On Values Dissonance in Art: The Changing of Perceptions With Time
A few weeks ago, I rewatched the Brendan Fraser led ‘Mummy’ film.
Being a 90s’ child, I had grown up with it. I used to love it, and frankly, the interest I had in ancient Egypt probably originated here. As I watched parts of the film something kept sticking out to me: parts seemed uncomfortably racist. Actor Omid Djalili plays an Arab character who the script doesn’t even name: he’s just ‘Prison Warden’. He is the recurring butt of jokes, thoroughly unlikeable, and thoroughly sleazy and greasy looking, contrast to his clean-cut British and American travelling companions. He is greedy, selfish, annoying and, as is mentioned multiple times, he smells bad. “What is that horrid stink,” one line roughly goes before Prison Warden climbs down after the speaker. An “Oh” follows it. About ten minutes later, he will be attacked by a flesh-eating beetle and run head-first into the pyramid wall, killing himself. No one, in film or out, will miss him. In truth, many of the white Americans aren’t given names either, but none of them feel treated anywhere near as disrespectfully.
Prison Warden is essentially interchangeable with Watto from the Star Wars prequels, and if you ever wondered why that character was ‘accused’ of being a racist caricature, look at the exact same characterisation being applied to an an actual…
