meagan-hood:
blacknonbinarybabe:
yungblackcat:
theblerdgurl:
slowking-s-thompson:
ouijubell:
briandaartist:
theblerdgurl:
This is not a joke. This is actually happening. they are making a movie about the Gods of Egypt and they are all white except for one Black man.
…and he’s literally magical.
They’re releasing it in February, during BLACK HISTORY MONTH.
Um. Really?!?!? How did this happen?!?!?
But if you put the majority of the cast into an ACTUAL desert they’d die from sun burn.
This is literally happening. They are ACTUALLY making a movie like this.
Where there’s a token black character in a movie that TAKES PLACES IN AFRICA!
Or you could stop getting offended by the casting of a movie of all things and instead focus your energy and attention on things that matter when it comes to the topic of racism.
And that’s not even getting to the fact that ancient Egyptians, while they weren’t white, weren’t black either, and they didn’t see themselves as white or black, (just like they still don’t today, but I’ll get to that later, for now, we’re focusing on ancient Egypt, the subject of the movie). You see, if you’re going to make a claim pertaining to the race of an ancient society, you should probably do a little research on that society first. Just a suggestion, take it or leave it. If you all had done that, then you would all know what I’m about to tell you. First, let’s quickly establish where the racial black/white dichotomy came from, just to give us reference. You see, it was the slave traders during the time of colonization during the 1500′s and 1600′s (thousands of years after the ancient Egyptians started their civilization, which while we don’t have an exact date, is probably sometime around 3000 B.C. or BCE, whatever you prefer) that created the racial dichotomy of white and black/colored in order to sort the new world into either “civilized” (white) and “savage” (black/colored). Before this, there was still plenty of racism and slavery in almost every ancient society, but it was never based on skin color, just on nationality and/or religion. And that’s the thing about most ancient societies, they were racist to other nationalities, and most were very xenophobic in that sense, but skin color was never really a determining fact in that xenophobia, like it is in today’s world. So what about ancient Egypt?
Well, let’s take a look at this painting from Pharaoh Seti I’s tomb.
Now, what are we looking at here? This is a painting of essentially the people’s of the known world at that time to the ancient Egyptians. First, starting on the top right, are the Asiatics (aka the Mesopotamians) an ancient civilization that once existed in what is now the north-eastern part of Iraq between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. They’re followed in the middle by the Nubians, an ancient civilization which still exists today along the Nile river in the Sudan and parts of southern modern day Egypt, and then finally on the top right are the Libyans, or as the people of Libya were known in ancient Egyptian times, the Berbers. On the bottom row are the Egyptians, and as you can see, they are neither particularly dark like the Nubians or particularly pale like the Berbers (FYI, Libya is in Africa too, directly west of Egypt, and look how pale the ancient Libyans are depicted as being as). Oh, and given their xenophobic tenancies they would probably take offense to being labeled either black or white, and would probably tell you to just call them Egyptian (just like they do today, but again, I’ll get to that later). I’ll give it to you that they are darker skinned, but hollywood “whitewashing” ancient cultures, including those from ancient Africa and the middle east, is nothing new. Hell, just last year Christian Bale, a white English man, was cast as Moses, a Hebrew speaking Canaanite.
I never really heard any outrage from the Jewish community, mainly because they don’t care, just like they didn’t care when Charlton Heston, an again white actor, played the Hebrew speaking Canaanite Moses in the classic film The Ten Commandments.
Oh and speaking of big name actors, how about one of the actors in the movie you guys are so upset about right now, Gods of Egypt. His name is Gerard Butler and he is playing the Egyptian god Set. For those who aren’t familiar with Egyptian mythology, Set is the brother of the god Osiris. Set, though he was the god of the desert as the poster says, was also the god of storms, disorder, violence, and foreigners. So, since the ancient Egyptians created the god Set, let’s see how they depicted him.
Set is the one with the dog’s head. Oh, and as for the man playing him, Gerard Butler? Well he’s Scottish, so he’s certainly not Egyptian, but then again, he, a Scottish man, played King Leonidas in the movie 300. That’s right, a Scottish man played the roll of an ancient Greek Spartan king.
I bet none of you complained about that. (Though I’m sure you guys will justify that in some twisted distorted way because “greeks are white lol white privilege) Now, yes, Set does have darker skin, but he’s not white and he’s not black either. What about the guy behind him, with the falcon’s head? That is the god Horus, god of the sky and kingship, who is also in the movie and played by a white guy as depicted in the poster.
That is Horus and Nefertari, aka Nefertari Meritmut, the first of the Great Royal Wives of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses the great. Again, slightly dark skin, but neither white nor black. Oh, and Horus is Set’s nephew, and in Egyptian mythology (and in what I guess will be the plot of the movie) will try to take revenge on Set for killing his father. Who is Horus’ father? Remember from the first picture where I showed you Set? Yeah, this fellow with the green skin.
This green fellow’s name is Osiris, and he’s the Egyptian god of life, death, the afterlife and resurrection. Yeah, the green skinned guy is Horus’ father, and since Horus is Set’s nephew, and Set killed Horus’ father in Egyptian mythology, that would make Osiris Set’s brother. That’s right, Set, who is played by Gerard Butler and who you guys are saying should be black because “loleveryone from Egypt is black”, has a brother in Egyptian mythology who doesn’t have black or white skin, he has green skin.
Now, I I don’t know if Osiris is going to appear in the film Gods of Egypt, since the film appears to focus on Horus and Set’s relationship, meaning at that point in Egyptian mythology that I suspect the film focuses on, Osiris was dead. Now if he is in the film and being played by a white guy, and you guys can find an Egyptian actor with green skin to play him, then by all means, I will pay for the airfare to fly him to the studio to get him in the movie instead of the white guy. However, since no human naturally has green skin like Osiris is depicted as having, are you all going to be in an uproar about it if he’s depicted as not being green in the film, but white instead? I doubt it. But what about the “token black guy” who is “literally magical”, aka the guy playing the Egyptian god Thoth? Well, who is Thoth you ask? He is the god of knowledge and is often depicted with the head of an Ibis bird.
Also, in Egyptian mythology, not only is he credited with creating their alphabet for their written language, he is the one who helped the goddess Isis (not the terrorist organization, but Osiris’ wife) bring Osiris back to life after Set killed him, just long enough to conceive their son Horus, who would go on to avenge Osiris’ death. So in the actual mythology of Egypt, Thoth is indeed “literally magical”. In fact, in case you hadn’t noticed yet, the majority of the characters that you are all complaining have been “whitewashed” in a movie called Gods of Egypt are all gods in Egyptian mythology and therefore are all “literally magical.” That’s right, you guys are all getting offended over the skin color of completely fictional, mythological, and yes, “literally magical” characters from an ancient civilization that didn’t even consider itself white or black or any other color for that matter. No matter what color they were, they all considered themselves Egyptian, and that’s all they cared about. But you know what, enough about ancient Egypt and its mythology.
Let’s get to how racist it is in the first place to simply assume that everyone from Egypt is black. In fact, why don’t we start by taking a look at what modern Egyptians actually look like.
As you can clearly see, modern day Egyptians are neither black nor white, they are a people of many different colors. Some are lighter, some are darker, but no matter what they’re skin color, they’re all Egyptian.
However, enough about their skin color, that’s something that only modern day racists focus on anyway. What do Egyptians themselves have to say on this issue? The issue being, if you need reminding, the fact that this movie about Egyptian gods who according to you guys were all black are being portrayed as white. Well, similar debates have come up before, not revolving around Egyptian mythology, but around Egyptian pharaohs, and their skin color. One particular one that made the news happened in the 1989 here in the states. People were arguing and trying to figure out whether Ramesses the II was either white or black. But do you want to know what the Egyptians thought about this debate? This is what Abdel-Latif Aboul-Ela, Egypt’s cultural emissary to the United States at the time, had to say on this issue of the apparent white-washing of Egyptian historical figures. He was responding to black activists who at the time were protesting a historical exhibit of Egyptian pharaohs in Dallas, demanding that the exhibit have a greater emphasis on the pharaohs’ African roots and where threatening to boycott the exhibit if they did not portray Ramesses as black.
“I wish people would not involve us in this kind of mess, which we have nothing to do with… We are not in anyway related to the original black Africans of the deep south… Egypt, of course, is a country in Africa, but that doesn’t mean it belongs to Africa at large. This is an Egyptian heritage, not an African heritage.”
So there you have it, Egyptians, even in our modern era, don’t give a shit about the color of a person’s skin. Just like I explained they didn’t in their ancient culture. They really haven’t changed in that regard in some 5,000 to 6000 years. But no, go ahead and keep getting offended for them and keep this pointless issue alive. I mean clearly, with all of the actual racial issues that exist in our world today, above all of the actual hatred and xenophobia and actual violence that occurs because of racism in the world today, the skin color of the casting of a movie depicting fictional mythological characters from a culture thousands of years old that didn’t care about skin color anyway is much more important. After all, you have to have something to be offended about, right?
@slowking-s-thompson Wow, you not only missed the point of my post, but of the ENTIRE BLOG. What “we all” are upset about is the underrepresentation of people of African descent in Hollywood. You clearly don’t care about the fact that even in a story like this one, where at least SOME of the characters should be of Black African descent, we only see one. I don’t expect you to understand any of this but okay, I’ll come down there for a minute. Egypt, as it was called by the Egyptians themselves was referred to as KMT (or Kemet) which actually translates to “black land”. The country had always traded with Nubia and there were mixed marriages so yes there always were diverse skin colors within ancient Egyptian society. However, you’ve picked two or three out of thousands of artifacts to make your point with. Let me give you a few more examples.
They all not only have a darker skin color but they have African features.
You also conveniently left out the fact that the black Kushite (now Sudan) pharaohs of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty in 671 B.C.(Pharaoah Taharqa and Tantamani among them) were killed and/or expelled by Assyrian invaders (Rad about that here) Which began the “Arabization” of the region. Egypt was not united with Nubia again until the 19th Century when Ottoman-ruled Egypt joined with Anglo-Sudan. (Both Arab territories). This is one of many times Egypt was “cleansed” of it’s darker skinned peoples (And yes it was cleansed of Coptic Christians as well). Add to that the British “veiled protectorate” and the later French invasions over the Suez Canal and we start to see the complexion of the entire country getting lighter which are who the descendants of Egypts are today.
I am well versed in who the ancient Egyptian deities are as well as the colors used to represent them in their art. (In fact, you’ve switched up Set for Anubis in your explanation). And yes, the movie is called Gods of Egypt, not “Humans of Egypt”, therefore the deities could have been purple for all we know. However, you’re wrong about people not being upset about Christian Bale and the movie “Gods and Kings” as there were plenty people of all backgrounds who thought that casting was a joke. But you are correct that “Jewish people” didn’t care about that movie or Heston in Moses or any other miscast Hollywood movie BECAUSE WHITE MEN ARE NEVER UNDERREPRESENTED. You are also correct that modern day Egyptians don’t care anything about Africans or African Americans because IT’S NOT THEIR STORY. They are mostly a mix of everyone who has been/conquered there including, English, French, Persian, Greek, Roman and Turkish.
As a Black woman, I am insulted that you think you have the right to EXPLAIN TO ME how I should feel about a topic regarding people who share a similar ancestry. Or that you would speak to me as if I had no knowledge of the history of the people of Africa. This type of monologuing is an example of exactly what is wrong with media today. You hope that by trying to inflict “your superior wikipedia research” you can bypass the topic and not have to listen to any more of that “ #blacklivesmatter crap.” The American media doesn’t care about how Black people are being (under)represented in Hollywood, vilified by the press or ignored in reality and judging by your Damonsplaining-superficial history lesson, neither do you.
Don’t mask your own racist, xenophobic beliefs in a cloud of vitriolic nonsense and try to play it off as fact, it’s revisionist history at best and click bait at worst. For someone who “Cares about real racial problems” I don’t see anything on your blog about what’s happening in Nigeria’s terror attacks with Boko Haram or the white Minneapolis cops who shot Jamar Clark. Or the racist attack in Sweden that left both a teacher and student dead.
But those aren’t real racial problems to you either are they?
On your way back to Bulbagarden drop off your dissertation at Medium where I’m sure you’ll find plenty of fans and take @throwdingers-cat with you.
@kemetic-dreams @bouncecomics @jessehimself
this hurt to read…
Lmao l stopped reading all that bullshit after they didn’t identify as black or white. Egypt was originally named “Kemet” meaning “the black land” after their skin color