#i have other issues with the movie like the fact they didn't cast arabs for the fremen etc etc | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

scamguy · 2 months

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i understand dune is not perfect but it seems no one on this website understood that paul atreides is white on purpose. hes a false prophet politically implanted into a religion in order to control the direction of events. hes the fruit of thousands of years of plotting. hes not actually a messiah. it's like. the entire point of the story. saying you think dune sucks because it has a white man as a prophet of islam is like saying you think star wars sucks because Anakin started killing people. Do you get me or not

#i have other issues with the movie like the fact they didn't cast arabs for the fremen etc etc #but all the orientalism you see on screen .. its here on purpose. to be criticized.#paul is clearly NOT into the idea of being a prophet for the fremen. He hates it. and he knows it was a human made manipulation #it's STATED #IM NOT EVEN A DUNE FAN BTW.

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streets-in-paradise · 1 year

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I always got called racist for enjoying Prince of Persia 😭

Really? I think that saying that is a huge stretch. Like I said before, I never played the videogame but i can speak about this from a movie history perspective.

In my experience, arround 85% of old historical dramas, epical, sword and sandals or fantasy-adventure settled in the past genres are full with real ( sometimes blatant) cases of whitewashing and/ or historical innacuracy. To escape it completely, you would have to avoid like... the entire genre. I acknowledge the flaws and many problematic choices that the majority of, let's say, 60's to 2010's movies in the genre have, but i can still enjoy those while being critical.

Let's put another example, away from Prince of Persia and the whitewashing issue: Mel Gibson starring Braveheart.

I love that movie, i have rewatched it tons of times and i cry like a fool everytime i watch it. Is Gibson problematic as fuck? Hell yeah, dude is an asshole and many people know that. Should the main actor have been scottish? Sure, i agree on that. Is the movie full of awfull stereotypes, like that prima nocte bullshit added just for shock value? Yes, innacurate and harmfull because it includes sexual assault on women just for the " It was tradition, old times were like that."

But here is the thing

I don't see media consumption as a purity issue or a statement of my personal beliefs. I am aware Braveheart is problematic, but that doesn't mean that rewatching it makes me a xenophobic hater of scottish people. I wouldn't go to a real scottish person acting like all the stereotypes about their history in Braveheart are true because, and here is the main point:

I know it's not accurate and i enjoy it as fiction

Enjoying Prince of Persia doesn't make you a racist because, again, movies can't make you racist. That is like the " videogames make you violent" 90's controversy all over again, only with an updated target.

If you have the critical thinking skills to acknowledge that what you are watching is not accurate, then nobody should bother you about it. I can't speak much about if the casting choices were good or bad because i never played the videgame, but i like jake Gyllenhaal's Dastan in the movie's perspective.

That is how allmost all historical fantasy-adventure heroes looked at the time, Prince of Persia didn't do different from a thousand other movies back them

Should we cancel an entire film genre then? All the people who ever enjoyed a fantasy adventure epic shall be punished? Because no movie from back then is safe, not even popular ones that many people love.

In fact, Disney did WAY WORSE with an animated film settled in middle eastern tradition: Alladin. Have you ever listened the full version of " Arabian Nights"? The version of the film that Disney Channel transmited when i was a kid had a horrible verse about arabs being barbaric. When my little sister got the dvd for Christmas, I discovered they fortunately changed the song to eliminate that part.

The point with this is that, Hollywood ( and Disney, of course) is racist as fuck, but pointing at each others fingers with a " my media consumption is purer than yours" approach is not the solution. Watching one or other thing doesn't make you a better or worse human being, you can't commodify ethics and morals.

Movies are products, like anything in this system. If a movie or its advertisement ( direct or indirect, coming from the online fanbases) promises to make you a better person, that's just marketing. Logically, haters react under the same logic but for negative marketing, promising the movie is going to make you a worse person.

It's marketing operating for the anti-marketing people in the age of emotional capitalism. Movies can't give or take virtue from you, that's something you can't get in the market.

Keep enoying Prince of Persia and don't feel guilty about it. I don't know you, anon, but I bet you are a great person who just happens to like a movie and that is perfectly fine.

#asks #messages #prince of persia #braveheart #historical epics #fantasy #whitewashing and historical innacuracies #i personally dont believe in cancelling #i believe on keeping your critical eye trained

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