Interview with Juan Santos, a Los Angeles-based writer and editor of Mexika Tlahtolli (a Chican@ Native American newspaper) on the diservice Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto does to the Mayas, their descendants and Aboriginal peoples in general.
Produced by: Susy Alvarez Pocasangre For: Word of Mouth News, CKLN 88.1 FM Date: Dec. 22, 2006
"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." Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation
During this interview, writer and editor Juan Santos discusses the film Apocalypto, a feature length work by Director and Actor Mel Gibson which claims to take place during the decline years of the Mayan Civilization and just shortly before the Spanish invasion of the land we know now as Mexico.
The film has been hailed by some as a great action pic with breathtaking backgrounds, costumes and an entire Native cast.
But it has also been denounced as a racist, inaccurate and exploitative with very little to offer in terms of moral or historical lessons for anyone who stands to watch it.
Juan Santos currently resides in Los Angeles and has contributed to Liberator Magazine, La Prensa, Aztlan Rising, Counterpunch, Mexika.org, the Guerrilla News Network, and many other blogs and online journals and political magazines.
His online blog can be found at: the-fourth-world.blogspot.com