Is Ridley Scott's Biblical Epic Exodus Whitewashing Ancient Egypt?
- Thread starter MovieBob
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You know, I actually made a forum post about this a while back, but with animation. To me, 'white-washing' feels very much like a subjective term with many people having differing opinions.
Back in the 1990's, Roger Ebert said that Aladdin has features like an American High Schooler while Jafar had more stereotypical features like a crooked nose, darker skin, etc.
Then there's the paradox where if you go the other way, you make the supposedly ethnic character have too many features similar to a supposed 'Caucausin culture', they're suddenly 'Oreos' (black on the outside, white on the inside).
I'm more forgiving in live action versions of this because a majority of Hollywood are white actors (which is a problem that we should discuss another time) and the producers want big names. But, it's far more telling in animation where you can make the characters as light-skinned/dark-skinned/whatever as you want them too and the protagonists have features closer to Caucasians than their supposed ethnic origin.
Or, you know, I could just be spouting nonsense from my mouth again.
Back in the 1990's, Roger Ebert said that Aladdin has features like an American High Schooler while Jafar had more stereotypical features like a crooked nose, darker skin, etc.
Then there's the paradox where if you go the other way, you make the supposedly ethnic character have too many features similar to a supposed 'Caucausin culture', they're suddenly 'Oreos' (black on the outside, white on the inside).
I'm more forgiving in live action versions of this because a majority of Hollywood are white actors (which is a problem that we should discuss another time) and the producers want big names. But, it's far more telling in animation where you can make the characters as light-skinned/dark-skinned/whatever as you want them too and the protagonists have features closer to Caucasians than their supposed ethnic origin.
Or, you know, I could just be spouting nonsense from my mouth again.
Meh, think I'll stick with Dreamworks' Prince of Egypt thanks. I always thought that one managed to do the relationship between Moses and Rameses particularly well and did a good job not over-glorifying the Ten Plagues by demonstrating the horrific impact they were having both on Egypt and Moses himself
Because there are about 20 thousand films starring white guys and 20 starring black guys.Sleekit said:
Stop pretending this is a level playing feild.
Funnier than someone insisting that the human-based ethnicity of space aliens is as important an issue as it is in a story that at least purports to have a historical setting? One with a longstanding history of already being whitewashed via western religious tradition, which is another issue at play here. No matter how much you want them to be, these are not equivalent cases.Sleekit said:
Yes because only the USA makes films /sSkull Bearer said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Nigeria
I've done a fair bit of research on this period, and if anything the author is understating the point. Egypt was one of the great cosmopolitan powers of the ancient world. The streets of Memphis were full of Bedouins from the west and east, Canaanites and Assyrians from the northeast, Hittites and Mycenaean Greeks from the north and northwest, and black Africans from the south, as well as ethnic Egyptians.
Of course, Moses would definitely not be using his own fancy armor. The ancient Hebrews almost certainly used surplus Egyptian gear, since at this point the height of military technology was the spoked wheel. (Iron had yet to percolate down from Turkey and the Caucasus to Egypt at this point.)
Of course, Moses would definitely not be using his own fancy armor. The ancient Hebrews almost certainly used surplus Egyptian gear, since at this point the height of military technology was the spoked wheel. (Iron had yet to percolate down from Turkey and the Caucasus to Egypt at this point.)
One important point that Bob doesn't address (at least, not directly), is that the Egyptian Emperors were pretty much white. The ones we mostly associate with ancient Egypt is the Ptolemaic dynasty, named after Ptolemy I, a Macedonian general of Alexander the Great; so, while they are geographically Africans, ethnically, the higher circles were Greek descendants. Combine that with a lot of inbreeding happening in those years (with brothers getting married and having children considered mostly natural within royalty), and we can infer that those traits were passed on all the way down to Cleopatra.
So, this is less an example of Hollywood whitewashing an African Empire's family, and more about they actually getting it right, at least in this case.
Of course, that is mostly about the Pharaoh and his family... The rest of Egypt was as racially diverse as it could be expected of an Empire near the intersection of many other ethnically diverse empires.
So, this is less an example of Hollywood whitewashing an African Empire's family, and more about they actually getting it right, at least in this case.
Of course, that is mostly about the Pharaoh and his family... The rest of Egypt was as racially diverse as it could be expected of an Empire near the intersection of many other ethnically diverse empires.
Now you're just misrepresenting the argument.ayvee said:
Even with Marvel Asgaardians being aliens rather than the norse pantheon, Scandinavians still supposedly wrote their stories based on them, and unless they got their depictions wrong, Heimdall and all the other Asgaardians are still assumed to be white.
Not that I care either way, but outrage over "whitewashing" just sets a bad precedent for actors and actresses not being able to depict people of a different skin color, which can only do more harm than good.
There are reasons we could give to explain the discrepancy (like the ancient Scandinavians not being exposed to the full breadth of Asgardian culture) but they're are secondary to the simple fact that Marvel Norse mythology is not actual Norse mythology. It's not even based on it so much as inspired by it, and it's silly to insist that marvel characters would all need to be white on the basis of our understanding of a history that it has never held to in so many other regards.UberPubert said:
But tl;dr there are cases where race can be a casting factor, there are cases where it shouldn't. That is the basis of why there's no cognitive dissonance here.
I don't recognize the actor playing Ramses, but he looks Middle Eastern too me. Hopefully, Scott learned his mistake from Prometheus and kept Damon Lindelof the hell away from the script for this one.
Also, Bob, no mention of Dreamworks' Prince of Egypt? Come on!
Also, Bob, no mention of Dreamworks' Prince of Egypt? Come on!
You could just as easily argue Heimdall shouldn't exist, or could do so under a different name, and that the Scandinavians didn't know about him either (which would make sense, being the gatekeeper and all). But they didn't, they chose to keep the name, and all the implications therein, but proceeded with a black actor anyway, and that's fine - but don't try to handwave it away as an unimportant detail then and cry foul about it now. Exodus is hardly shaping up to be a true-to-life documentary on ancient Egypt either, there's no sense holding it to a different standard than any other fictional movie.ayvee said:
I like how you say "can" first and then "shouldn't", as if the only two options are the one which allows you to call whitewashing in one case and clamor for equality as the rule in the next.ayvee said:
We can't begin to approach any ideal of an equal playing field if we keep holding people to a different standard based on the color of their skin. If Bollywood wants to make an all-Indian cast for an Exodus musical next Christmas, nobody should complain then, or now.
Yes, you "could." You "could" do a lot of things. And I would hardly call keeping the name, or whatever else they did with the character, keeping "all of the implications." It IS an unimportant detail in that case, it wouldn't be an unimportant detail in other cases. And it's clearly not a true-to-life documentary, but there's still a distinction between using ancient Egypt as a setting and using fantasy space that some dude on ancient earth got some information about one time.UberPubert said:
And I worded it that way because I'm not 100% sold on the idea that a role should ever be given or refused based entirely on race, as some kind of authoritarian rule. That goes both ways, it's not just about whitewashing. I'm not even sold on the idea that this movie in particular is whitewashing, all I've been trying to do is point out how thinking that it (or anything else) is while also thinking Heimdall's race shouldn't matter is not a contradiction.