Mayan Groups Angered by Apocalypto

According to the BBC, Central Americans who may or may not be Mayan have seen the trailer for and they aren't happy:

Activists in Guatemala - once home to a large part of the central American Mayan empire - said Apocalypto was unrealistic.

"The director is saying the Mayans are savages," said Lucio Yaxon, a human rights activist.

...

Only the film's trailer has been seen in Guatemala, but some Mayan leaders say scenes of Mayans with bone piercings sacrificing humans promote stereotypes about their culture.

"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," said Ignacio Ochoa, director of the Nahual Foundation that promotes Mayan culture.

If we took Gibson's movies seriously, we'd say:

1. Aren't the Maya extinct?

2. They should ask the Jews how THEY feel about Gibson.

3. Why do we have to attack every movie as racist, or sexist, or bigotted? Why don't we just make a movie about a bunch of people with no lives and no opinions, performed by actors with no distinguishing facial features and ambiguously tan skin coloring that expresses absolutely no views and ambiguously recounts a uneventful story? Would that make you happy?

But Gibson has made all that sort of discussion irrelevant all by himself.