of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, over 300-000 people held their own inauguration ceremony in Mexico City’s main square. The popular candidate of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, was sworn in as president by the masses as they chanted, “¡Sí, Se Puede!” (Yes, We Can!) Deafening roars of approval met Obrador’s remarks, “A government divorced from the people is nothing more than a facade, an egg shell, a bureaucratic apparatus, the legitimate government is the organized people” and “When there is no justice, there can be no peace.” Obrador announced his support for the rebellion in Oaxaca and demanded the resignation of Ulises Ruiz. He has also promised to run a parallel government in opposition to the reactionary Calderón, who is a key ally of the White House. In fact, U.S. president George W. Bush appointed his father, former president George Bush, to lead the U.S. delegation that attended the Dec. 1 inauguration of Calderón. Yes, birds of a feather do flock together, especially those who steal elections.

A new documentary movie about artists in Southern California, American Beauties: In Pursuit of Art, will have its premiere on Friday, December 29th, 2006, at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art (OCCCA.) Featured in the film are Michael Maas, Patrick Maisano, Gregg Stone, Mark Vallen, and Emigdio Vasquez. Shifra M. Goldman, the famed Art Historian who has written extensively about Latin American and Chicano art, once said of Emigdio Vasquez, “To see his paintings is to enter into and relive the history of a people.” Together, the five exhibited at Space On Spurgeon gallery in April of this year, one result being the production of this documentary.

Produced and Directed by J.T. Marlowe, the film presents a look at the exhibition, but also affords fascinating insights into the motivations and philosophies of the artists as they engage each other in dialog. Premieres: Friday, December 29th, 2006. Reception: 7 pm. Screening: 8 pm. RSVP: 949-464-0105 - free admission. Location: Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, 117 N. Sycamore Santa Ana, CA 92701.