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[abuC]

Egyptians of that time period looked more like modern day Upper Egyptians, Eritreans, Somalis and Ethiopians than they did Christian Bale, Tom Hardy and Sigourney Weaver.

I could only imagine the outrage if Forrest Whitaker got the lead as Jesus, with co-stars Dijimon Hounsou, Ice Cube and Kevin Hart playing roles as his disciples.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

MAD WHITE, SON!

looks shopped to me!

Greek statues were gaudy as fuck.



It's just weird and kind of annoying. Nearly every movie about Egypt casts Northern European actors as those parts, even though it would be very difficult to find anyone in Ancient Egypt who looked just like Christian Bale. There were probably people who looked sort of white in that society, but they certainly weren't the majority. Why are there no movies about Egypt in which all of the actors are Black? There were lots of very dark people in Egypt. That's no less inaccurate than an all-white cast.

It's also pretty creepy that most of the dark-skinned characters are relegated to the background:

they couldn't have even asked Sigourney to get a tan? Jesus. She mine as well be a ghost.

He probably remembers.

SMH indeed.

this makes me uncomfortable.

 

[TheKaeptain]

That's fair. It's a pretty cheap film, but it did make a ton of money! I think the idea that minorities as leads affect the box office in a huge way is nonsense anyway. It's just something producers are afraid of based on their own projection on the audience.

See you would think this until you start reading all the surveys taken at early screenings.

 

[Akainu]

Why are people so concerned about the ethnicities of fictional characters?
SMH

Ramesses and Tuya are a fictional characters?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

See you would think this until you start reading all the surveys taken at early screenings.

indeed, art imitates life. Hollywood ultimately goes with decisions that will maximize their money, so if a set of brown Egyptian and and Hebrew slave actors was received poorly by their focus groups (after all, who wants brown people in their religion?), a set of white actors would be inevitable.

And so here we are.

 

[Replicant]

Twitter: Exposing bigots, braindeads and dumbasses since 2006.

 

[JABEE]

Twitter: Exposing bigots, braindeads and dumbasses since 2006.

I don't think you needed Twitter to expose Rupert Murdoch.

 

[duckroll]

See you would think this until you start reading all the surveys taken at early screenings.

They can't be that bad... can they? >_<

 

[Vangu Vegro]

Queen Tiye, wife of Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep III, mother of Akhenaten and grandmother of Tutankhamun.

Well, you can't really use Egyptian art as evidence for how the ancient Egyyptians looked because of how much it was idealization and propaganda rather than an attempt at actually portraying people.

Still, the fact that the canon skin colors for male (tanned/red) and female Egyptians (untanned/yellow) remained the same for thousands of years suggests it has at least some basis in reality.

beautiful bust, by the way. think its way nicer than Nerfertiti's

After seeing both busts in person last year, I agree. And Tiye's much smaller than you'd think, too.

 

[Spinluck]

:lol

What a dipshit.

 

[kruis]

One would think a prominent filmmaker like Ridley Scott would have the brass to cast who ever the fuck he wants in whatever movie he wants.

And then the movie will be flop because the general public isn't interested in Exodus The Movie without any big name stars. Face it, a cast with big stars like Christian Bale and Sigourney Weaver will draw more people to cinemas all over the world than than a cast with Arab actors who are complete unknowns in most of the world.

Moviemaking is a a business.

 

[kruis]

Well, you can't really use Egyptian art as evidence for how the ancient Egyyptians looked because of how much it was idealization and propaganda rather than an attempt at actually portraying people.

Still, the fact that the canon skin colors for male (tanned/red) and female Egyptians (untanned/yellow) remained the same for thousands of years suggests it has at least some basis in reality.

If you want to see naturalistic representations of ancient Egyptians, look no further than the Fayum mummy portraits. These were made from 1 BCE till about 3BCE. They date from the early Roman period and show a wide variety of Egyptian men and women who really look no different from what modern day Egyptians look.

 

[neoanarch]

"Egyptians" from 1500 years earlier probably didn't look much like that though. Those are paintings of people with a long history of Greek influence.

 

[Timedog]

Do you think they're going to have a cast of brown and black people given the audience this is pandering most to? Please. For many that will watch this film, more accurate casting would be a controversy. And it would have a large effect on ticket sales. They're just pandering to the microracism that most people refuse to admit to. Won't be watching.

 

[Drazgul]

Egyptian rulers were all goa'uld, and their host bodies could be from anywhere in the galaxy.

 

[dbztrk]

Well, were the Egyptian during the supposed time of Moses more of the middle eastern Egyptian or the Nubian Egyptian?

Nubian is not the only black phenotype.

 

[BassForever]

I watched Yu Gi Oh I know the ancient Pharos were Japanese

 

[dbztrk]

If you want to see naturalistic representations of ancient Egyptians, look no further than the Fayum mummy portraits. These were made from 1 BCE till about 3BCE. They date from the early Roman period and show a wide variety of Egyptian men and women who really look no different from what modern day Egyptians look.

These images are from the Roman period. This is literally thousands of years after Ancient Egyptian culture and identity had been established. They had been colonized and or invaded by the Hysoks, Greeks, Assyrians, Babylonians etc who have all left their genetic mark on this population.

My suggestion is that you research the early Old Kingdom artwork, and Middle Kingdom artwork. All those brown skinned (black figures) paintings and sculptures are telling people what Ancient Egyptians looked like prior to the invaders.

It's always amazing to me how people skip over the countless paintings and sculptures depicting the Ancient Egyptians as black in favor of artwork that is more the white/Middle Eastern/modern Egyptian look. How are you going to skip over the thousands of years of Ancient Egyptian representation? It's clearly bias.

 

[Slayven]

The man that owns Fox News is racist as all fucks? Why I never.....

 

[Gordon Shumway]

I am Egyptian, and I can confirm, I am not white.

I am Egyptian too, and I can confirm, I am white.

Spoiler

OK maybe not.

Hm...I'm not white, but I'm not Egyptian either...

where does this leave me, gaf???

Well, you're certainly not Hawaiian.

LOL

 

[MMaRsu]

http://screenrant.com/exodus-gods-kings-race-controversy-ridley-scott/

Ridley Scott explains the whitewashing of the main cast:

Wtf riddley this is some ol bullshit right here

 

[Slayven]

http://screenrant.com/exodus-gods-kings-race-controversy-ridley-scott/

Ridley Scott explains the whitewashing of the main cast:

"I am not racist, but the money is......."

 

[Replicant]

http://screenrant.com/exodus-gods-kings-race-controversy-ridley-scott/

Ridley Scott explains the whitewashing of the main cast:

What a gross as fuck answer.

 

[Two Words]

Why are people so concerned about the ethnicities of fictional characters? Do people not realise that the entire story of Exodus is categorically false?

Don't get me wrong, there is some pretty clear white washing here, but it strikes me as pretty pedantic that people would waive their fingers and go "no, no, no, this magical story about snakes and plagues and physics defying water is entirely out of touch with the reality that the people who didn't partake in these fictional events were quite possibly of a slightly darker skin tone, that won't do at all!"

SMH

Because white-washing in Hollywood sucks.

 

[Currygan]

http://screenrant.com/exodus-gods-kings-race-controversy-ridley-scott/

Ridley Scott explains the whitewashing of the main cast:

very poor choice of words, but to me this is more a jab to Hollywood producers than him being a racist. It's always been that way since The ten Commandments, Passion of the Christ, even Noah in recent years. plus, he did direct American Gangster after all, a movie with 97% of the cast being black actors

Idris Elba as Ramses would have KILLED IT tho

 

[Wanace]

Wow at that second tweet. It's almost like he's trying to appeal to white people by saying "Ancient Egyptians are like us! They treated black people like shit!"

 

[Lebron]

He probably remembers.

SMH indeed.

Well. There it is.

 

[Stereogatari]

"Egyptians" from 1500 years earlier probably didn't look much like that though. Those are paintings of people with a long history of Greek influence.

No. The Greek genetic influence would have been negligible.

 

[Amir0x]

If you want to see naturalistic representations of ancient Egyptians, look no further than the Fayum mummy portraits. These were made from 1 BCE till about 3BCE. They date from the early Roman period and show a wide variety of Egyptian men and women who really look no different from what modern day Egyptians look.

damn i saw one of these before but not all of them, these are fucking amazing works of art

 

[Kayo-kun]

It's always hilarious to see people debate the genetics of the Egyptians, one half saying they were North European white, the other saying they were West African black.

If you google up Egyptians and look at a few pictures, you see how they most likely looked like. Several scientists have pointed out that the ancient Egyptians didn't look far different than modern Egyptians. The euro-centric and afro-centric view on Egyptian history is pathetic.

 

[genjiZERO]

Forgive my ignorance ,but was Moses actually Egyptian ?

My understanding is that it's extremely unlikely that Moses ever existed as a historical person. In fact, the Exodus story conflicts with the Egyptian sources (in that they never mention enslaving Jews).

No. The Greek genetic influence would have been negligible.

Well, the Fayum paintings were actually done by Greek painters living in Egypt during that time - it was not a homegrown artform . But that's not to say they should be discounted since if you look at them critically you can see they actually represent a bunch of different ethnicities.

Alexander the Great conquered Egypt and brought the whiteness of his Macedonian background (blonde hair, blue eyes) to Egypt.

Or so I've always been told.

Neither Greeks at that time, nor today are known for having "blonde hair and blue eyes". Those are more Norther European traits. Interestingly, ancient Greeks did not consider themselves to be the same ethnically as Northern Europeans. To them, extreme paleness was a sign of being cowardly.

But again, civilizations in Antiquity viewed race very differently than we do today.

It's always hilarious to see people debate the genetics of the Egyptians, one half saying they were North European white, the other saying they were West African black.

If you google up Egyptians and look at a few pictures, you see how they most likely looked like. Several scientists have pointed out that the ancient Egyptians didn't look far different than modern Egyptians. The euro-centric and afro-centric view on Egyptian history is pathetic.

Well said. I think it's because most people having this debate are Americans, and in America, rigid race categorizations where white = Germanic and Black = one drop rule are the cultural norm, and posters are myopic to the fact that race is far more plastic or arbitrary.

 

[RK9039]

I was white once, but not at the moment.

 

[neoanarch]

No. The Greek genetic influence would have been negligible.

Estimates state that as much as 1/3 of the population was Greek/Roman and there was intermarriage. Those specific portraits are definitely similar to other ROMAN examples. The genetic influence was by no means negligible.

 

[RetroStu]

If you Google 'ancient Egyptian art', you will see that the ancient Egyptians painted themselves as varying ranges of colour from reddish brown down to pink. Many experts say that the ancient Egyptians didn't care about skin colour and varying different races populated ancient Egypt which makes sense really when you look at Egypt on a map.
Its at the doorway of the middle east and is an easy route from Europe.
Egypt also had many ports and trading posts where trading was done between different peoples and i'm pretty sure there would of been quite a lot of 'sex' going on between these races.

On these kind of discussions, i'd trust the Egyptians themselves with their art.

 

[clemenx]

I'm sorry but I don't see the issue with that picture. Yes. Egypt was more complicated than that and it is intellectualy lazy to just apply it, but everyone assumes that in ancient times black people = slaves. It's a movie not a college paper.

 

[Slayven]

I'm sorry but I don't see the issue with that picture. Yes. Egypt was more complicated than that and it is intellectualy lazy to just apply it, but everyone assumes that in ancient times black people = slaves. It's a movie not a college paper.

No, no they don't.

 

[dbztrk]

It's always hilarious to see people debate the genetics of the Egyptians, one half saying they were North European white, the other saying they were West African black.

If you google up Egyptians and look at a few pictures, you see how they most likely looked like. Several scientists have pointed out that the ancient Egyptians didn't look far different than modern Egyptians. The euro-centric and afro-centric view on Egyptian history is pathetic.

I've been studying Egyptian history for a very long time and I have never come across anyone claiming the Egyptian to be Northern white European or of West African Black as their base. I have heard either of these groups or mixture of these groups: Middle-Eastern, Southern European, East African and Saharan).

I think you're lying in order to exaggerate the ridiculousness of the "race" debate over the Ancient Egyptians.

Please point me to the sources where several scientists have pointed out that the ancient Egyptians didn't look different from modern Egyptians.

Thanks.

 

[iamblades]

My understanding is that it's extremely unlikely that Moses ever existed as a historical person. In fact, the Exodus story conflicts with the Egyptian sources (in that they never mention enslaving Jews).



Well, the Fayum paintings were actually done by Greek painters living in Egypt during that time - it was not a homegrown artform . But that's not to say they should be discounted since if you look at them critically you can see they actually represent a bunch of different ethnicities.



Neither Greeks at that time, nor today are known for having "blonde hair and blue eyes". Those are more Norther European traits. Interestingly, ancient Greeks did not consider themselves to be the same ethnically as Northern Europeans. To them, extreme paleness was a sign of being cowardly.

But again, civilizations in Antiquity viewed race very differently than we do today.

Well Macedonians were Slavic, not ethnic Greeks.

Still the majority probably wouldn't have been 'blond haired and blue eyed' at that time, but perhaps it wouldn't have been terribly unlikely for that to be present in some decent percentage of the population back then, even if it is less common today.

There are Ethnic groups in northern Pakistan called the Kalash and Burusho people who claim they are descendants of Alexander's army, and blond hair and blue eyes are fairly common in those groups. Modern genetic testing hasn't shown a substantial genetic link to modern Greeks, but it could be that the modern Greek population is the one that changed. It is certainly a more heavily traveled part of the world than the remote mountains of Pakistan.

More realistically, I would think those European looking populations in the mountains of Pakistan are what is left of the first indo-europeans to make their way from India to Europe. Basically the first 'white' people, before the proto-indo-europeans that eventually became the hittites and greeks and the corded ware cultures.

 

[Antiwhippy]

He probably remembers.

SMH indeed.

Holy shit.

 

[Slayven]

Holy shit.

Not just civilian or even citizen, but LOWER CLASS civilian. Shit is hilarious, and sad.

 

[Earthstrike]

Egypt was at one point in time a major world power. It makes sense that those with any kind of racist slant would implement some kind of revisionist history to make an african nation white.

 

[krazen]

I'm sorry but I don't see the issue with that picture. Yes. Egypt was more complicated than that and it is intellectualy lazy to just apply it, but everyone assumes that in ancient times black people = slaves. It's a movie not a college paper.

But that's the problem with modern socialized racism (which nobody wants to call it that).

Cool, you want to make an all white Egyptian movie, people have an issue with it, but whatever, cast who you want.

But to put all the black cast members as just background servants?

It's the reason why we get socialized and subliminal racist shit like this

http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

and why plenty of people immediately stereotype but claim not to be racist. It's conditioned in them from Western society.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotypes_of_African_Americans

 

[dbztrk]

If you Google 'ancient Egyptian art', you will see that the ancient Egyptians painted themselves as varying ranges of colour from reddish brown down to pink. Many experts say that the ancient Egyptians didn't care about skin colour and varying different races populated ancient Egypt which makes sense really when you look at Egypt on a map.
Its at the doorway of the middle east and is an easy route from Europe.
Egypt also had many ports and trading posts where trading was done between different peoples and i'm pretty sure there would of been quite a lot of 'sex' going on between these races.

On these kind of discussions, i'd trust the Egyptians themselves with their art.

I disagree. That's a contradictory statement. If the Egyptians didn't care about skin color they wouldn't have felt the need to show skin color diversity. You can see this in the paintings from Ramses III tomb "table of nations".

The Egyptians weren't stupid. They knew that people within their nation and outside of their nation varied in terms of phenotype and displayed this in their artwork. Sometimes it was highly stylized and stereotyped but they showed variation because it existed.

 

[Measley]

Well, you can't really use Egyptian art as evidence for how the ancient Egyyptians looked because of how much it was idealization and propaganda rather than an attempt at actually portraying people.

Still, the fact that the canon skin colors for male (tanned/red) and female Egyptians (untanned/yellow) remained the same for thousands of years suggests it has at least some basis in reality.

Why would a group of people depict themselves differently than how they actually looked? I can't think of a single civilization whose artwork doesn't depict their skin tone accurately. And no, I'm not talking about depictions of gods or deities, I'm talking about depictions of everyday people.

 

[triplestation]

Lol

 

[DC R1D3R]

Forgive my ignorance ,but was Moses actually Egyptian ?

he wasn't from kemet, but he looked just like the people of that region (skin tone) and blended straight in.

just like the bale guy actor and that bald headed white pharaoh do in this upcoming new movie!!!

 

[whatever77]

Greek statues were gaudy as fuck.

...

Obligatory Ubisoft designed this comment.

 

[RetroStu]

I disagree. That's a contradictory statement. If the Egyptians didn't care about skin color they wouldn't have felt the need to show skin color diversity. You can see this in the paintings from Ramses III tomb "table of nations".

The Egyptians weren't stupid. They knew that people within their nation and outside of their nation varied in terms of phenotype and displayed this in their artwork. Sometimes it was highly stylized and stereotyped but they showed variation because it existed.

Nah man, painting themselves as how they see each other doesn't mean they cared about skin colour, they are just painting themselves how they look like.

 

[DC R1D3R]

what makes me really laugh is the fact that white men still don't know what a fucking pyramid is!


SOLOL

 

[Measley]

he wasn't from kemet, but he looked just like the people of that region (skin tone) and blended straight in.

just like the bale guy actor and that bald headed white pharaoh do in this upcoming new movie!!!

Well the Exodus story is part of the reason Ancient Egyptians are constantly portrayed as white people. If you start portraying Egyptians with darker skin and more African features, you start bringing up the question of how Moses could fit in with them (the royal family no less) if he looked like a European. The only way that works is if he actually has darker skin and African features himself.

And then all hell breaks loose.....