S.M. Carrière . com
Connect:
  • Home
  • About
  • Titles
    • Daughters Of Britain
    • Dear Father
    • Ethan Cadfael: The Battle Prince
    • Human
    • Skylark
    • The Dying God & Other Stories
    • The Seraphimè Saga >
      • The Summer Bird (v.1)
      • The Winter Wolf (v.2)
    • Your Very Own Adventures >
      • Skara Braens
      • Sky Road Walker
    • WIP Updates
  • Art
  • Other Projects
    • Editing Services
    • Charity Efforts >
      • Gàrradh nan Leannan
      • Have a Heart Campaign
    • Journal
    • Martial Arts
    • Silver Stag Entertainment
    • The Adventures of Grimglum the Nord
    • SMC Awkwardly Plays
  • Shop
    • Books
    • Art Prints
  • Contact

This Wash is Very White

19/11/2015

0 Comments

 
Good morning, Readers!

So, yesterday, I watched the trailer for the upcoming action film Gods of Egypt.  Not going to lie, I want to go see it.  I'm a sucker for action flicks, and throw any kind of mythology in there (accurate or otherwise, and since this is Hollywood, it's going to be otherwise), and I'm totally down for it.

There is something, however that really bugs me about this trailer.  Can you guess?  Here, watch it for yourself:
Have you guessed it yet?

I'll give you a clue:

It's set in Egypt.

Have the problem yet?

I'll give you another clue... oh hell, I'll just tell you.

Gods of Egypt, your Egyptians are extremely... white.

​Why, Hollywood?  Why must you always whitewash everything?  Over two minutes of footage and not a single character in it who looks remotely the part.  I mean, you do understand that Egypt is in Africa, right?  You do know that it was a meeting point for various cultures; Northeast Africa, Northwest Africa, Sahara, Sub-Sahara, the Near East and the Mediterranean.  Where are all the black people (I spotted one. ONE)? Any Arabs in the house?  Someone who could pass for ancient Greek?

No, instead we have two Egyptian gods played by European actors; one is a Scot and the other is a Dane.  A very white-looking thief and an incredibly white girl who sends him off on his quest.

Don't get me wrong, I very much enjoy both Gerard Butler and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.  I've had a crush on Mr. Coster-Waldau since I saw him in the only romantic comedy I have ever enjoyed... and that's because it had tennis in it.

But they are decidedly not Egyptian.  Neither are, apparently, the people of Egypt.

For fuck's sake, Hollywood!  There are surely wonderful Egyptian actors who could have filled these roles, right?  Even if only the role of the thief and his love interest/could be sister, I don't fucking know.

And whhhhyyyyyyyyyyy are the people of Egypt speaking with British accents?

UGH!


It's 2015, isn't it?  Surely the movie-going audience is perfectly capable of accepting an Egyptian cast for a film SET IN FUCKING ANCIENT EGYPT!

Why am I going ballistic over this?  I'm white.  Why does it bother me?

Well, purely from a story-telling point of view, I expect to see Egyptians in my films about Egypt.  I'm a little weird like that.

Secondly, representation matters.  I'm so tired of see white faces where they don't belong.  I want to see different faces, more accurately representing both the region/time in which the film is supposed to be set and the fact that white people are not the only kind of people on the planet.  Life is increasingly multi-cultural.  Why are films still not?

I can give a lot of leeway on the accuracy of films such as this. They are, after all, fiction, not documentaries, but this is just absurd.

Thinking on my own writing, I think I would be very upset if any film-maker bought the rights to, say, The Seraphimé Saga and then cast a very white actress in the main role.  Seraphimé is not white.  She is the fantastical version of a woman from a culture approximating a mix of the ancient nomads of the Russian Steppes and the semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers of prehistoric northern Europe.  I would like to see her played by a Mongolian actress, or perhaps an American First Nations actress, like Tanaya Beattie:
Picture
Very beautiful. Not. White. Image courtesy of IMDB.com. Click for link.
You know what, I will pre-emptively state for any interested parties, all of my contracts regarding any film rights for any of my stories will have a clause in them, and that clause will merely state:

Any whitewashing of any characters immediately nullifies the rights transfer. No refunds.

The same rule applies to any changes made to make homosexual or bisexual characters straight.  It's not happening.

It's 20-fucking-15!


I'm being facetious, of course.  I'm not big enough for anyone to even consider buying the film rights to any of my stories, and chances are very slim that I will ever get big enough for that (hell, some big enough names aren't having people knock down their doors for film rights), but this whitewashing shit really irks me.

Representation matters, and it's high time we acknowledged the wealth of talent and beauty in people who aren't white.

It irks me most of all because these film makers assume that I, their audience, am not sophisticated enough to handle a brown or black face on the screen before me.

Think better of me Hollywood, and perhaps I'll think better of you.

Now I have work to do.

​Ciao!
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    S.M. Carrière, a Celtic Studies enthusiast, writes fiction.  And this blog.

    Archives

    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    September 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014

    Categories

    All
    Book Reviews
    Events
    Gaming
    Human
    Life
    Rants
    Reading
    Seraphimè Saga
    Seraphimè Saga
    Skylark
    Television
    Training
    Travels
    Writing
    YouTube

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly