All-white Moses row: £90m Ridley Scott epic slammed over lack of black actors playing Egyptians

MailOnline ^ | 27 November 2014 | Sam Creighton

[dennisw]

The hashtag #boycottexodusmovie has been trending on Twitter as posters express there anger over the film's casting of white actors as Egyptians Director Ridley Scott has been bullish about the issue of casting and said it was a business decision to hire white actors He claimed he wouldn't get financing if he hired 'Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such' The cast does includes a number of actors of color, although it is mainly in minors roles including as servants.

Sir Ridley Scott has found himself embroiled in a race row after his latest film was branded ‘too white’.

Twitter users are urging a boycott of Exodus: Gods and Kings, which tells the story of Moses, calling it ‘offensive’ and ‘unacceptable’ that white actors are playing the roles of Egyptians.

Sir Ridley, who made his name as a director with Alien and has been Oscar-nominated three times, defended his casting by claiming he would not have been able to finance its £90million budget if he had hired unknown Egyptian actors instead of established Hollywood stars.

While a number of ethnic minority actors have also been cast, including Sir Ben Kingsley, the majority of the non-white performers are in background roles, often even playing slaves or criminals.

But this has done little to placate the critics. One Twitter user said: ‘I’ll be boycotting Exodus and so should everyone else to tell Hollywood that whitewashing is sick and unacceptable’, while another called the casting of Oscar-winner Bale as ‘offensive’.

[RegulatorCountry]

They’re slaves and not Egyptian royalty.

[wardaddy]

Never ever black pharoahs....that is Cornel West style claptrap

The kushite 25th dynasty some 2700 years ago was short lived and included a peoples from lower Nile a bit darker than Egyptians with straight hair and thin lips

Nor were they Hamitic... and for sure not negroes

Its amazing the damage a lazy academia and captured media do....actually not...just look at this president.

[Nepeta]

To see what ancient Egyptians looked like, look at ancient Egyptian art. They portrayed people as they were, in their actual hues.

Ancient Egyptians...looked a lot like modern Egyptians...

There was one black dynasty.

[matt1234]

Balk Like an Egyptian

[ansel12]

I used to have a collection of movie reviews for “Black Hawk Down” in Somalia, my favorite was one that complained about all the bad guys being black while the good guys (the Rangers and Delta) were almost all white.

[American in Israel]

Copts, DNA Egyptians, not the Muslim invaders, are not black.

[dennisw]

I’m still trying to figure out the black dude in the new Star Wars trailer...

Me too and I'm not even going to go out of my way to see it. Jar Jar Binks was diverse enough for me

[Berlin_Freeper]

Whites can be in the movie but they need to Support blacks, shut up and ‘refrain from taking up space’

[MaxMax]

Whites going out to see a Black movie might be asking for trouble.
For one, they never stay seated and never shut the hell up.

[PghBaldy]

One thing though, many Jews today are part European, due to intermarriage after leaving the Holy Land almost 2000 years ago.

[Mark17]

Holy Moses! Will the race-grievance mongers do the world a favor and STFU?

I would rather they FOAD.

[Altura Ct.]

Whiners

[Gaffer]

Seems to me nowadays that Hollywood spends as much time as it can trying to stretch some character to make him/her black. They don’t make any bones about it, even to the point of being ridiculous.

My most memorable instance is the black daughter of Jeff Goldblum in the second (I think) Jurassic Park movie. Totally unbelievable and pathetic really. And that one scene they concocted for her as a ‘gymnast’ who kicked the Velociraptor on a set of makeshift uneven bars was just contrived - badly as that.

[PIF]

Just goes to show the value of a modern schools and the total lack of or downplaying of ancient history.

The people who ruled Egypt at the time were likely either those called "Westerners" or their immediate descendants - referring to those who lived to the West of the Central Nile Delta. Most of their culture in Egypt was in the Delta area, now under countless feet of sediment.

These people were blond, blue eyed, and had straight hair. They built megalithic structures from the Atlantic Coast of Africa to Malta to England. There is more than a fair chance that they even built the entire complex at Giza - which could only have been built as a whole, at one time - early on in the Old Kingdom or even before it. (Before any one argues about this, understand the complex is dated using Kings Lists, assumptions, and agendas. Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating has only been conducted once in Giza, giving a few dates that are far older then assumed. Further tests are either banned or not possible - too many apple carts upset).

"Westerners" captured by Lower Egyptian Old Kingdom Pharaoh

The totality of modern Egyptology is in total chaos as far as dating and who was which Pharaoh when. This is due to the recent discovery that one of the main Kings Lists which many in the field used to date structures has proved to be an early 20th century forgery. The one genuine list by an individual, Manetho, may have been the first Pharaoh, aka the Scorpion King of the Old Kingdom. In other words, everything we thought we knew a decade ago is either different or wrong. Zahi Hawas and Lerner have huge reputations and agendas to protect, not to mention "Egyptian Pride".

Another problem is that many kings had the same name as another king, used different names at different times, known kings do not appear on the Lists, or List named kings are unknown historically.

By the time of Moses, all this was very ancient history, mostly forgotten.

Were there blacks in prominent positions in the New Kingdom? Perhaps, but there is no certainty, unless a tomb statue is found or something stating the individual came from Upper Egypt or Kush. The rein of the so-called Black Pharaohs date long after Moses - around 715 BC. The time of Moses to those Pharaohs would have been a little known history, as at least 500 years had gone by.

What is traditionally thought of as ancient Egyptian culture is actually derived from the "Westerners" culture, and the obsessive imitation of it. Beyond the exceptional individual, it is unlikely that blacks in any numbers had any prominent roles, and, in fact as few as there are, may be historically over-represented in the movie.

[trebb]

Simple solution - those who want minorities to play leading roles can fund the cost of making the movie and accept the financial risk of having no-name epics...

[Sherman Logan]

OTOH, Egypt has been conquered and ruled by everybody under the sun for 2500 years. Presumably considerable foreign blood made its way into the population.

I’m amused by this criticism, since quite a while back Lou Gossett, an African-American, played Sadat in a TV movie. It offended the hell out of Egyptians, despite the observable fact that Gosset was very nearly a dead ringer for Sadat.

I suspect most of these critics are American or Euros, not Egyptians.

It is obvious, BTW, that as one goes south in Egypt people tend to become considerably darker of complexion.

[hal ogen]

Does the movie have a significant number of trannies, old drag queens, homosexuals, child molesters, ferfuson protesters, trayvon protesters, people marrying trees and others? If not, close it down. This is sooooooo unfair.

[sheana]

I saw a trailer for Annie the other day. Seems she is black now too. lol

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Egyptians were not racists—Some pharaohs were white, some were black but most were Hamic brown—skin color ment nothing to them—what they were interested in was which gods you bowed down too. Cleopatra was of Greek heritage—but spoke Coptic Egyptian, prayed to Isis, and dressed and ate like an Egyptian and was loved by most of her people for it.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

If you want to do a film about Homosexuals—make one about Greece—they were filled with them!