Egypt's ban of Exodus: Gods and Kings

Post Reply New Topic

Absolutely.

Maybe the Egyptian gov just used the "historical inaccuracies" because they wanted to ban it because they are afraid that Islamists will use the depiction of Moses as another reason to riot? They probably just want to keep the peace.
The UAE have banned it for religious reasons, because it is not an accurate depiction of the religious version of the story. So not because they believe the historians, but because they believe in their literal mythical interpretation.

Politically you might feel you have no choice but to ban something most of your constituents believe to be blasphemous. They take religion very seriously in that part of the world.

And some of us nonreligious people don't care because it actually makes a fun story. Take it for what it is.
Mythology is the basis of culture, most of it isn't true and what is true is often twisted and hard to discern. Norse mythology is also false, but I still love to see things like Beowolf. And actually, I would like to see more mythological movies if done well.

And in this case, Exodus is a major building block of western civilization. It's a part of a bloody tale of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and hundreds of sects and disputes. It applies to our civilization. A single movie isn't going to help perpetuate the belief in the myth. And most Egyptions also believe the myth. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm sure it will be good.

I have more of a problem when fundamentalists start bashing movies that use the myth but stray away from "orthodox" (Which is hilarious because fundamenalists have a poor grasp on orthodoxy.) Like in the case of that movie about Noah, where all the fundamentalists were up in arms about how they strayed away from the biblical story... meh... not realizing that that myth is found in many cultures and that merging bits and pieces from different flood narratives is actually rather clever. Ridley Scott did take quite a risk with making this movie of having to face fundamentalists.

Think about it this way, maybe Ridley Scott tackled this myth because it's a way of subtly affecting the foundations of our society, maybe he can slightly make it shift towards to better. Better a director that can hit the balance and maybe cause change, then a director that goes to far one way or the other and either incites further radicalism or caters to much to it. This movie put him in a powerful situation. My obsession, my special interest is games and game theory, in the game of long term social power, Ridley made an outstanding move.
Facing people of strong convictions directly is a poor tactic (that may be an unfortunate truth.)

So, don't be too bummed out, the people involved in the film are very critical about the story. Most of the people involved in the movie don't think it happened, and if you read into it, you'll find that their reasonings for doing the movie as they did are as I described.

I myself would prefer to be able to see such mythological movies without having to worry about people clamoring over them with concerns.

Actually, I would love to see a movie about Mayan Mythology... No one ever uses that one... too hard to pronounce.

^This explanation makes sense.

I SERIOUSLY doubt that either the citizens, or the government, of modern Egypt, take offense at the Bible casting their country as the villian in the tale of Moses. Egypt is a traditional and religous society (mostly Muslim, but with a large minority of Coptic Christians). Since Moses is just as important in Islam as he is in Judaism, and in Christianity modern Egyptian moviegoers (Muslim, Coptic Christian, or whatever) would identify with Moses, and would never think of rooting for the Pharaoh. Indeed most Egyptians would probably take more offense at secular scholars who claim that the whole Exodus thing never happened-then at a movie glorifying the tale of Exodus per se.

But this particular movie maybe taking liberties with scripture- in ways that might also piss off American Christian Fundies. Since Egypt is in political flux right now it would make sense that the government would want to avoid upsetting their local fundies by fanning fires.

actually....

all films that show Jewish slaves build pyramids are banned in Egypt (Ten Commandments, The Prince of Egypt), because, as I gather, while there are traces of Jewish people living in Egypt (and, as far as I have read, very little traces of their Exodus, or arrival in Israel) - this all happened CENTURIES after the pyramids had been finished.
And the egyptians are very proud of their pyramids.

That may all be pretend and have a much more fundamentalist background and all, but as far as I'm concerened, banning a film for being centuries off and carrying the potential for trouble is a legitimate reason for complaints. Not that Ridley Scott would care.

If an American film showed the French Palace of Versailles being built by Black slaves, people would complain.

(bolded by me)
Maybe that is why their societies suck so much.

The difference is that films like that would not be banned in the US.

Oh, they actually might be... it wouldn't be... unprecedented.

According to the prevailing wisdom the film's depiction of "Jews" building the great pyramids were considered a risk for inciting anger among the Egyptian "rabble". Their country's history books specifically dictate that indigenous Egyptian people freely volunteered to build the pyramids for their Pharoah Ramses.

There are plenty of other examples of historical re-writing across the globe in order to placate the locals. For instance try releasing a film that depicts the original Celtic people as murdering marauders who caused the genocide of the original inhabitants of Britain! this goes against the prevailing cultural narrative in Scotland or Ireland where local people believe their Celtic culture was always physically and spiritually connected to the land in a peaceful way.

Yep, and those directors who do release films like that tend to get black listed. Black listing is often career ending.

Americas archaeology textbooks also "dictate" this because of reason I already explained. The is moot evidence of grand large scale slavery in Egypt of the ancient Jewish population, and there is evidence to suggest that Egyptian farmers did come in to work on state projects during the flooding season. It's a damaging lie, the world needs to learn that just because it was written down thousands of years ago doesn't make cold fact.

And the comparison of the Celts, I've never read anything that said they weren't the original inhabitants, abet they were a warrior driven society. I do know however that the Angles and the Saxons were not the original inhabitants, but migrants from Germany who started invading England after the end of Roman occupation and did push the Celts out of their original territories to what is modern day Wales I believe, so maybe this is what you are referring to.

Americas archaeology textbooks also "dictate" this because of reason I already explained. The is moot evidence of grand large scale slavery in Egypt of the ancient Jewish population, and there is evidence to suggest that Egyptian farmers did come in to work on state projects during the flooding season. It's a damaging lie, the world needs to learn that just because it was written down thousands of years ago doesn't make cold fact. You ever hear of a game called telephone?

And the comparison of the Celts, I've never read anything that said they weren't the original inhabitants, abet they were a warrior driven society. I do know however that the Angles and the Saxons were not the original inhabitants, but migrants from Germany who started invading England after the end of Roman occupation and did push the Celts out of their original territories to what is modern day Wales I believe, so maybe this is what you are referring to.

Historical accuracy and cultural narrative are not the same thing. Try and explain archaeological evidence to a Egyptian or Irishman. Cultural narrative feeds prevailing cultural beliefs.

On the question of the British Celts, in modern day Ireland and Scotland there is self evident lingering resentment against the English. In the context of the modern era the prevailing Celtic cultural narrative is an "indigenous" celtic society living in harmony with the land ruled by druids and chieftans who commune with nature spirits. This perfect society was disrupted forever when the Anglo-Saxons invaded and destroyed their culture and the remnants of this Celtic culture cling to a belief of having their cultural entitlement taken away. Therefore the modern context is in terms of English Vs Celts(Scots and Irish). It ignores the role of the catholic church in destroying celtic culture or the way the celts did exactly the same thing to the indigenous Britains that the Anglo-Saxons did.

Most cultural history of Britain predating Christianity is largely fictional. There are two reasons, firstly pre-christian Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Celts and Picts did not know how to write. Theirs was an oral tradition. Secondly the christian inquisition ensured any remnant of indigenous knowledge was wiped out as it was feared cultural practice or beliefs were "pagan".

I agree with everything you just said. I think it is important to continue to push for what little real knowledge we can gain from archaeological sites so that some day cultural myths will be a thing of the past. Of course this is wishful thinking.