Ridley Scott’s film Exodus: Gods and Kings has been the target of online protests for several months. Critics accuse it of using a white cast to portray the heroes of an ancient Egypt that may well have been populated by Black people. The film’s team responded to the controversy with a clever sidestep. Here is an analysis of an argument that lacks credibility.
By Sandro CAPO CHICHI / nofi.fr
From the very first images released from the casting of Exodus: Gods and Kings, criticism emerged over the casting bias, where Egyptian and Hebrew heroes are portrayed by white actors of European descent, while Black actors are reduced to roles as criminals, servants, or members of the lower social classes of pharaonic society.
As early as August, the film’s director Ridley Scott addressed the issue in an interview with Yahoo Australia, without actually responding to the core criticism:
“Egypt was—much like it is today—a blend of cultures, the result of a crossroads geographically situated between Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. We chose actors of different nationalities to represent this cultural diversity, ranging from Iranians to Spaniards to Arabs. There are several different theories regarding the ethnic origins of the ancient Egyptians, and we had many discussions about how best to represent this culture.”
First of all, with these remarks, Ridley Scott failed to answer the criticism directed at him. Egypt today may indeed be close to the Middle East and Europe, but it is also bordered by what is commonly called Black Africa. If he truly wanted to speak of a crossroads, Scott’s examples of represented ethnic groups should not have been limited to Spaniards (Europeans influenced by North Africa), Iranians (an Indo-European people established in the Middle East), and Arabs (a Semitic people from the Middle East). In speaking of a melting pot, Scott should have referred to Middle Eastern, North African, and Sub-Saharan African actors, which are the true neighboring regions of Egypt. Significant European immigration into Egypt appeared much later in history than the reign of Ramses II (13th century BCE), during which the plot of Exodus takes place.
And even though the cast does include actors of Sub-Saharan African descent (or Afro-descendants), Scott does not address the controversy accusing him of relegating them to the bottom of the Egyptian social hierarchy. By what logic did Scott and his team conclude that a Black person in ancient Egypt could only be a murderer, servant, thief, or poor man—other than the mindset of the average 21st-century white American racist, who sees Black people only as potential bank robbers, slaves, homeless people, hitmen, or shoplifters?
These stereotypes are apparently deeply rooted in the collective imagination, as shown by comments made by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch:
Once again, one would like to know what makes Murdoch say that ancient Egyptians—whatever their color(s) may have been—treated “Blacks” as slaves, apart from a modern European and Arab-Muslim racist logic. Certainly, there were servants from Sub-Saharan Africa in Egypt, but there were also Middle Eastern servants. There were also kings and queens recently descended from populations south of the Sahara, generals, feared armies, renowned priests and physicians, and more.
The second point raised by Murdoch—that all the Egyptians he knows are white—shows that he does not understand the controversy surrounding the origins of the ancient Egyptians. No one in this debate questions the fact that some modern Egyptians are white and “Mediterranean” in appearance, like some Spaniards or Italians. What is disputed, however, is whether the ancient Egyptians looked that way. For many people, including most of the protesters against the casting of Exodus, Egyptians acquired this “white” complexion only after their ancestors’ land was invaded by Middle Easterners, Libyans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Britons, and others.
Too many observers like Murdoch rely on modern Egyptians to recreate a reality from more than three thousand years ago without consulting the data from that era.
As the controversy intensified, Christian Bale, who plays Moses—a Hebrew who supposedly resembled an Egyptian enough for his adoption to go unnoticed—as well as Ridley Scott once again addressed the issue a few weeks ago.
For the British actor: “There is no doubt that (ancient Egypt) must have been a melting pot between Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.”
For Scott, speaking to Variety, the issue is financial:
“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 Somewhere-or-Other. I simply wouldn’t get financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.”
Bale is mistaken. The Egyptian language draws from several languages originating south of the Sahara as well as some from North Africa and the Middle East. Contributions from European languages appear virtually nonexistent according to most specialists in Egyptian etymology and grammar origins.
By stopping his refusal to face reality—or by ceasing to associate with Egyptologists racist enough to believe Egyptians are better represented by Celtic and Germanic peoples than by Afro-descendants—Ridley Scott could easily have found an answer to his problem. There are many “bankable” Hollywood actors with the complexion of Ramses II as he portrayed himself on historical monuments.
The only problem is that they are, probably much to Scott and his circle’s dismay, Black.
