The Six Most Ridiculous Sword-And-Sandal Epics Starring White Dudes For Absolutely No Reason
Awful lotta honkies in here.
The new trailer for Ridley Scott’s latest I-want-to-make-Gladiator-again effort Exodus: Gods and Kings has just been released. The film, which has a December 12 release date in the States, stars Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Rameses and retells the story of the Israelites’ flight from Egypt; an event at which, as the history buffs among you may be aware, precisely zero white dudes were present. Scholars debate many things, but they’re pretty consistent in their assertions that in terms of skin colour, people in ancient Egypt didn’t look that much like a morning yoga class in Manly.
Nevertheless, here’s Joel Edgerton with a shaved head and painted on eyebrows doing his best to “look ethnic”.
The casting of Exodus is nothing new; indeed, it continues Hollywood’s proud tradition of casting non-Western characters by slapping some facepaint and a vaguely exotic costume on a white dude, parking him in front of a camera and telling him to talk a bit funny.
But it’s a syndrome common to sword-and-sandal epics in particular; movies set in places like Turkey, Greece, Iran and Palestine invariably seem to cast leading actors who’d be more at home in a GAP catalogue. Here are the most ridiculous examples of white dudes trying to pull off ancient Greek heroes, Biblical prophets and mysterious Eastern princes, and coming across more like college freshmen at a poorly-themed frat party in the process.