Why Ridley Scott’s Exodus Movie is Racist: Strong Words, Strong Point

David Dennis, Jr. wrote a piece on Medium this week making a similar point about the upcoming Exodus: Gods and Kings movie to the one I recently made about Noah – but perhaps making it a bit more plain.

Namely, he says this Exodus movie is racist, plain and simple. Here’s an excerpt:

Not only are all the main characters White, but the servants, thieves and assassins are played by Africans. Guys. This is racist. Ridley Scott is one of those guys who’s apparently hellbent on historical accuracy but doesn’t care enough to cast a person of color as Moses or a goddamn African queen while simultaneously filling out the rest of the movie with Black servants and thieves. I could even accept him going the Louis CK route of “the best actor gets the job regardless of if race makes sense” and casting Merly Streep as Tuya, Guillermo Del Toro as Moses and Choi Min-Sik as Rhamses for all I care. But to make the main characters White and everyone else African is cinematic colonialism. It’s creating a piece of historical “art” that carries on oppressive imagery that’s helped shackle entire countries and corners of the world.

I’m so goddamn sick of Hollywood and its acceptance of these oppressive images. If studies have shown the way that perpetual violence in movies begets violence in America, then what about perpetual maintenance of the White savior standing over the ethnic servant/villain/imbecile? What damage is this creating for the American psyche? How am I supposed to feel when all the messiahs, last samurais, African kings and saviors are White?

We need to listen to David’s point here, and perhaps we should do more than listen.

Perhaps we shouldn’t shell out money to support this kind of careless filmmaking.

Besides, it’s just going to be another boring fundamentalist Bible movie anyway.

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H/T Mandy Meisenheimer