The Conquest of America: Why Hollywood Still Gets It Wrong

The Conquest of America: Why Hollywood Still Gets It Wrong History is written by victors. And in the case of America, its history unfolded in unjust, brutal, and socially complex ways from the very beginning. European accounts of meetings with the native peoples of the new continent would prevail because of the settlers’ political power. Thus, their images of the culturally foreign, native American cultures would come in pair with a set of stereotypes that have nowadays translated themselves to the current medium of film. This essay will point out the false assumptions that have remained unchanged since the conquest of the New World to this day. I aim to evaluate the impact of stories about the New World and provide a comparative analysis of European accounts against selected 20th and 21st-century movies on the subject. The portrayal of these historical events, social processes, and groups undeniably influences the mass perception of the history of America and its indigenous peoples to this day. The uneven racial and ethnic dynamics in cultural texts also reflect the American society of now – multicultural, multiracial, and inseparable from its problematic past. Describing historical events resembles unweaving an intricate tapestry of time, space, and people. But it only makes sense if we devote ourselves to finding the core of truth in the chain of events, not picking out the strings to our liking. That means silencing the voices and narratives of other parties that do not necessarily fit our fixed scenarios. In this way, history becomes a matter of power politics and dividing Us from Them. It is nothing new, however. Historical accounts of past times have a new face today: the Hollywood film industry is the spokesman for those in power. It is then no wonder why the highest-grossing historical movies are not only partially untrue to history but also give limelight to particular types of stories and faces. White, Eurocentric viewpoint has dominated the American take on the story of conquest for centuries. Therefore, turning away from narratives focused on white comfort to those seeking historical verity may be controversial and unprofitable. If Hollywood were to educate instead of entertain, certain movies – some undeniably incorrect at their core – would not exist. One such piece of cinema is 1492: Conquest of Paradise – the 1992 drama directed by Ridley Scott. It is the epitome of sugarcoating history to pat the viewer on their ideological back. Even the movie's background – the 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery of America – is troubling. As a matter of fact, the Genoese navigator did not set his foot on the American continent. Let alone had doubted having discovered the West Indies for the rest of his life. Apart from historical flaws, the movie does not put a question mark on Christopher Columbus's morals or motives. In one scene, when a shipbuilder Martín Pinzón and Columbus discuss their desire for gold before the voyage, they laugh cordially in accompaniment of sentimental string music. The movie naïvely presents the Spanish explorers and the Taíno Indians and fails to skeptically address relevant issues such as encroachment, genocide, or greed. At one point in 1492, a content Christopher Columbus writes in his diary: “They are not savages, neither will we be. Treat them as you would your own wives and children. ” That phrase seemingly shows his respect towards the foreign peoples. However, it is crucial to underline the condescending tone and downgrading of Indians in comparison to the Europeans. Especially if we think about how women and children were treated in 15th-century Catholic Spain; neither of them could even dream of being socially or politically equal to (adult) men. It is especially ironic how during that scene, a group of Spanish men is playing and splashing in a river with the Indians as if they haven’t just arrived in an unknown land inhabited by strangers from every standpoint. Much more historical truth can be derived from Columbus himself. His letters to Luis de Santángel – a supporter of his voyages at the royal court - give the reader a prompt of the author's character and motives. On the first page, we can read that Columbus knows that the island he "discovered" is called Guanahani by its inhabitants. Nevertheless, he still decides to rename it La Hispaniola for the glory of God and Queen Isabela. Self-righteousness extends far beyond semantics. After a few passages describing the material wonders of the island like precious metals, Columbus decides that Indians "may be made Christians. " One may argue that his mindset is the product of medieval times and the agenda of the Catholic Church, which were irrefutable for most people at the time. However, the lack of reflection on the newly-encountered people's humanity, faith, or morality is why conquistadors conquered and converted the Indians in the first place. The explorer merely sees them as equals – they are "incurably timid" and therefore in need of Spaniards' protection, control, and even religion. Unsurprisingly, the movie never gives the floor to the Indians themselves, neither in a literal sense nor plot-wise. Columbus and his people’s perspective never effaces itself, making them the characters who always have the last say – the ending of the film focuses on Columbus’ career and legacy, not on the consequences of his actions in the New World felt by the Indians. He is presented as an "incurable" idealist meaning to prove his worth as an explorer, driven by his (justified) desire for gold at the expense of a (justified) seizure of Taíno territory, all followed by a (justified) Christian conversion of those people. Thus, the movie does not stand up to its cinematic role of portraying historical events – it embodies the rhetoric from letters to Santángel but does not dare to challenge it. It is not only that it trips over historical fallacies; the movie's moral is ideologically still somewhere between the ink-stained pages of Columbus' letters. Even though the events happening on the screen go five hundred years back, their interpretation by Scott leaves no place for afterthought for the average modern viewer. In the opening scene of the movie, when the merchant sits with his son by the sea and explains to him that "those who are enlightened before the others must pursue that light in spite of them, " we must believe him. We must believe that civilization and enlightenment can serve as the ultimate justification for any wrongdoing on the part of the civilized. So did believe the conquistadors when they encountered their Eden. Let the tides of time and space bring us closer to the future and further west. We are sailing yet again with Columbus’ crew, but this time it is the Yucatán Peninsula on the horizon. We have also entered the 16th century, which means the first voyage to Terra Incognita, undertaken by Christopher Columbus, had happened approximately a decade ago. Through the eyes of the conquistadors and missionaries, we can see three people fighting one another on a beach – one of them sprints right back into the jungle forest at the sight of the upcoming ships. Completely unaware, the Spaniards could have just witnessed the resolve of a multifaceted conflict between members of different indigenous tribes. The incident at the beach was indeed just the tip of the iceberg of the Mayan civilization’s inner struggles and interlinked political schemes. Welcome to the world of Apocalypto – the 2006 movie directed by Mel Gibson. A breath of fresh air among the films depicting the conquest, this film reversed the roles in many ways and introduced new ways of thinking about that historical period in Hollywood. Thanks to titles like Apocalypto, 21st-century filmmaking created a wider discussion about the perception of sociocultural dynamics of these historical events in mass culture. No previous motion picture would have placed the arrival of the Spanish at the end of the movie, nor would have devoted only a few minutes of the conquistadors’ screentime compared to that of the Indians’. What strikes the viewer from the first minutes of the film is the behavior and language of the native tribe led by Jaguar Paw’s father. The congealed figures from Indian paintings come to life – they have a sense of humor, are cruel, confess their love, insult each other, lie and pray. They look like real Indians, and express themselves in their own language, not in English with an American accent. They speak in Yucatec Mayan, which Gibson had chosen deliberately because he wanted today’s people of Mayan descent “to speak it with pride. ” Another feature of this film to be considered positively is the ease with which the viewer is immersed in the entirely foreign world; the characters feel very close to us in terms of the portrayal of their kinships, struggles and insecurities. However, whereas this movie went two steps forward in terms of some aspects of portraying the Indian cultures such as the language or the characters, it also went one step back in others. The movie starts off with a hunt for a tapir, which unleashes a line of sacrifices on a high-speed adrenaline note and basically upkeeps the tempo until the end. We as viewers go through killings, tortures, choking and beating. One such example of violence is the scene of sacrifice of newly enslaved tribesmen among whom is the survivor, Jaguar Paw’s character played by Rudy Youngblood. He is the one to endure the rite of sacrifice for the Mayan God of Sun organized by his enemies because he has to prove his worth as a warrior and save his wife and child (soon to be children). The amount of wounds he must ignore to reach his goal is inhumane, but also the distances he traverses bring him closer to a fantastical figure. The watchability of that motif is said to exclude the humaneness of the Mayans in the story. Many academics and film critics have criticized the film for its display of bloodshed and brutality, which “portrays the ancient Maya not only as bloodthirsty and immoral but utterly evil. ” It is important to remember the quote which opens up the movie and sets an ideological tone for the entirety of it; it is from Will Durant who says that “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. ” Therefore, the movie acknowledges greatness and complexity of the Mayans, but still puts the weight of the fall of its civilization on them. The quote also goes further to subtly suggest that since there were so many conflicts within the socially and politically intricate Mayan civilization, we should not blame the Spaniards so much for arriving to their land and starting a conquest. With this insight into the movie’s politics, the last scene of European arrival takes a 180-degree turn. We might see them as potential rescuers who can solve the dilemmas of the Indians. Thus, the image and portrayal of the entire civilization shifts into argumentation closer to 1492: Conquest of Paradise than to the scholars’ and activists’ polemics of today. Gibson’s ambiguous representation opened up new vents for the conversation about how the American past is portrayed but at the same time presented the Mayan people’s morale as unworthy of delving into or empathizing with. One Guatemalan politician, Ricardo Cajas, expressed his disillusionment with the movie’s message right after its premiere: “It shows the Mayans as a barbarous, murderous people that can only be saved by the arrival of the Spanish. ” Many indigenous voices followed, both from the scholars and indigenous peoples organizations. Even though the film was a box-office hit, it did not do justice on the part of the descendants of the people it portrays. For many Apocalypto viewers, the Indian face covered with blood is thrilling but repulsive at once. Most people obtain their knowledge about the history and cultures from books or movies. Since the latter prevails in today’s culture, the movies automatically possess an educational quality besides being for ‘pure entertainment’. One may ask then, why this story about events which had happened centuries ago, still needs an analysis and explaining to do? Why is it simply not enough to enjoy films and focus on being entertained and not educated? Films like these – major Hollywood cultural texts – eventually become engrained in the mass unconsciousness, especially if their themes, messages and ideological point of view not only fit into the general understanding of certain events, which can be flawed and incomplete in terms of knowledge, but also incorrect. If a certain group of people is not represented enough in the film industry, its image is rather crooked in the mass unconscious. In this case, the narratives of conquest in the last thirty years prove to be unwilling to present the truth. The stories of the Taino and the Mayans will provide letdowns to the specific peoples they concern as long as the people in charge will not be interested in doing justice to the historical verity. As it turns out, the conquest of America can be seen as merely a door to other underlying problems in today’s nation as well. The political landscape of America is still entrenched in ignorance, mistreatment of native people and cultural appropriation. The racist stereotypes in Hollywood still persist even from a well-intentioned approach of the creators – original peoples are either gullible and childlike or atrociously violent and brutal. In both films, Indians are presented at one point as waiting to be saved by the Europeans – in 1492, they are helpless and voiceless, and in Apocalypto – one could argue that the entire movie is a pretext for the arrival of the Spaniards who come to save them. The historical inaccuracies are a manifestation of ignorance on the side of the creators which then affects the worldview of everyone else watching those movies. It’s not about who’s right and who’s not – it’s about who gets the right not to be right about the stories that matter.