Ancient Egypt Gets Whitewashed

‘GODS OF EGYPT’ TRAILER REVIEW BY METRO CREW

When god of darkness Set (Gerard Butler) takes over ancient Egypt, the civilization devolves into conflict. To save the day, a young mortal (Brenton Thwaites) teams up with immortal Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) to defeat Set. We’re not impressed with the special effects, and we’re definitely not impressed that all of ancient Egypt is depicted by white people.

Gods of Egypt opens in wide release Feb. 26.

JAIMIE: Usually, I would be super excited for any movie about Egyptian deities. It’s why I love The Mummy series even though they were so campy most of the time. But DAMN, this is something else. Maybe it’s because this basically looks like Gerard Butler in another Frank Miller 300 film, maybe it’s because the costumes are not that amazing, maybe it’s because the special effects are kinda meh — or, I dunno know, maybe it’s because this is another super white Hollywood movie?

PAIGE: There seems to be exactly one black guy in this conception of Egypt. Now, I could be wrong, and it’s been a long time since I studied ancient Egyptian civilization, but I don’t remember Egypt’s population being, you know, mostly white with a bit of exotic tanning.

JAIMIE: It clearly makes so much sense to have Gerard Butler portraying an Egyptian god because he’s Scottish. From what I’ve read, the movie has gotten flack for casting decisions like that since pretty much everyone but Chadwick Boseman is white.

CHRISTINA: Whitewashing at its finest. I wonder at what point in casting they were just like, “Yeah, white dudes should be fine here.” This almost makes other all-white casting decisions seem less egregious. Yes, a lot of films and TV feature a lot of white people when the script could be racially neutral. But here is one that is very much not neutral, and they still cast white people.

JAMES: All of these are good points, but I’m going to trash this trailer on a very nitpicky level. From the first musical motif — “bwaaamph” — I started banging my head on my keyboard. That “bwaaamph” has been in every action movie trailer I’ve seen. It all started with Hans Zimmer, who composed the motif for Inception using a slowed-down sample from an Edith Piaf song. Now it’s everywhere.

PAIGE: The movie reminds me a lot, aesthetically and story-line-wise, ofImmortals, a very beautiful film about the Greek gods decked out in gold and blood, and it was really something to behold visually, even if the movie itself was kind of junk.

NICOLE: I want to know why Brenton Thwaites (as a mortal) teams up with a god. Can Horus not do it himself? What power/benefit does Horus obtain by partnering with a human?

PAIGE: I think Horus needs help because Gerard Butler ripped his eyes out in the beginning of the trailer, and I guess ONLY THIS CHOSEN LAD can save his sparkly eyeballs from the video-game temple full of traps.

JAIMIE: Honestly, I’d rather just watch The Mummy.