lol, seriously.
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Gods of Egypt director has meltdown on Facebook, critics are "deranged idiots"
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lol, seriously.
toastyToast
Member
You don't see the difference between the pantheon of a black and brown society being a bunch of white people that look nothing like them (except the protagonist of course) and the creative license to include one black guy in a Thor movie? Not even a bunch of black guys. Did Idris Elba play Thor, Loki or Odin? There's creative license and making a point. This movie is making a point.
Rudimental
Member
Heimdall being black is a part of the tongue in cheek current that runs through the Thor film. It is a deliberate play on his appearance in Norse mythology, where he is described as 'whitest of the gods'. So, based on the nature of the film itself, it is not an arbitrary choice, unlike the case of this film, where the race of the actors plays no such narrative role, at least that I can see.
It is also subversive, given that it reverses the dominant trend of having white actors portray people of colour, which is representative of the white oppression of people of colour. When this dynamic is reversed, and such a reversal is welcomed, this should reveal the artificiality of racialising film characters, i.e. claiming that they must be of a given race. When we combine this with the scarcity of this 'reverse whitewashing' and the preponderance of 'whitewashing' we should then see that the scale and imbalance is the problem, and not any single incidence of this. White people playing characters that we would think should be people of colour is not a problem in itself. It is a problem because of its scale, and because it is part of the wider issue of the oppression of people of colour.
stufte
Member
This is a great response, thanks!
Ooooooooooooooooooaaaaa...is this where Kung Pow's French Alien Pyramid joke came from?
I've actually watched this movie, and the latent racism in the casting is absolutely there. It's hard to say how much of it is intentional and how much is just being totally tone-deaf, but it's hard to argue that it is there when the biggest problem isn't that the main cast are all white dudes in a movie called Gods of Egypt. The problem is much deeper and it is everywhere.
Thoth is a really inane character, and being the only black representation among the named characters really makes it feel much more insulting. He's the "God of Wisdom" and the film repeatedly hammers it in that he's the wisest and smartest of all the gods. He also repeatedly reminds the audience and other characters of this because he is supposed to be a total egomaniac obsessed with his own superior intellect. Yet when they finally bring him on the mission for the one purpose they needed him for - his wisdom, he fumbles like a fool trying to answer the Sphinx's riddle, and only gets it right after being reminded by the white mortal lead to "stop thinking like a god". What a fucking joke. His only other role throughout the movie besides being insufferable is in the opening and ending scenes where he, as this supposedly wise teacher character, participates in the coronation ceremony of Jamie Lannister and endorses him as the One True King.
There's one other black character of minor importance in the plot. She's the other half of a set of twin warriors serving under Leonardis and his 300. Her sister is white. They both ride giant serpent mounts, one white, one black. Get it? Hurr hurr.
The rest of the brown and black people throughout the film are extras in the crowd, especially the dirty and simple peasant class people. They are just there to celebrate the greatness of Jamie Lannister. The movie also ends with a black peasant girl keening in reverence before the great and mighty Jamie Lannister as she offers him his missing eye, while he poses triumphantly, being very proud of the fact that he saved "his" people.
Thoth is a really inane character, and being the only black representation among the named characters really makes it feel much more insulting. He's the "God of Wisdom" and the film repeatedly hammers it in that he's the wisest and smartest of all the gods. He also repeatedly reminds the audience and other characters of this because he is supposed to be a total egomaniac obsessed with his own superior intellect. Yet when they finally bring him on the mission for the one purpose they needed him for - his wisdom, he fumbles like a fool trying to answer the Sphinx's riddle, and only gets it right after being reminded by the white mortal lead to "stop thinking like a god". What a fucking joke. His only other role throughout the movie besides being insufferable is in the opening and ending scenes where he, as this supposedly wise teacher character, participates in the coronation ceremony of Jamie Lannister and endorses him as the One True King.
There's one other black character of minor importance in the plot. She's the other half of a set of twin warriors serving under Leonardis and his 300. Her sister is white. They both ride giant serpent mounts, one white, one black. Get it? Hurr hurr.
The rest of the brown and black people throughout the film are extras in the crowd, especially the dirty and simple peasant class people. They are just there to celebrate the greatness of Jamie Lannister. The movie also ends with a black peasant girl keening in reverence before the great and mighty Jamie Lannister as she offers him his missing eye, while he poses triumphantly, being very proud of the fact that he saved "his" people.
UnemployedVillain
Member
Was anything preventing him from saying anything though? Even Ridley Scott tried standing up for himself as fas as casting for Exodus went
A Link to the Past
Banned
I like how he glosses over white washing as if it didn't happen. No, bruh, it happened, and everyone knows it. :v Ultimately though, casting the appropriate actors isn't going to save a shit movie.
EDIT: And looking at the comment duckroll posted, that he flipped his own switch to complain about PC culture tells me that he was just engaging in PR culture am I right
EDIT: And looking at the comment duckroll posted, that he flipped his own switch to complain about PC culture tells me that he was just engaging in PR culture am I right
How has one thing anything to do with the other? Also, in the age of Social Media, people give too much credit to meltdowns.
Had Facebook been around since the 60s, i'm sure they would've been a tradition, by now.
I don't care to defend Proyas nor his movie, but anyone can have a mental breakdown, especially after their big project failed so hard and you see the world collective shit on it happily.
People go into meltdowns for less.
Honestly, the truth is the Internet just feeds off this shit, at this point.
Discotheque
Banned
yep. far better directors and talent would have gotten eaten alive if twitter were around in the 50s-90s.
it's very poisonous to creatives tbh, unless they have extremely thick skin and even then it probably can grate. plus they now have an outlet to speak to everybody at any time...nah. that's a recipe for disaster.
Yautja_Warrior
Member
While I can't comment on Gods of Egypt, as I've not seen it yet, I do think that movie critics can be far too harsh on films these days and a lot of them are stuck up twats anyway.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I think Proyas just really thought he made a masterpiece that was overshadowed by the casting.
Like, he's just tone deaf to the nth level.
A Link to the Past
Banned
I suppose I can see that - no director, at least soon after release, is going to say "jeez, I sure fucked up didn't I"
I really wish people would stop using "tone deaf" as some catch-all phrase for something vaguely bad about a person. What are you even trying to say? Why not use actual, specific phrases with meanings related to the point you're trying to make?
Fantastic Four released in the US on August 7 2015....
I'm guessing he was under NDA.
Earthpainting
Member
I don't care about any of his movies, including this one. I'm more interested in people who refer to Facebook as "Facebook.com". I think this is the first time I've ever seen anyone refer to it as such, and it looks so strange to me. It'd be like saying 'I was able to find x on Google.com'. Is this something common, or is it as unnatural as it feels to me?
sankt-Antonio
:^)--?-<
But these guys are the leads of a movie about Gods of Egypt
But then you go to the muesum and the Gods are painted like....
I don't see what's wrong with this. While I get the white wash accusations. This movie is not made for educational puoposes nor is it what is asked of Hollywood.
I don't get how the color of the actors skin is erasing all enjoyment one could have for a action/fantasy movie with a Egyptian skin applied to it.
while I think it's good to have the discussion about Hollywoods whitewashing, I don't think it should be leading to dragging down a movie just because of it.
I'm not going to waste my time on this movie, because the trailer made it out to be a shallow action piece, but not because of historical incorrectness.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Its not hard to understand
Proyas thinks he legit made a good movie. He is attacking critics not because they rightly criticized his work, but because he thinks theres a cloud of political correctness over the casting made. Ie he is tone deaf to the criticism.
Is that better?
lol, the lead black guy's scenery chewing and facial expressions remind me of Childish Gambino's deliberate parody-acting in Community.
A Link to the Past
Banned
It's a problem because it means fewer jobs for non-white people.
Question, MLK Jr. played by a white man - problematic?
No, that was great. Keep using descriptive sentences like that in the future, and you'll enter into the amazing world of actually being able to communicate ideas and information.
As to your actual point now that you've described it, I'm sure plenty of reviewers did bandwagon onto the hate, because we're cruel social animals, and I think his complaints about reviewers hold some possible weight in general. But in this case, they're glomming onto a real social issue, so he's more a victim of hitting against a meaningful zeitgeist than overwrought political correctness, at least in my opinion. Regardless, the movie looked like straight ass, and all these points were already agreed upon in the first page.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
It sounds like you're projecting
No need to be condescending~ Just because you didn't get what I meant by saying 'tone death' that was following a previous statement(Thus indicating that they were related) doesn't mean my post was some puzzle of the flesh to be deciphered.
sankt-Antonio
:^)--?-<
Casting MLK as a white guy? Why not? But the people making that movie would have to be really creative, bold and artsy to pull it of.
Hollywood already did it with Jesus.
LMAO.
"Could it be that I made a crappy movie?"
"No, it's the critics who are wrong."
I think everyone saw this coming,this movie is garbage.
Both based on a great comic the Carnival of Immortals. (Truly great art and story.)It was also a video game
Harry Stewart
Member
I would have defended Proyas if Gods of Egypt was anywhere near as interesting as even I Robot and Knowing. Those weren't great movies but they were surprisingly competent. GoE is just a dull CGI fest. It had some sparks of life and a charmingly cheesy sincerity, but he must know the final result is lackluster. Just take the money and move on, this isn't a social media hill worth dying on.
Ayyy, this is like that thread about CGI that looked shitty for its own time. What the hell is this monstrosity?
Immortel, pretty decent movie, shitty, shitty unsettling CGI.
I love it when authors and critics throw shade at each other. It's a cliche that's older than even Hollywood witewashing.
I read the first three rotten reviews on RT, and only one mentions the whiteness and doesn't really make a point out of it. So not sure what the director is on.
I read the first three rotten reviews on RT, and only one mentions the whiteness and doesn't really make a point out of it. So not sure what the director is on.
Gerard Butler fucking sucks though. Someone here pointed out his Rottentomatoes page a while back, it really is an eye-opener.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
I wait for a day when someone can make an authenticate looking/feeling Egyptian movie. Good storyline and no whitewash. I believe it can work.
Tertullian
Member
Ayyy, this is like that thread about CGI that looked shitty for its own time. What the hell is this monstrosity?
Damn, that looks incredibly good for a PS2 game.
It is a PS2 game, yeah?
mechashiva
Member
Someone needs to tell him the it can't rain all the time.
cpp_is_king
Member
I watched the trailer and I don't see why everyone is saying it looks like complete shit from the trailer. Looks like a typical mindless action movie with explosions and shit.
From the trailer alone, what makes this movie worse than, say, Transformers?
From the trailer alone, what makes this movie worse than, say, Transformers?
TouchMyBox
Member
Sounds like someone who just lost a Dota match.
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