Exodus, and Scott's Scandal

 

An upcoming biblical epic, directed by Ridley Scott, called Exodus: Gods and Kings, has created a very big stir in the film industry as of late. All over different social networks people have been using a specifically formed hashtag to show their dislike for the movie's casting by saying #BoycottExodusMovie. I first saw this hashtag used on Facebook before coming to school this semester and decided to look up what was causing such a strong feeling of anger on social medias. What I ultimately found was that the casting of the upcoming movie was almost completely and utterly white-washed, save for the African Americans cast as slaves. Big name white actors were cast in historic roles such as Sigourney Weaver as Queen Tuya , Aaron Paul as Joshua, Christian Bale as Moses, and Joel Edgerton as Ramses. Anger has erupted all over the internet on things like the Huffington Post, Twitter, Facebook, Forbes online, among other well-known websites, and sites that specifically talk about movies. On the Huff Post Entertainment website, the scandal was talked about in the first of the month of October where the author wrote;

"Ridley Scott is one of those guys who’s apparently hellbent on historical accuracy but doesn’t care enough to cast a person of color as Moses or a goddamn African queen while simultaneously filling out the rest of the movie with Black servants and thieves," David Dennis Jr. wrote in a post for Medium called "You Probably Shouldn't Go See Ridley Scott's Pretty Racist 'Exodus' Movie." "But to make the main characters white and everyone else African is cinematic colonialism. It’s creating a piece of historical 'art' that carries on oppressive imagery that’s helped shackle entire countries and corners of the world."

The anger felt by people when they read about or saw the cast is and was rightfully placed. No longer are we in a time where it is acceptable for people to don an ethnicity for no reason other than it being a great acting role. There are actors out there that are most certainly of the right race and ethnicity who would be more than capable of portraying these roles, and yet someone like John Turturro, who plays Pharaoh Seti, is cast over others because he is a big name, has a reputation of being a great actor, and will attract fans/attention and therefore more money. And not only did they decide to make every role of merit a white actor, they also decided that any African actor would be made a slave, servant, or thief. It may be one thing to cast a single role as a white actor, and have the rest be set according to ethnicity as in the movie about Gandhi's life, in which Ben Kingsley played the main title. The film's production crew and creators decided to make every single title role a white actor. On the Forbes website, after speaking a bit about Hollywood's unnecessary battle additives in historical movie, Scott Mendelson, a contributor, said this quite poignant and bluntly honest statement,

"All due respect to the likes of Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver, and Aaron Paul, but they presumably don’t resemble whatever Moses and Ramses and company looked like back in the proverbial day. The film has faced accusations of “whitewashing” since the beginning and it’s a tough charge to dispute when you see white actors made up not that differently from the days when John Wayne played Genghis Khan. The film will or won’t work on its own artistic merits of course, but I still find it a bit baffling that an industry now dead-set on maximizing worldwide box office doesn’t make more of an effort to cast actors of appropriate ethnicity even when the story explicitly calls for it."

And he's touching upon a key point. In America we boast our ability and willingness to create controversial movies about all sorts of people all over the world, but do we actually do them right? Do we do them justice? How can we justify our casting choices when they actually don't represent the ethnicity that is being portrayed? Wouldn't (or shouldn't) that actually be considered a misrepresentation as well as historically inaccurate? Also, isn't it essentially a new form of blackface that they are trying to get away with? We, as a society, have come to terms with the fact that black face is wrong on many levels, so why is this movie trying to make it ok to makeup a face into a different ethnicity, which is just as offensive? To further my search on social media I went on my twitter account and searched under #BoycottExodusMovie. People on Twitter have created a backlash to this movie with this hashtag use, questioning its motives, and quite harshly stating their opinion. But they are justified in their reactions, for what they are saying has merit and is, quite frankly, true. For example, here are a few Twitter responses along with the one shown at the top of the blog:

 

 

 Not surprisingly I also discovered a petition going around the internet under further investigation of the topic. I'm not sure if they are calling for a re-make of the movie, or if they just want an explanation, but to date the petition has six hundred and six signers with a caption that says "394 to go." The message to be signed on the petition states,

"To
20th Century Ridley Scott Hollywood,

The Bible says both Egyptians and Ethiopians are
descendants of Ham. Remember, Egypt wasn't invaded by
Rome until 300 BC. Egypt is in Africa, not Europe.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]"

The comment addressing people at the top of the page states. "People must know real history and not European lies. The Europeans didn't even exist in Ancient days. Please do not support fake history." And this was created by a regular guy out in Texas. People understand and name the problem; The control and decisions of those that make the film influence what is seen and who is represented in the media. These films that are meant bring "understanding" about historical events lose their meaning almost instantly when a casting director/main director creates a cast that is white-washed. I find it really interesting and actually quite empowering that regular people, with not much sway over people on the individual level, are taking the time to say their opinion on the internet and try to gather people together to revolt against something that they have all found to be extremely offensive. It goes to show how far we have come as a society because of the need to show


TO WATCH THE TRAILER CLICK BELOW

Mendelson, Scott. "'Exodus: Gods And Kings,' With Christian Bale As Moses, Gets Long Trailer." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.

 

Rosen, Christopher. "'Exodus: Gods And Kings' Trailer Will Not Be Humbled." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 01 Oct. 2014. Web. 21 Oct. 2014.

 

Wilson, Adidas. "20th Century Fox Ridley Scott Hollywood: The Bible Says Both Egyptians and Ethiopians Are Descendants of Ham. Last Time I Checked That Was Africa." Change.org. Change.org, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2014.