Gods of Egypt - Clash of the ... White Men?
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Ugh, all my friends know how much I dig mythology, lore, folk tales and the like, to the extent of doing my master's thesis on them, so I just know they're going to drag me to see this so they can ask me how true to source it was and watch my eyes roll right out of my head
The sound of Kevin Bacon sipping that same bloody cup with that same bloody slurp for each page is really starting to rustle my savilles. Anymoo, stolen eyes?? As in, they are still expecting them to be returned in working order?? In Egypt??! What level of madness is this?! Get the ice!!
The Trailer makes me think of God of War but set in Egypt, except without any of the set pieces that made God of War actually work as spectacle and without a tragic plot that made GoW's main character.....well, not as unlikable as he later became.
Re: whitewashing
There's plenty of fantasy movies that try to mix some fantastical material into a historical context and in those movies maybe it's relevant to complain about the locale and time period. This isn't one of them.
This movie was less 'Egypt if gods were real', and more 'what if an entire world completely unrelated to our own thematically resembled Egypt and was created and ruled by Egyptian Gods'. I mean, come on, the planet itself is a giant disc floating in space, it's more sci-fi construct than Earth.
Now don't get me wrong, the movie does kind of suck and I'm all for having some more diversity in casts. I'm just saying, if you're going to use the place and time period as an argument, pick your battles. This isn't a case of waving away the issues because the film isn't 'historically accurate', it's not even history. Both the place and time are completely made up using a popularized mythology as it's base, that's it.
tldr; Not Egypt, not even semi-historical nor does it claim to be, Egyptian-looking actors would have been no more appropriate than brits, koreans or martians.
Edit: And to follow up, Hollywood has a white problem, not a whitewashing problem. There is nothing wrong with casting your own nations demographic for any damn role. Bollywood casts are Indian, Asian movies star Asians. That's how it is. That said, the US demographic is more than just white, the obvious example being a minimum of black leading roles.
So.. Work on that, get more blacks, more Latinos maybe. But Egyptian looking people in an Egypt themed movie? Not relevant. Even a movie representing an actual historic Egypt need not bother.
There's only one relevant word in all of that, 'fantasy'.
There's plenty of fantasy movies that try to mix some fantastical material into a historical context and in those movies maybe it's relevant to complain about the locale and time period. This isn't one of them.
This movie was less 'Egypt if gods were real', and more 'what if an entire world completely unrelated to our own thematically resembled Egypt and was created and ruled by Egyptian Gods'. I mean, come on, the planet itself is a giant disc floating in space, it's more sci-fi construct than Earth.
Now don't get me wrong, the movie does kind of suck and I'm all for having some more diversity in casts. I'm just saying, if you're going to use the place and time period as an argument, pick your battles. This isn't a case of waving away the issues because the film isn't 'historically accurate', it's not even history. Both the place and time are completely made up using a popularized mythology as it's base, that's it.
tldr; Not Egypt, not even semi-historical nor does it claim to be, Egyptian-looking actors would have been no more appropriate than brits, koreans or martians.
Edit: And to follow up, Hollywood has a white problem, not a whitewashing problem. There is nothing wrong with casting your own nations demographic for any damn role. Bollywood casts are Indian, Asian movies star Asians. That's how it is. That said, the US demographic is more than just white, the obvious example being a minimum of black leading roles.
So.. Work on that, get more blacks, more Latinos maybe. But Egyptian looking people in an Egypt themed movie? Not relevant. Even a movie representing an actual historic Egypt need not bother.
You know of the three Egyptians I've known well in my life (1 teacher, 2 friends) only one of them was something other then what one would call "white" given how they look. And I'm not talking about a situation like Rami Malek being called white despite being of Egyptian ancestry, I'm talking "would sooner think they're from Italy or the Balkans" white.
That's not to say all Egyptians look white, far from it, but like the Levant there are many people who one would call white who are from there due to three thousand years of migration into the region by people from North African, Arabia and Europe.
Though like Jadak stated this isn't really a historical depiction of Egypt in any way.
That's not to say all Egyptians look white, far from it, but like the Levant there are many people who one would call white who are from there due to three thousand years of migration into the region by people from North African, Arabia and Europe.
Though like Jadak stated this isn't really a historical depiction of Egypt in any way.
Yeah looking at this movie it just felt like it was going to be another John Carter, Green Lantern or Exodus: Gods and Kings. just a mindless boring action movie with so much CGI it looks like a bad Pixar movie. Honestly a lot of these films feel like they need to be way more self-aware and stupid to be enjoyable because there's only so much shit you can throw at the screen before people get desensitized and board.
Also to the people complaining about whitewashing, at least they won't bring up this movie when they talk about how casting people of different races would be unprofitable when the movie inevitably bombs.
Also to the people complaining about whitewashing, at least they won't bring up this movie when they talk about how casting people of different races would be unprofitable when the movie inevitably bombs.
And they got the mythology wrong right off the bat; Set is Osiris' brother, not Horus'. It's like they weren't even trying!
Exactly.Jadak said:
It's a fantasy. A thought experiment. A "what if".
Yes, a movie about Egypt should be cast by people who (if not Egyptian) at least look like they're from the region, but when the movie is essentially just fantasy (say, what if the universe was like in Halo, but the aesthetics had a "Egyptian" feel) then no, it shouldn't have any other demographic than what the writer had envisioned.
I actually thought it's what Stargate would be if the Goa'uld weren't lying about being Gods. Also Osiris was played by an Australian, huh.Dalisclock said:
There's been a lot of ethnic intermingling over the years, especially with the various Arab and Mediterranean cultures due to where Egypt sits geographically (traditionally a super important location for trade to pass between Africa and the Middle-East). Both Arabs and Mediterraneans are considered Caucasian, or a very close offshoot thereof, so yeah. If an Egyptian has a lot of Arab or Mediterranean ancestry, it's very likely they would look pretty "white" by most standards.Zontar said:
As for historical Egyptians, that's a much more contentious debate. What we think of as ancient Egypt was so, so very long ago (the pyramids were as old to the Romans when they discovered them as the Romans are to us now, to try and give some context), and existed for a very long time across several broad eras. There isn't really a current consensus as to whether the ancient Egyptians were of indigenous African origin (black), or if they originated in the middle-east and moved into what is now Egypt (making them more Arab/Caucasian), or if they were some mix in-between. There's a bit of a political angle to it as well, with groups from both sides wanting to claim the ancient Egyptians as 'theirs' too.
Much like who the hell the Sea People were (all we know is they appeared without warning and wrecked a bunch of peoples' shit), it's super difficult to know what the ancient Egyptians actually looked like. There's just been such a huge passage of time between us and them.
"What if Egyptians were white?" That sounds like a fantasy that has already been done to death.MrFalconfly said:
Generally if you're going to use a setting, your changes should be somewhat deliberate. "What if in ancient Egypt the gods walked among the mortals?" is a cool premise and you could definitely do some interesting stuff with that, bringing mythology to life. Or maybe you want to have something deviate from historical accuracy because it allows for a more compelling story. That's also fine, you're making the movie better.
I'm not sure "It's fantasy, they don't have to be at all representative of reality" really works in an argument. Sure it's fantasy, but people would probably be complaining if at the end of the movie someone decided to walk on air and it was never given any explanation or setup. A fantasy setting doesn't give you license to ignore reality carte blanche, it just gives you the freedom to when doing so makes the setting more interesting.
Hell, I don't hear the same argument coming up in Lord of the Rings when people comment about how white everyone is in it. The response is always "It's a setting based on medieval England, it'd be weird if there were black people". I suppose it just isn't weird when we do it with Egypt because we're used to seeing the rest of the world depicted as white
I've haven't really heard that response at all. I've heard people use medieval European influences as an explanation for why it was originally written that way (although, I'm not really sure if the precise ethnic make up of the entirety of Middle Earth is ever explicitly given), but the argument given for why it would be strange for black people to be there is usually that changing the ethnicity in adaptions would contradict established lore.The Almighty Aardvark said:
Sure, if someone suddenly had magical powers without explanation that would come across as bad writing, since clashes with reality usually need to be explained, but when creating a fictional world you don't need to explain or justify the ethnic make up of this non-existent world. Unless the specific climate seemed to conflict with the people's skin tones then "reality" has no bearing here, since it's a fictional world.
Fantasy does give you a license to ignore reality as long as you explain the elements the require an explanation.
Weeeelll.... There's a historical precedent for Ancient Egypt to have contained more than a few "white" faces. DNA tests have shown that modern inhabitants of the region aren't genetically related to the mummies we've dug up. According to some Greek scholars, Ramses more than likely had blond hair!
Now, as to whether this is "dark hair bleached by constant exposure to sunlight" blond or natural blond? That's something else entirely. Plus, considering how the local gene pool had gotten a lot more diverse by the time Cleopatra took the throne (she being of Greek descent), I don't find that all too surprising.
Honestly, I'd only really be bothered if the casting involved putting real Middle-Eastern types in unflattering positions. I know political correctness would have us assume that a movie centered around the Egyptian pantheon should be staffed mostly with people of appropriate heritage, but I doubt anyone woke up and went "Hey, let's make a movie to piss off the PC crowd - a Fantasy actioner with White folks instead of POC standing in for mythological figures!"
Business being business, the studio probably went for the most high-profile names available within its budget bracket, all races considered.
Now, as to whether this is "dark hair bleached by constant exposure to sunlight" blond or natural blond? That's something else entirely. Plus, considering how the local gene pool had gotten a lot more diverse by the time Cleopatra took the throne (she being of Greek descent), I don't find that all too surprising.
Honestly, I'd only really be bothered if the casting involved putting real Middle-Eastern types in unflattering positions. I know political correctness would have us assume that a movie centered around the Egyptian pantheon should be staffed mostly with people of appropriate heritage, but I doubt anyone woke up and went "Hey, let's make a movie to piss off the PC crowd - a Fantasy actioner with White folks instead of POC standing in for mythological figures!"
Business being business, the studio probably went for the most high-profile names available within its budget bracket, all races considered.