Media mogul and mandate, Rupert Murdoch, an 83-year-old white man, took to Twitter to defend his film studio’s upcoming epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings.
People have been critical of the casting, which features white actors in the roles of Egyptians, while people of color are relegated to secondary roles. Critics claim the upcoming film ,which tells the story of Moses’ escape from Egypt, is racially inaccurate and offensive.
These types of casting choices are typical of Hollywood today where certain films won’t stand a chance of getting financed unless there are big (white) names attached to it, similar to how Hollywood treated a classic in The Lone Ranger, by getting Johnny Depp to play the role of Tonto, a Native American. Not to mention that in that original series, which was made over 60 years ago, that there actually was a Native American in the role. Wow, talk about progress!
In this film, Christian Bale plays Moses, and Joel Edgerton, who most famously played Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby, plays Ramses. Sigourney Weaver also plays an Egyptian queen.
“Moses film attacked on Twitter for all white cast. Since when are Egyptians not white? All I know are.” Murdoch tweeted yesterday, and then kept up with his defense, which of course made it worse.
Everybody-attacks last tweet. Of course Egyptians are Middle Eastern, but far from black. They treated blacks as slaves.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014
Okay, there are many shades of color. Nothing racist about that, so calm down!
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014
Change the subject. What chance more decent jobs as Europe, Japan, Russia, India, China all start to head south? Dangerous time.
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) November 29, 2014
Edgerton has previously spoken out about the criticism, saying he wasn’t going to turn down the role because of race. “It’s not my job to make those decisions. I got asked to do a job and it would have been very hard to say no to that job. But I do say that I am sensitive to it and I do, I do understand and empathize with that position,” he said. Edgerton is Australian.
Exodus hits theaters December 12.
