Last week, I took my seat in the theatre. Lights dimmed, seats reclined , and the screen flickered. First up, Christian Bale, marbley-mouthed and growling. "Whuuu?", I thought, "The Dark Knight wrapped two years ago." Which, of course it did. But, this was not Christian-Bale-as-Gotham-saver, this was Christian-Bale-as-savior-of-the-Chosen-People. Saving them from the likes of Ramesses II. The Ramesses that history must have gotten wrong this whole time because, though he's been described as a powerful African king-god, all I see here is an overly-bronzed Aussie who needs to lay off the eyebrow pencil. I see, too, Sigourney Weaver, a Ridley Scott favorite and our patron saint of badassery. Here, she has exchanged her flamethrower for milky white linen that she all but disappears into.
I could go on.
When asked about Exodus's oh-so-obvious whitewashing, Ridley Scott had this to say: “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such... I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”
1) "Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such"?!?! OMG, I guess we're not even bothering to hide our racism, huh?
2) Two of the top ten highest paid actors in Hollywood this year are people of color (Dwayne Johnson, $52 mil.; Will Smith, $32 mil.). Now, while I'd like there to be more than two in the top ten, you can no longer hide behind this myth that no one wants to watch a black lead! Remember how the internet lost its mind when it spotted Idris Elba's mic pack? I guess that was because no one's got their eyes on black stars all the time always. Nope. Over it.
3) Ridley Scott, godfather of modern day sci-fi, who is known for a solitary vision over an indisputable 40-year career, can't convince some Spaniards that he'd be better off hiring a few "Moors"? Yeah, ok.
Scott and his ilk hide behind money and behind precedent. They bemoan the "risk" and blame audiences' disinterest. They bend over backwards to point out that Passion of the Christ, Gladiator and Noah all lacked PoC leads and did "well" (side note: Go away, Russell Crowe), and that the last Moses was played by a white dude, too. But if we're comparing our 2014 efforts to 1950's achievements, can we really say we've raised the bar (or justified a new, bloated $200 million dollar price tag)? I mean, look at this! Does this look like a casting job well done?
Props to the "Egyptian Lower Class Civilians". You've made it!
Furthermore, it's awfully easy for a white man with millions to shrug off the issue with a dismissive "[it] doesn't even come up", because here's the thing: for a person who belongs to a disenfranchised community, "it" always comes up. Hey, black people, stop complaining about your lived experiences! Hey, women, just demand respect and be happy when you very quickly get it! Gays, go out there and live as though the law protects you equally! If getting equality was as simple as just asking for it then, no Ridley, equitable representation wouldn't even come up. But it's not simple and it does come up. In fact, you're bringing it up! With Exodus, you are rewriting history away from people of color and participating in a system that says Egypt, and all its cultural achievements, is explained away by the presence of white people. Black people are welcome to contribute only as low class thieves.
Of all Scott's fiction, this is the one I believe the least.
