I had a hard time watching “Cabeza de Vaca.” I have a strong sense of empathy, and it hurt to watch, very badly. The idea of other people suffering tears me up inside. It’s something that affects me so much that sometimes, I have to shut it out in order to get any work done. Basically, it’s either all or nothing where my emotions are concerned. I especially don’t like watching someone get repeatedly pummeled and abused by the same people over and over again, being singled out for his differences. (This probably traces back to middle school.)
After I got tired of hurting, I started getting angry and wanting to beat up the native people. I think this has to do with my maternal instincts. Seeing someone get hurt makes me want to comfort the victim. Comforting the victim puts me in a position of motherhood. Once I am there, the “mother bear” thing kicks in and I want to beat the hell out of whoever caused the pain.
I especially wanted to beat the hell out of the shaman’s “helper.” I definitely meant what I said in class about picking him up and chucking him in the water. No matter what the shaman might do in response, it would be worth it to drown that obnoxious little thing.
The shaman, actually, was a bit too mellow to upset me. Oh, but I hated the little guy.
Straying from my original topic… I thought about it some, and I don’t think he’s a really helper. I think he’s more of a pet. A tiny armless man could not possibly make that good of a helper. He didn’t show signs of high intellect, either, the way that the other natives did. No, I rather believe that he was a source of amusement for the shaman. You know how some women have children so that they can have someone smaller than them to dress up and boss around a bit? It’s kind of like that. There’s no way he dressed himself, but he always looked so flashy and his hair was great and everything matched. The shaman definitely kept him around because he thought a tiny man was a cute accessory.
1 comment:
Like I've said in a past post, it's hard for me to watch these kind of movies as well. I do think it is interesting though to watch this depiction of Native Americans because I feel like in the past I've been given a false description of what Native American life was like in the past. It's hard to see that they were very unwelcoming and cruel to strangers, but then when I think of their circumstances, I can understand the way they acted. Strangers were trying to change their way of life or enslave them, so they had to protect themselves against them.
It was definitely interesting to watch the main character go through his religious and personal transformation. After he sort of accepted his situation and embraced it, his experience of this new, strange world became totally different. He really became one of the Natives to the point where that little mean man actually respected him.
It was really interesting to see the drastic differences between the lives of the Spanish and the Native Americans. It was ridiculous to me that after years of being lost, and living amongst the Native Americans, that the Spanish soldiers still expected the men to be the same men they were before.
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