Exodus Gods and Kings casting controversy

[theworldismine13]

Exodus Gods and Kings casting controversy
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...ohammad-soandso-from-suchandsuch-9885345.html

has said it would be impossible to finance films if his lead actor was an unknown called "Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such".

Responding to months of criticism over the apparent lack of ethnic diversity in Exodus: Gods and Kings, the Gladiator director brushed off the outrage by insisting that, had white actors not filled most of the key roles in his upcoming biblical epic, it would never have got off the ground financially.

“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,” he toldVariety.

“I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”

Oscar winner Christian Bale (The Dark Knight, The Fighter) plays historically Middle Eastern character Moses in Exodus, while white actors Joel Edgerton and Sigourney Weaver star as Egyptian Pharaoh Rhamses and Queen Tuya respectively.

Ethnic minority actors do feature, but in secondary roles (Ben Kingsley as Nun, Golshifteh Farahani as Nefertari and Indira Varma as Miriam, for example).



Christian Bale on screen
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Scott addressed his critics last August by assuring film fans that Exodus would represent “a confluence of cultures”.

“There are many different theories about the ethnicity of the Egyptian people and we had a lot of discussions about how to best represent the culture,” he told Yahoo.

“We cast major actors from different ethnicities to reflect the diversity of culture, from Iranians to Spaniards to Arabs.”

Edgerton also responded to complaints, acknowledging the ‘whitewashing’ accusations as fair.

“It’s not my job to make those decisions, he told SBS. “I got asked to do a job and it would have been very hard to say no to that job. But I do say that I am sensitive to it and I do, I do understand and empathise with that position.”

However, a protest was soon launched on Twitter urging cinema-goers to #BoycottExodusMovie.

Scott's film is not the only one to come under fire for its allegedly racist casting. Upcoming Warner Bros movie Pan has been criticised for casting white actress Rooney Mara in the role of Native American princess Tiger Lily.

The Hollywood Diversity Report, published earlier this year showed that only 11 per cent of films cast an ethnic minority actor in a lead role while ethnic minority actors made up just 10 per cent of the cast in the majority of movies.

 

[theworldismine13]

Rupert Murdoch defends new Exodus film: All Egyptians I know are white
http://thegrio.com/2014/11/28/rupert-murdoch-exodus-egyptians-twitter/

Rupert Murdoch, founder, Chairman and CEO of News Corporation — one of the largest media companies in the world — took to Twitter to defend the upcoming movie Exodus: Gods and Kings. The film, which is being distributed by Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox, features Christian Bale as Moses, Aaron Paul as Joshua and Sigourney Weaver as Tuya. The Ridley Scott directed film has taken a hit for its lack of diversity, particularly because the movie is portraying historic people of color.

But those complaints seemed to baffle Murdoch. His tweet read: ‘Moses film attacked on Twitter for all white cast. Since when are Egyptians not white? All I know are.’


This obviously created an immediate social media backlash, to which he offered a bit of clarification…well sort of.


His following tweet, which was a bit of a non-sequitur, was meant to shut down the controversy with one of the biggest revelations in color since the invention of crayons. ‘Okay, there are many shades of color. Nothing racist about that, so calm down!”



Exodus: Gods and Kings opens in theaters in December. This is the second biblical story of 2014 that suffered from Hollywood’s whitewashing. March’s box-office flop Noah starring Russell Crowe was also panned for it’s lack of diversity.

 

[Earnings]

 

[Diunx]

 

[rantanamo]

LOL, is this real? They didn't even want Donald Glover to be Spider-man and mad about Boyega being a Storm Trooper, lol

 

[88m3]

What's the issue here again? There aren't Arab actors in Hollywood? Arabs and Jews aren't white? Or is this one of those semantic arguments about Egypt being black?

 

[ORDER_66]

There's plenty of egyptian and ethnic looking actors out there to play the lead roles... its just hollywood selling itself out to white people because even though its a fictional story there couldnt be any people of color in such lead roles... white people wouldnt see the movie then...

if ridley scott had the balls he should have pulled a mel gibson... passion of the christ made how much money????

 

[theworldismine13]

What's the issue here again? There aren't Arab actors in Hollywood? Arabs and Jews aren't white? Or is this one of those semantic arguments about Egypt being black?

Yes it's a semantic argument about Egypt being black

 

[theworldismine13]

It will be interesting to see how it does in the box office, Noah and Airbender had the same issues and they flopped, let's see if this flops

 

[GetInTheTruck]

There's plenty of egyptian and ethnic looking actors out there to play the lead roles... its just hollywood selling itself out to white people because even though its a fictional story there couldnt be any people of color in such lead roles... white people wouldnt see the movie then...

if ridley scott had the balls he should have pulled a mel gibson... passion of the christ made how much money????

Yeah but Christian Bale in a leading role will sell more movie tickets than some no-name dark skinned actor. Hollywood is run by whites so they will cater to their own. If black people want to see Black egypt movies they will have to make them, it's really that simple.

The controversy here shouldn't be about what race the actors/actresses portraying Moses and the Egyptians are, it should be about who they cast to be criminals and lower-class egyptians in the film....but I don't see anybody worried about that really.

 

[dabestkeptsecret]

Whats funny we have plenty of art from that era showing hylogriphics with dark skinned people, and the sphinx having a broad nose, before it was shot off.
But now we dont know what ethnicity the ancient egyptians were
I could understand why in the 60s when they made the 10 commandments they used white actors. But in 2014 they're basically doing the same thing

 

[Truth200]

There's plenty of egyptian and ethnic looking actors out there to play the lead roles... its just hollywood selling itself out to white people because even though its a fictional story there couldnt be any people of color in such lead roles... white people wouldnt see the movie then...

if ridley scott had the balls he should have pulled a mel gibson... passion of the christ made how much money????

Like you said in the end it's just a fictional story so I don't know why anyone would even care.

 

[The_King_of_Everything]

What's the issue here again? There aren't Arab actors in Hollywood? Arabs and Jews aren't white? Or is this one of those semantic arguments about Egypt being black?

Look guys

 

[the cac mamba]

'said it would be impossible to finance films if his lead actor was an unknown called "Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such".



yo dude wasnt writing a history text, he was trying to make a movie that returns as much money as possible

and the thing about this quote is if you read it again, he IS conceding that the leads shouldnt have been white people if he was going for historical accuracy, and he DIDNT give the leads to the accurate races

 

[Yapdatfool]

I thought the movie was a remake of the Ten Commandments