Is it Jake Gyllenhaal, Jerry Bruckheimer, Gemma Arterton, or the fairy princess dress? This sure is a tough one. Vote after the jump. Read the full post.
May 10
2010
01:00 PM ET
Lunchtime Poll: Who looks the least Persian?
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The Prince of Persia, per the premise (excuse my alliteration) of the film was actually an orphan adopted by the king of Persia, no? Hence, there’s no way to know if he’s actually Persian. He could’ve been left by a British explorer, for all we know. It’s a fictional account, ladies and gentlemen. So all this bruhah over looking Persian, being Persian, et al., is moot. I will, however, stare at a picture of Jake Gyllenhaal for whatever reason, for as long as you, or anyone else, want.
The point, as far as can tell from what people have been saying since this movie was cast, is not just the choice to choose, from the wide range available, two lead actors of fair skin and relatively up market English accents, but the casting / portraying of the bad guys as dark skinned and generally, “ugly”. They are the other, the foreign looking “evil” characters. That’s a choice. I could make a film set in Jamaica and have a whole spectrum of colour choices from just the black characters alone, from light skinned and mixed race to very dark skinned. That’s without all of the Spanish descended, Chinese and so on. Jamaica’s motto is “out of many one people” after all.
But if I cast the heroes as all light skinned and mixed race people and the bad guys were all as black as night I’m being irresponsible AND making a statement about skin colour preferences and the lighter the better.
Now anyone with the least bit of knowledge about the imperial and post imperial world knows that very thing was used against “conquered” non whites all over India, Africa and perhaps worst of all (although South Africa kept it the longer) in Australia and The US.
To see the same thing happening in films in 2010 is genuinely shocking and extremely disappointing. Again I have not seen the film so it may be that this has been exaggerated, but it doesn’t appear to have been.
I think they only choose the actors on their facial features.