Since everyone is rightfully complaining about the casting in The Odyssey I also want to shed some light on the way Egyptians and Middle Eastern people are represented in Hollywood because this is getting ridiculous.
Because this is not what an Egyptian/Mesopotamian queen from Uruk is supposed to look like. Akasha was born in Uruk, in ancient Mesopotamia, and later became queen of Kemet. the entire story is heavily rooted in Egyptian and Mesopotamian heritage.
Hollywood’s idea of “avoiding whitewashing” is basically casting a Black American or sub-Saharan African actor and call it a more accurate representation of the character because she is technically from Africa. BUT Africa is an entire continent, not a single race or ethnicity. Egyptians and Mesopotamians are not interchangeable with sub-Saharan Africans, and treating all of Africa as if it has one singular appearance is just as reductive.
Egypt was neither a whit nor Black civilization” It was a North African civilization with its own distinct history, population and cultural identity. The fact that Egypt is in Africa does not automatically make every Egyptian character a generic representation of sub-Saharan Africa.
And I’m sorry, but if the whole point is supposed to be “better representation” and “avoiding whitewashing,” then why is the answer apparently to erase the actual Egyptian and Mesopotamian identity of the character and replace it with a generic idea of what an “African queen” is supposed to look like?
Sorry but it deserves the same criticism the odyssey and cleopatra (2021) got.
