A Muslim Miss USA: Bikinis and Bombshells
Mona Eltahawy made an interesting video.
And Wajahat Ali tells it like it is with his analysis of the Sex and the City 2 movie. As I thought, it is not very flattering.
I hope I live to see the day where, like the portrial of Africans in old movies is not played by a white guy who gets painted black (i.e. Blackface).
Last note: did you know that no one from the Middle East is in the new Prince of Persia movie?
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Forgive me for always commenting on trivial matters in your posts ^^; but I have to say this:
The guy in the new PoP movie is so “OMG he’s so hot!”
I actually want to watch the film because of him O_o
But it would be interesting to have a Persian guy playing the role… I heard there are handsome guys out there >> seen a guy in one of my visits to Iran… Oh God~ >> Just die straycat, will you?
Great post and links!
The video my Mona Eltahawy is indeed interesting. Muslim Americans as they should be–exemplars of the Great American Dream!
Wajahat Ali’s analysis is an insightful and funny one elaborating on the Orientalism predicted in your original post on Sex and the City 2.
As for the dearth of Middle East actors in the Prince of Persia
Jehanzeb at Muslim Reverie did an excellent post on the casting of Prince of Persia last year (republished on Racialicious):
What’s Wrong With This Picture
And followed it with 2 current (hotly debated)posts:
This Prince is Not Persian
Prince of Persia: The Brother is Brown
Inspiring compilation post, Qusay!
Oops Old HACKED email was the one that automatically set up in my comment above. This one is corrected–I feel so much better!
Nice Video,
which made me think,will Miss Rima be the key for muslims from the lock of stereotype?
as ironic as it sounds,it might actully be.
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meh, jake gyllenhaal is hawt *winkaty*wink* and he’s jewish, shouldn’t that count?
Asmaa M, he is Jewish but not from Persia, there are around 25,000 Iranian Jews living in Iran (i.e. Persia).
While trying to find out how the Swedish-American-Askenazi (more Germanic than Middle Eastern) Jewish Gyllenhaal looks (in the promo pic only) like my Italian-Irish Catholic Canadian cousin (who looks like his maternal Irish side), I found this bit of information from Wiki on casting the Prince of Persia:
The leading characters of the film all speak with a recognisable British English accent, albeit with a slight Middle Eastern colour.
I’ve never heard an accent described as having a colour; usually auditory metaphors are used, not visual ones of colouring; so now I’m not sure if the accent makes the casting all good, or the description of the accent makes it all the more an issue of “colour”.
What is clear and important to know is that it is a “tent pole production”–no nothing to do with the Middle East, more to do with the Big Top of a circus–a production with a mega-marketing effort expected to function as the financial support or “tent pole” for the whole studio. This helps explain the casting of name actors who are a big box office draw, rather than up and coming relatively unknowns, or established but not a huge box office draw.
I suspect my knowledge of this film will remain on the same plane as my knowledge of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ–theoretical only!
Thanks Chiara, that was very insightful