(no subject)
So Prince of Persia is not going to be the worst reviewed and most offensive movie about the Middle East this weekend. I wish I had a time machine so I could make some Biff Tannen money with wagers.
However, one thing Persia is drawing criticism on is the casting. That is, a lot of white people playing Middle Easterners. It's not getting quite as much shit as Airbender is for a couple of reasons. One is that one's based on a video game, and people don't expect much anyways.
Another is the nature of ethnicity in the Middle East anyway. The western world puts it all in a box, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Persia does not consider itself an Arabic country. In some ways, Oded Fehr (An Israeli) would not make Iran very happy either, I would imagine. I've seen some people suggest Naveen Andrews as the Prince, with some arguments that Indian isn't the same thing as Persian, but in a Pan-Arabian world most epic deserts present, you could say he's qualified as anyone from Morocco, if not moreso, since that corner of the world was colonized by a lot of the same people--Indo-Iranians. Come to think of it, I think White people are part of the group too, we're just a mutant offshoot of it.
So the reason a lot of casting for Middle Eastern settings is so messed up is because people aren't even sure how Middle Eastern casting works in the first place. The ethnicity's more varied than people give it credit for, and it's really hard to pin it down. In any case, while Gyllenhaal is pretty much too white for the role (But in my opinion, no less appropriate than Sam Worthington for Clash of the Titans), I don't think there's a fixed answer on how far away from Persia one can be before it hits wrong territory.
However, one thing Persia is drawing criticism on is the casting. That is, a lot of white people playing Middle Easterners. It's not getting quite as much shit as Airbender is for a couple of reasons. One is that one's based on a video game, and people don't expect much anyways.
Another is the nature of ethnicity in the Middle East anyway. The western world puts it all in a box, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Persia does not consider itself an Arabic country. In some ways, Oded Fehr (An Israeli) would not make Iran very happy either, I would imagine. I've seen some people suggest Naveen Andrews as the Prince, with some arguments that Indian isn't the same thing as Persian, but in a Pan-Arabian world most epic deserts present, you could say he's qualified as anyone from Morocco, if not moreso, since that corner of the world was colonized by a lot of the same people--Indo-Iranians. Come to think of it, I think White people are part of the group too, we're just a mutant offshoot of it.
So the reason a lot of casting for Middle Eastern settings is so messed up is because people aren't even sure how Middle Eastern casting works in the first place. The ethnicity's more varied than people give it credit for, and it's really hard to pin it down. In any case, while Gyllenhaal is pretty much too white for the role (But in my opinion, no less appropriate than Sam Worthington for Clash of the Titans), I don't think there's a fixed answer on how far away from Persia one can be before it hits wrong territory.