A couple of weeks before Christmas, a Welshman will play Moses on the silver screen.
Some people will read that sentence and see nothing wrong, but those with a basic knowledge of cinematic history, or history in general, will see some major red flags.
“Exodus: Gods and Kings” will be released Friday, starring Christian Bale, known for playing Batman in the trilogy, as Moses. Joel Edgerton, the Aussie who played Tom Buchanan in the “Great Gatsby,” will portray the Egyptian pharaoh, Rhamses.
The plot follows the biblical story of Moses, retold through the eyes of Ridley Scott (“Robin Hood,” “Kingdom of Heaven,” “Gladiator,” “Blade Runner” and “Alien”). The cast has a slew of familiar, talented faces like Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, John Tuturro and Aaron Paul.
What I’m trying to say is we know the movie will be at least decent. However, there is one big problem here, and it’s something called racebending.
Via: Curtains Rise
The most obvious form of race bending, or “whitewashing” as others call it, is blackface, which took place mainly in the 20th Century. Blackface is the practice of white actors painting their faces in derogatory manner to look like African Americans. University of Florida students were acquainted with this in the last year or so. (Halloween anyone?)
If you’ve seen an old cowboys and Indians movie, where an obviously white guy is doused in self-tanner and called a Native American, you’ve witnessed the phenomenon as well. Ironically enough, racebending doesn’t discriminate. Asian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern and other ethnic figures have been portrayed in demeaning and stereotypical ways by white actors.
So here we are in 2014, and a predominantly British and American cast is playing characters that would be, according to the Old Testament, from Africa and the Middle East.
Via: Blogspot
Obviously we’d have an issue, if, for instance, the movie “Selma” — a movie about Martin Luther King and the marches in Selma, Alabama, set for January 2015 release, were casted with black-faced actors. What makes the casting for Exodus different?
For many people, it hasn’t settled well with them. When faced with mounting criticism over the casting, director Ridley Scott said that he would not receive the funding he would have needed for the film if his “lead actor is Muhammad so-and-so from such-and-such.” (And, that, my friends, is a whole other issue.)
Unfortunately, we’ve seen this before, albeit not as directly. “Lone Ranger” starred Johnny Depp as Tonto. Rooney Mara is slated to play Tiger Lilly, another Native American character, in the upcoming 2015 film “Pan.”
Maybe the most overlooked example is everyone’s favorite heroine: Katniss Everdeen of “The Hunger Games,” played by Jennifer Lawrence. Multiple news sources have quoted the casting call parameters for Katniss’ character, which said, “She should be Caucasian, between ages 15 and 20, who could portray someone ‘underfed but strong,’ and ‘naturally pretty underneath her tomboyishness.” For those who remember the books, however, Katniss was supposed to have darker, olive-colored skin. However much I love Jennifer Lawrence, the “girl on fire” was supposed to look more like Q’orianka Kilcher than J-Law.
Via: Tirocomarco
Although that distinction may seem miniscule, maybe even petty, it still shows how even in our favorite films that seem as close to realism as humanly possible, there is still this tendency to cast the white actor over an ethnic one.
There are some movies, however, that try to break the practice.
“Captain Phillips,” starring Tom Hanks, is one of them. It was praised for casting Somali-born actors to play the Somali pirates in the film. The actors who played the pirate captain, Barkhad Abdi, went on to be nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, and he won the BAFTA for his performance. He was a limo driver before he was cast.
Sure, addressing Scott’s argument, the budget was significantly smaller in “Captain Phillips” than in “Exodus,” but obviously the movie was good enough to be nominated for all of the major film awards, despite its modest funding.
Even with instances “Captain Phillips,” where the movies do get it right, the public is confused by the racial choice. Throwing it back to “The Hunger Games,” the character Rue was described in the book as having dark skin and brown hair. However, when people heard that actress Amandla Stenberg would play the young character, people were either upset that they stuck to the book so closely or didn’t understand that Rue is supposed to be dark-skinned.
Via: Single Black Male
So back to “Exodus.” Personally, I won’t be seeing this movie. It proves that although in many ways we are moving forward, in other, more obvious, ways, we haven’t progressed very much at all. This movie maintains a precedence that should be removed from filmmaking as a whole. It’s obvious that it is impossible to cast the perfect dead-on version of a fictional character, but some movies, like this one, didn’t seem to even try.
Maybe the problem is us. We will still go, people of all colors, to the theater thinking they are going to get a “Gladiator”-ed version of their favorite Bible story, unfettered by what we’re seeing on the screen. In reality, what we are getting is a throwback to good ol’ fashioned racism.
Happy holidays, folks.
Feature photo courtesy of: Indiewire
