The recently announced film, Gods of Egypt, has continued Hollywood’s infatuation with whitewashing Egypt or Kemet. The Alex Proyas film, which is set for an early 2016 release, stars Gerard Butler as Set, Brenton Thwaites as Bek, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Horus, and Geoffrey Rush as Ra. The only Black actor, Chadwick Boseman, plays Thoth.
Hollywood has historically whitewashed Egyptian set films since the early days of cinema. Films like The Ten Commandments (1956), Cleopatra (1963), and more recently the 2014 Ridley Scott film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, turned characters that were historically African and Middle Eastern into people with western European features.
Exodus: Gods and Kings was a financial flop, a critical failure with a rotten tomatoes score of 27 percent, and the film was banned in Egypt for its “historical inaccuracies.” Christian Bale played Moses, Joel Edgerton played Ramses and Sigourney Weaver played Ramses’s mother, Tuya because director Scott believed he could not sell a film with a “Muhammad So-and- So” as the star.
The film suffered from a Twitter backlash that chastised the whitewashed cast and the casting of Black people as slaves, thieves, and background characters. It appears Hollywood has not learned from its mistakes. Twitter has let it be known that this should not be happening in 2015.
https://twitter.com/MatthewACherry/status/664915589341679616
https://twitter.com/lunarnomad/status/665092870169341952
https://twitter.com/ztsamudzi/status/664877457925804032
May the #DeathNote movie fail and fail hard af. Might as well throw #GodsOfEgypt in there for good measure. pic.twitter.com/h4LO4gso88
— pixel dust (@fangirl_utopia) November 13, 2015
https://twitter.com/Payitforward87/status/664918780229918720
https://twitter.com/ThatJacksonGal_/status/664916513011339264
Do better, Hollywood. Actually, just shut down you're totally incompetent.#GodsOfEgypt
— Horatio (@Jhoratio) November 12, 2015
https://twitter.com/MatthewACherry/status/664909985990623232
In all seriousness, no wonder POC complain about diversity in Hollywood when movies like #GodsOfEgypt get made. Egypt isn't in Europe, guys
— Dan Entwistle garciansmith.bsky.social (@Garcian_Smith) November 12, 2015
https://twitter.com/lepetiterobot/status/664905226076479488
The Pyramids were made to store Kale and Pumpkin Spice Lattes. #GodsOfEgypt
— OG Tony Snark 🇵🇷🇪🇨 (@Latinegro) November 12, 2015
I'm so glad #GodsOfEgypt has a majority white cast. My people have *so* little of our own history so it's good we can borrow someone else's.
— Dan Entwistle garciansmith.bsky.social (@Garcian_Smith) November 12, 2015
Why does the Egyptian extras from #GodsOfEgypt look like they're from a Seth Rogen movie? pic.twitter.com/y4Rm4eyjYA
— Black Girl Nerds (@BlackGirlNerds) November 12, 2015
yall really think we're white? ancient egyptians werent white, current egyptians arent white so wyd? #GodsOfEgypt
— Nouran (@NuranEmad) November 12, 2015
