Have you ever loved anything as a child only to grow and have someone completely ruin it for you?
Well that’s exactly how I’ve felt when I saw Jake Gyllenhaal as the lead in the new trailers for the ‘Prince of Persia’ movie. Now I’m happy to admit that I have an unacceptable level of personal attachment to the franchise - it being my favourite computer game growing up and being of Iranian or ‘Persian’ heritage myself.
Seriously, when did a dose of bad spray tan qualify someone as being Middle Eastern? And it’s not just the lead role, none of the principal cast members are of Iranian decent. This is despite the fact that Iran has a thriving film industry that is always exporting talented actors and creative types courtesy of its hardline government.
It really doesn’t matter that the movie ‘Prince of Persia’ is more reflective of science fiction then any actual representation of Iran or Iranians.
As a child I loved the computer games. They weren’t just fun, they gave me an easy way to talk to and relate to others over something that was special to me and my heritage. As an adult, I feel like the movie has totally wiped out that aspect of it. The movie has reduced my identity, my heritage and my cultural background to lighting and make up.
Why should we care about the casting of the latest Hollywood epic action film? Castings of movies like the ‘Prince of Persia’ are important because we know that media images have profound impacts on our identities. We’ve seen this link over and over again in the body image debate. In the words of Mia Freeman from the Government’s action plan on body image:
“It troubles me that so many people, particularly young people, feel unhappy with their bodies. Whether it’s girls comparing themselves with the unrealistic images they see in the media and thinking they’re not tall or skinny enough or boys feeling they need to bulk up or slim down. All too often this translates to feelings of inadequacy and, in some cases, mental illness.”
Just like positive images help young people - particularly young women - feeling more positive about their bodies, young people from ethnic backgrounds need positive and strong role models in the media. In some cases, young ethnic children are even more in need of positive role models to help them with the journey of growing up in two cultures with different expectations. There are very few positive ethnic role models in Hollywood and even less are from a Middle Eastern background.
The absence of these role models helps to reinforce the idea that being white is better, more beautiful and inherently more virtuous. After all there’s never been a shortage of ethnic characters to play terrorists and villains in Hollywood action movies. At worst, casting decisions like the ones made in the movie ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ whose two leading ladies were from Chinese decent despite the Japanese context of the film whisper that in the end all ‘Asian’s look alike’. It’s sad and disheartening to realise that even though there was wide outcry in China and Japan over the movie it went with barely a blimp in western audiences who failed to notice the difference.
Young people from ethnic backgrounds do internalise these images no matter how implicit they seem to be. We can see this in Kenneth Clark’s pioneering ‘doll’ experiment that helped move America away from segregation.
In the experiment Clark gave black children two dolls one white, the other black. When he asked which doll was ‘nicer’ the majority of the children said the white one, when asked why, they simply replied ‘because it’s white’. When asked which one was the ugly one the majority pointed to the black one. Finally the children were asked which one looked most like them and there is a moment of hesitation and then complete devastation in their eyes when they point to the black doll and accept that their ugly and lesser then the ‘white’ doll.
The experiment was redone only a few years ago by a seventeen year old filmmaker and the results were almost identical. You can watch a new version of the experiment here and the high school students version here
The children in the Clark experiment had not yet reached their 13th birthday- but they had already internalised a lack of self worth because of the colour of their skin.
Even more alarming, when these girls grow up with an inherit belief that lighter skin equals being more beautiful then they are more likely to succumb to dangerous skin whitening treatments. Such products promise women whiter and therefore more attractive skin.
Statistics of how many women use skin whiting treatments are incredibly hard to find, however a study published in the International Journal of dermatology had found that in Senegal 36% of women had used skin whiting products at one time, and that 75% of those women had suffered adverse effects as a result of continuous use.
So next time you support a film that actively ‘whitewashes’ its characters, think about it. What exactly are you supporting?
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