Summer movies have hit theaters nationwide. The Prince of Persia is making waves at the box office already, though it’s third behind other movies that were video game adaptations. Lara Croft: Tombraider and Pokéman: The First Movie are still the highest grossing movies of this genre. In terms of Hollywood statistics this is paramount, because Lara Croft: Tombraider featured a woman in a leading role, and Pokéman was a cartoon. Historically, men in leading roles generate more revenue for studios. Not this time.
The Prince of Persia is getting a lot of mixed press. Fans say it’s a great way to kill a few hours; The Prince of Persia is full of action, sand and eye candy (ie. a ripped Jake Gyllenhaal). Critics say that Hollywood denied Persian (read: Iranian or even Middle Eastern) actors a great opportunity to be showcased in leading roles.
Hollywood definitely has a movie-making formula, and they are incredibly reluctant to change. Fear of trying something new is a bizarre reality in an industry that employs artists, but economics truly drive the Hollywood movie-train. Jake Gyllenhall is a proven actor that brings people to movie theaters. The Prince of Persia is based on a video game and studios knew that this movie would be seen mostly by males with serious spending power.
It’s Hollywood’s right to cast the right person for the part, and they obviously did as they saw fit. Having Jake’s face on the screen puts butts in seats, and Hollywood capitalized on that fact. Audience members will never know how many people were screened for this role, or if there were people of color who were considered. Quite possibly, Jake was the absolute best choice. In an industry where the point of the film is to make money, the studio has to carefully consider their leading actors to maximize return. This is simple economics.
Unfortunately, Hollywood has always been behind the eight-ball. They don’t understand how young people view themselves and each other or even who lives in real cities and suburbs across the nation. Even if white people still dominate Census statistics, each year more young people identify with people of color or mixed-race people. These young adults have seen people of color fly to the top in sports, movies, music, politics, academia and fashion. It’s not hard to find a role model of color anymore, and young people want to see their heros portrayed on the movie screen. They have economic power and they’re not impressed with Hollywood’s whitewashing of a video game that has been the root of obsession since pre-pubescent boys popped their first zit. To see Jake Gyllenhall, an obvious white man, as the leading character in a land that most kids will only ever see virtually, is an insult to the game and its avid followers.
With a good director, a movie could still work even if there are obvious departures from the screen-writer’s intent. This movie departs from every aspect of reality known to man. White people play Persians with British accents while aspects of Persian mythology are sprinkled randomly throughout the movie. There’s no clear physical setting or sense of time. The people are a mish-mash of eye candy that don’t necessarily fit into this piece, leaving audience members feeling like this entire movie-making endeavor was an exercise in high school grab-box cinematography. By using white people in a movie about Persia, the movie can’t even pretend to be a take-off on a video game with the same name.
By casting Persian (Iranian) or even Middle Eastern people as leads in this movie, Hollywood could easily have made a movie about a Prince in Persia and allowed audiences to be transported for two hours into the fictional world of a game that doesn’t fit neatly into time and place. They could have done more with the storyline of the movie and less with the long, slow shots of Jake’s ripped pecs. By investing more than ten minutes in a casting call of white people who have proven track records, they could have made a movie that transported people out of their neat realities into a world where something more is possible.
No one except Hollywood execs buys the excuse that only white faces on movie screens puts butts in seats during the summer. Men and women are more than happy to spend two hours with gorgeous men of any nationality that will take off their shirt and ride bare-chested through the desert.
Given the fact that the studio did not cast Persian actors for the lead roles, it is possible that Iranian actors did not want to be associated with this disjointed film that so obviously strayed from any real representation of Persia, be it modern, fictional or historical. Quite possibly, no self-respecting Persian actor wanted their name associated with this film due to the way the characters and settings were handled, and Hollywood had no choice but to put white people in the roles that should have gone to people that represented that nationality. If this is the case, then it’s obviously the studio that was backed into a corner holding the rights to a script that had no chance of being made because it was so obviously lacking. In that case, it is possible to feel sorry for Hollywood and say that they did the best they could by casting Jake Gyllenhall, and that their choice to omit any person of color in the leading roles was a sign of loyalty to the script they held and were committed to making.
Assuming that this last argument is indeed the reason behind casting a white guy in a role where the leading man is Persian, then this entire debate becomes not over the color of skin but over the role of culture. How many Iranians are sitting half-way around the world playing X-box games? Would it make sense for Iranian actors to act in films that will have no chance of ever being shown in their home country? What is the worth of a video game adaptation to a Persian actor in terms of growth as an actor and as a representation to their country? It’s unlikely that the answers to those questions would make a Persian actor likely to accept a role in a movie that has a script like the one used for the making of Prince of Persia.
Hollywood is a barometer of how far audiences have come in terms of accepting people of color, women, and lifestyles that are out of the main stream of society. However, individuals also have a say in how they want to be portrayed. Every time a person of color shows up in a leading role in a film, audiences see a bigger piece not only of what is possible, but who else is hanging around in the world. Audiences crave something “more”; they want more depth, dimension, and substance to the entertainment that is offered.
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written by TommieDay19, September 26, 2011
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