2. Racism
Are Cannibal Holocaust and Mondo movies racist? That is a question many people ask themselves upon viewing these films. Deodato clearly didn't care about the indigenous peoples in his film. They were subject to several dangerous sequences - including the hut burning and it has been confirmed by actor Roger Kerman (the Anthropology professor who retrieves the missing documentary footage) that the natives didn't get paid and Deodato treated them very shabbily. The depiction of native peoples has always been a sore spot for Mondo movies. In Africa Addio, Jacopetti and Prosperi give an astonishingly racist portrait of native Africans. The film is rarely seen or spoken about now due to its flagrant incendiary racism which caused many protests at the time of its release. Cannibal Holocaust is not much better if you think about it. The natives are either portrayed as dumb helpless people living in the stone age (with bowl hair dos) or marauding killer cannibals holding eviscerated guts above their head, hollering in delight. Yes, the documentary makers are portrayed as villainous Westerners - "I wonder who the real cannibals are?" - but Deodato gives us no humanity when it comes to the natives. Following the Mondo fashion, they are ignorant, primitive and are there to satisfy our need for bizarre entertainment.