A response to El Dorado Ignores Genocide of Natives:

>> As demonstrated by Michael A. Stackpole in The Pulling Report, trying to judge a movie, book, or show without viewing/reading it yourself is a -bad- idea. <<

From what I gleaned, Stackpole's report is limited to an expose of Ms. Patricia Pulling's failings. It does not, as far as I can tell, make a general case against judging movies even though one has seen the trailers, summaries, and reviews.

>> In fact an example from NCTV used by Michael A. Stackpole shows that doing things like this can result in one looking utter ridiculous if not outright stupid: <<

Apparently I'm better at what I do than Ms. Pulling was.

>> As opposed to the stereotype that every Spainard that came over here had gold fever and/or was an amoral nutcase? (Better known as the Black Legend) <<

I didn't address the Spaniards' case because the Eurocentric position has been the status quo for millennia. You can address their case if you wish. Two wrongs don't make a right, so my posting stands.

>> This is so over the top that is is obviously a strawman which means there is no way this arguement can be take seriously. <<

In other words, it's too hot for you to handle?

>> Both the Spanish and the Mesoamerican people of the 16th and 17th centuries did things that to our 20th century eyes would be considered barbaric. <<

So what? Did the movie portray even a fraction of the evils the Spanish Empire committed? No, and that point was explicit in the reviews I quoted. So the movie portrayed the Mesoamericans worse than it did the Spanish, as noted.

Talk about your straw-man arguments. You've yet to address Tezcatlipoca's or Vazquez's legitimate criticisms. Feel free to do so if you can.

>> Going to the 'noble savage' nonsence of the 19th century and Black Legend nonsence of the 17th-20th centuries is no better. <<

Who's going there? Another straw-man argument. Read what I actually wrote, not what you think I intended. When I say this portrayal was bad, I doubt you know what I think is good.

>> Many historical facts are omited in Tezcatlipoca's rambling (as an anthropoligist I cannot even dignify it as a review):

1) No kidding. 2) No kidding. 3) No kidding. I don't believe anything Tezcatlipoca or Vazquez said contradicted these points. I suspect they, like most thinking people, would call for a balanced presentation of both Mesoamericans and Spaniards. El Dorado wasn't balanced.

>> There was a good series on PBS about a decade ago regarding Native american dress in movies. Not only were Hollywood indians not speaking the correct language but their outfits were a mishmash of serveral different groups which historical AFAWK never had contact with each other. <<

So you agree with at least some of the criticisms? So what's the problem?

>> I find this hard to believe as this would have been nixed in the devolopement stage (like the nipples Disney orignally had planned for the centars) <<

I think that's what they meant by "initially." They, er, nipped the raciness in an early, developmental phase of the movie. The point was that they planned it initially, showing they were bent on their stereotypical notions.

>> There may be problems with El Dorado but creating strawmen and omitting relevent facts is not going to prove point and may instead result in dismissle as a Know Nothing. <<

Your response hasn't overturned any of the points I and the others made. I suspect Tezcatlipoca, Vazquez, and I know as much about Amerindian history as you do, and what I posted remains valid. And I don't need to see the movie to argue that history.

Rob elaborates
Permit me to do greater justice to the three points you kindly "informed" me of:

1) Disease took most of the lives lost, not just many. So? For starters, Spanish rule—enslavement, oppression, and deprivation—gave disease a strong foothold and increased the body count enormously. More important, suppose 18 million Natives died from disease and "only" two million from Spanish iniquity. That would still mean the Spanish were responsible for a massive death toll. Ten percent tallies with the literal definition of decimation and makes this holocaust as horrible as any other.

2) The Natives in El Dorado weren't Aztecs, the primary "brutal oppressor" in Mexico when Cortés arrived. Rather, as you yourself said, they were a mishmash of Mesoamerican cultures. To equate hundreds of Mesoamerican cultures, most of which were peaceful and didn't practice human sacrifice, with the Aztecs' ruthless imperialism demonizes the lot of them. It makes all Mesoamericans seem as "bad" as the Aztecs.

Even if the movie had depicted Aztecs—which, again, it didn't—you couldn't equate their depredations with the Spaniards'. The Aztecs conquered a few hundred miles of territory and established a hegemony that existed only a few decades before Cortés arrived. In contrast, the Spaniards extinguished hundreds or thousands of indigenous cultures, across a continent and a half, over several centuries.

Short-term regional subjugation vs. permanent hemisphere-wide devastation: You do the math. The cases simply aren't comparable. The average Indian peasant didn't want to conquer anybody, he wanted to be left in peace. The average Spanish invader may not have had gold on the brain, but his intent was opportunistic—to take what wasn't his, by force if necessary.

3) If Cortés and his crew were the only external threat in El Dorado, the Spanish got a free pass. In fact, the Spaniards' overall cultural attitude was fundamentally immoral and hypocritical—a violation of their own Christian beliefs. Yet it was so pervasive that only a few Spaniards, like Bartolomé de las Casas, spoke out against it. Despite the Aztec and Inca exceptions, manifest destiny wasn't part of the typical Native worldview. As pronounced by the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch, it was part of the European worldview.

If the Spanish got a free pass, who cares if the other Europeans were as bad? Once again, you're raising a straw-man argument. The only relevant question is whether the Spanish conquistadors were morally equivalent to their Amerindian victims—to all the victims, not just to the small class of Aztec overlords. If you need me to spell out the answer for you, just let me know.

Any movie that doesn't come close to suggesting this is a historical sham—akin to the concentration camp spoof Tezcatlipoca described. It misrepresents reality and misleads viewers, especially children, who don't know any better. Any questions?

Incidentally, you say you're an anthropologist? One of my best friends is an anthropologist, but his specialty is far removed from Amerindians. He doesn't know any more about Mesoamerican history than the average liberal arts major does. Do you?

I'm not an anthropologist, but I have studied Native Americans for a decade. My library includes a hundred books, hundreds of newspapers and articles, and many videos on the subject (and yes, I've read or seen them all). Add thousands of e-mails, websites, trips to museums and libraries, visits to Indian reservations and powwows, and personal contacts, and you'll find I know my material.

Your first clue might have been the very first line of my message, where I numbered it #28. In this series alone, I've written 28 times on Indians in comics and other popular media. Far from being a novice, I may be the most authoritative person you'll ever meet on the issue of stereotyping Natives. Though some academics may have devoted their careers to the subject, I haven't met anyone on the Net pursuing it as avidly as I am.

Now let's talk about whether I need to see El Dorado frame by frame to note its blatant, systematic misrepresentations of Native history and culture. My answer is no.

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