Possible white washing of Sphinx in upcoming Exodus movie

[generals3]

Exodus? That's this movie, right?

Heh. Clearly the Egyptian bigwigs don't catch anywhere near as much sun as their guards and servants.

Probably, that's why in the past being tanned was deemed ugly, it was a sign of poverty. (and it still is in some parts of the world, like China where it's apparently "in" to walk around with an umbrella when it's sunny)

On an other side note. I think that creating all this ridiculous complaining makes the white washing entirely worth it. I say we bring even more white washing so i can feast on even more pointless drama. Seeing people getting all worked for things like that just makes me feel even better about myself.

 

[MrMan999]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't ancient Egypt more or less a multi-racial society? I mean they were a massive world power who traded with all of the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea and deep into Africa and even as far as the ancient celts and druids in the British Isles. They brought in slaves and contractors from all over. And they covered a lot of territory on top of all that.

 

[Something Amyss]

It's important to have the right statue for the job, regardless of its race. This only applies to statues being turned white, of course, just like actors.

Heh. Clearly the Egyptian bigwigs don't catch anywhere near as much sun as their guards and servants.

Well, you can't expect important roles to go to coloured people, right?

...I feel dirty now.

Still looks made of limestone to me.

That is so mineralist of you. I bet you think all Sphinxes look alike!

In all seriousness though, what you said is basically that Egyptian mythology is more "real" than Norse mythology.
Heimdallr is a part of Norse mythology the same way that the Sphinx is to Egyptian.

But it is okay, Heimdallr is an alien after all... wow.

Heimdall is an alien, not Heimdalr. Heimdall being a fictional character from Marvel who represents a race of beings who inspired Norse deities. Hell, that's effectively saying that the Norse got it completely wrong. Is that the case here? No. But it has been in other cases. Egypt's mythology has also been changed in comics, in Marvel no less. And if this was a Marvel movie, we could talk. Hell, if it was a sci-fi movie, we could talk (Stargate, for example). It's not, though.

 

[Barbas]

(Snip).

So they got black actors to play all the servants, thieves, assassins and "lower class" people?

My knowledge of Egyptian society and hierarchy is very limited, but I have a feeling that this is going to turn out hilariously badly for almost all involved. Maybe MovieBob'll do something on it.

 

[lacktheknack]

Snip

Yeah...there was a bit about that in the article too.



Stay classy Hollywood...stay classy.

Oh, that's just pitiful.

I mean, even if you think they cherry-picked it when they put the photo together, it's still obvious how utterly pitiful that casting is. Oi.

 

[Albino Boo]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't ancient Egypt more or less a multi-racial society? I mean they were a massive world power who traded with all of the civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea and deep into Africa and even as far as the ancient celts and druids in the British Isles. They brought in slaves and contractors from all over. And they covered a lot of territory on top of all that.

You are correct that Egypt was a multiracial society but they never traded with the celts. For a start the celts in Britain were an iron society that only reached Britain in about 500 BC, by which time Egypt was part of the Persian Empire. There was no direct trade between Britain and Egypt. Tin was transmitted from trade to trade by river and sea before arriving in the mediterranean, basically just moved slowly along trade routes. Even to Romans and Greeks of the 1st century BC the tin isles were fabulous unknow location. The first Roman to known to have visited was about when Julius Caesar was 5 years old. The Carthaginians may have made direct contact but they mostly bought tin in the celtic ports of what's now northern Spain.

(Snip).

So they got black actors to play all the servants, thieves, assassins and "lower class" people?

My knowledge of Egyptian society and hierarchy is very limited, but I have a feeling that this is going to turn out hilariously badly for almost all involved. Maybe MovieBob'll do something on it.

Basically by New Kingdom Egypt the Medjay, the Egyptian word for nubians, formed a paramilitary police force. They would be guarding important sites like the valley of the kings and associated workshops. Basically think Irish cop in terms of status. It is not possible to identify black people in higher positions because their names would have been Egyptian and behave in an Egyptian manner. Even when you have a dynasty of Pharaohs that is known to have originated in Nubia, they maintained the previous dynasty's anti Nubain trade policies.

In short the only people that can be positively identified as black in New Kingdom Egypt were guards at high value sites.

 

[Seraj33]

In all seriousness though, what you said is basically that Egyptian mythology is more "real" than Norse mythology.
Heimdallr is a part of Norse mythology the same way that the Sphinx is to Egyptian.

But it is okay, Heimdallr is an alien after all... wow.

Heimdall is an alien, not Heimdalr. Heimdall being a fictional character from Marvel who represents a race of beings who inspired Norse deities. Hell, that's effectively saying that the Norse got it completely wrong. Is that the case here? No. But it has been in other cases. Egypt's mythology has also been changed in comics, in Marvel no less. And if this was a Marvel movie, we could talk. Hell, if it was a sci-fi movie, we could talk (Stargate, for example). It's not, though.

I.. really dont understand here. So Marvel can do what ever they want because they say their characters are alien and that they inspired the Norse (putting their creative freedom above history)?

But these people can't make their movie have a sphinx that resembles the main cast because that is a molestation of history and also racist (not being allowed to put their creative freedom above history)?

What this branch-thread was about is that it is hypocritical that white can go black but black cant go white.

 

[zen5887]

No offense but... so? The Sphinx is white. Want to know what else?

Spoiler: Heimdallr is Black

A while back the forum was up in arms over an article about racists throwing a hissy fit over making a Norse God described by the racists as a "White Man's God" black. They said that the racists shouldn't give a damn about what a fictional God who could technically look like anything (given their, y'know, a God) has as their race.

Yet when it is a white sphinx that's racist? So... it's okay to, essentially, "blackwash" a "White God" yet when it comes to whitewashing a "black one" that's worse?

I'm all for tolerance, but this is downright hypocritical.

Blackwash? C'mon man, you don't need a sociology degree to see the underrepresentation of black people in movies. Making a character black in a movie full of white people, that came out with a bunch of other movies probably full of white people is a lot different than making a black (but probably brown, I guess) character white.

 

[ThreeName]

"The likeliest explanation is that the sculpture is not actually a sphinx, but is in fact a statue of Ramses. This obviously means that it would have been based on Joel Edgerton?s face."

Cool. That settles that.

Huuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrr

That said, the fact that they went with an all-white leading cast and all-black villain/slave cast is pretty fucked.

 

[DevilWithaHalo]

I know, I'm pretty outraged over this myself. I mean, white actors should just play white characters. It's only right, amirite? Let's make sure we cast fictional depictions of mythologies as realistic as possible because we don't want to offend people by being racially or sexually insensitive.

And I don't know about the rest of you, but I am shocked and appalled that Rocket Raccoon is being voiced by some White guy. If that's not speciest, I don't know what is!

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

No offense but... so? The Sphinx is white. Want to know what else?

Spoiler: Heimdallr is Black

A while back the forum was up in arms over an article about racists throwing a hissy fit over making a Norse God described by the racists as a "White Man's God" black. They said that the racists shouldn't give a damn about what a fictional God who could technically look like anything (given their, y'know, a God) has as their race.

Yet when it is a white sphinx that's racist? So... it's okay to, essentially, "blackwash" a "White God" yet when it comes to whitewashing a "black one" that's worse?

I'm all for tolerance, but this is downright hypocritical.

I'm taking this moment now to take all flippant tones and questionable dialog from my speech.

You literally took one of the highest profile cases of changing a fictional character into a 'different race', when the entire movie kind of washed it's hands from traditional Norse mythology and said 'we'll put our own spin on it'.

Ok.

Johnny Depp as Tanto, Mickey Rooney in Breakfast At Tiffany's, the entire cast of the Last Airbender, Goku from Dragon Ball Z, John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Al Pacino as Tony Montana, Laurence Olivier in Othello, Angelina Jolie in A Mighty Heart, Ben Affleck in Argo ...I was wondering if I should have put Natassia Malthe from DOA: Dead or Alive on this list. She's like a quarter Malaysian. Whatever, this list is plenty long. It baffles me with a history of this that is long and wide, people still go to the one or two times it happened in reverse like it's ok.

But that doesn't even matter as much as the fact that it's 2014. Steeped in biblical mythology or not, these kingdoms did exist. This movie sends a message that even with 'the advancements of social acceptance', Hollywood still believes people will not want to see a movie unless it has a majority of white actors playing the roles. Because the audience is comfortable with that. So a story isn't worth telling if we can't put more white people in it. That's insulting the intelligence of everyone. That's the real problem.

 

[Something Amyss]

I.. really dont understand here. So Marvel can do what ever they want because they say their characters are alien and that they inspired the Norse (putting their creative freedom above history)?

I wonder why nobody moaned about this before Thor came out. There was a history of decades of sci fi elements in Thor comics, but the only thing that seemed to become an issue was that one of the space aliens was black. Huh.

But these people can't make their movie have a sphinx that resembles the main cast because that is a molestation of history and also racist (not being allowed to put their creative freedom above history)?

If they were going the route of "The Bible is a fairy tale and the Jews and Christians are wrong," sure. But they're not going that route, are they?

So stop putting words in my mouth to rationalise.

What this branch-thread was about is that it is hypocritical that white can go black but black cant go white.

Bringing up Heimdall vs Heimdalr brings up the context surrounding it. It's a dishonest claim and should be called out. You don't get to bring something up and then scream "it's not fair top use my own examples against me!" If you don't want your bad examples called out, don't use them. Heimdall and the cast of Exodus are two different stories.

Personally, I think arguing the ethnicity of Moses is like arguing the Hulk's shoe size. But if you're going to pretend he's real, even tie him to historic figures (as this movie does) and add pretense to historicity, then you're on different ground than when you're talking comic book characters. This isn't a story about aliens who inspired the Bible--though that would be waaaaay cooler--and if it was, tables would be flipped.

 

[Something Amyss]

Guess this is a case of "Once you go black you never go back" being taken literally.

Or, you know....A complete misrepresentation of another's words.

 

[LobsterFeng]

Don't know if this is on topic but most Christians I kn believe that the Israelites were white so I guess they're just appealing to that demographic or whatever.