Thursday, January 8, 2015
Jeff Lampl
Jeff Lampl
(CNN)
- The new biblical epic from director Ridley Scott,
"Exodus: Gods and Kings." has a race problem.
We've known since the moment the full cast was announced: nearly every major role in the movie is played by a white actor.
What makes it worse for many observers is that, on the flip side, virtually every black actor in the movie is playing a part called "Egyptian thief" or "assassin" or "royal servant" or "Egyptian lower class civilian."
In the weeks before "Exodus" opens, on December 12, a number of people, from African-American activists to Jewish journalists, have called for a boycott of the potential blockbuster.
"As much as I love a good Bible movie, I'm going to go ahead and boycott this one," wrote Sigall Samuel in the Jewish Daily Forward. "And invite my fellow Jews to join me."
If "Exodus" were a tale set in the antebellum South, such a disparity might be historically justifiable. But this story is set in Egypt (which was part of Africa even back them), with characters of exclusively Middle Eastern origin. According to the Bible, Abraham, and therefore all subsequent Jews, were of Mesopotamian - that is, Iraqi - descent.
Before we start skewering Scott too thoroughly, we should probably remember that the whitewashing of Bible movies is a well-established tradition. Cecile B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" should probably get a pass, as it was made in 1956, before Hollywood was integrated to any substantial degree.
I suspect that all of this matters in terms of healing racism. Do you?
We've known since the moment the full cast was announced: nearly every major role in the movie is played by a white actor.
What makes it worse for many observers is that, on the flip side, virtually every black actor in the movie is playing a part called "Egyptian thief" or "assassin" or "royal servant" or "Egyptian lower class civilian."
In the weeks before "Exodus" opens, on December 12, a number of people, from African-American activists to Jewish journalists, have called for a boycott of the potential blockbuster.
"As much as I love a good Bible movie, I'm going to go ahead and boycott this one," wrote Sigall Samuel in the Jewish Daily Forward. "And invite my fellow Jews to join me."
If "Exodus" were a tale set in the antebellum South, such a disparity might be historically justifiable. But this story is set in Egypt (which was part of Africa even back them), with characters of exclusively Middle Eastern origin. According to the Bible, Abraham, and therefore all subsequent Jews, were of Mesopotamian - that is, Iraqi - descent.
Before we start skewering Scott too thoroughly, we should probably remember that the whitewashing of Bible movies is a well-established tradition. Cecile B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" should probably get a pass, as it was made in 1956, before Hollywood was integrated to any substantial degree.
I suspect that all of this matters in terms of healing racism. Do you?
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