By
WENN.com
|
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
HOLLYWOOD - Mel Gibson has been accused by a Guatemalan official of racially insulting the Mayan civilization in his new movie Apocalypto.
Guatemala's presidential commissioner on racism, Ricardo Cajas, believes the Hollywood blockbuster has hindered understanding of the Mayan people, and the negative images of their civilization in Apocalypto have set it back 50 years.
More than half of the population of Guatemala are descendants of the original Mayans.
Cajas says, "It's a case of Western civilization imposing its view about other civilizations.
"It shows the Mayans as a barbarous, murderous people that can only be saved by the arrival of the Spanish."
Cajas' comments follow those of Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture, who criticized the movie last month.
He says, "Gibson replays... 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."
This is not the first time the Oscar winner has been accused of racism. Gibson was arrested in California last July on suspicion of drunk driving and made anti-Semitic comments to his arresting officers.
COPYRIGHT 2007 WORLD ENTERTAINMENT NEWS NETWORK LTD. All Global Rights Reserved.
Photo(s) by Dave Edwards- © 2006- DailyCeleb.com- All Rights Reserved
Bookmark this news story with: