Londoners Magazine

Saying that Hollywood tends to be racially insensitive is kind of like saying Pete Doherty tends to enjoy a good healthy honk on the crack pipe. Everyone knows it, and everyone’s sick of hearing about it. But news of a recent Hollywood development shocked me so profoundly that I thought it was worth commenting on.

I know unmitigated ranting isn’t really in my remit, and the last thing I want to do is step on our esteemed angry blogger’s toes (Caomhan’s got a mean left hook and an intimidating knife collection). But I need to release some pressure caused by unhealthy bile build-up. Seriously, I think it might be giving me bowel cancer.

Disney and the producer Jerry Bruckheimer (that bastion of intelligent filmmaking) are making a big screen adaptation of the much-lauded videogame Prince Of Persia. Okay, not necessarily a recipe for the next Citizen Kane, but I’ve got no problem with the basic concept. After all, Disney and Bruckheimer made a pretty good fist of Pirates Of The Caribbean, and that was based on a theme park ride.

No, my geekrage (abbreviation of “geek outrage” – see pretty much any forum on film site Ain’t It Cool News for plenty of hilarious examples) wasn’t provoked by the idea of the film. Not even the involvement of Jerry “murderer of brain cells” Bruckheimer caused my geek heckles to rise. It was the casting news which caused that little vein in my temple to pulsate worryingly.

So, imagine you’re a casting director on a big-budget summer blockbuster called Prince of Persia. Your job is to cast the titular prince, who is lithe, handsome, and, most importantly, Persian. Take a minute and think who you might cast. I’m pretty sure after two minutes of casual thought you would have made a better choice than the one the six-figure-salary film executives managed.

Okay, I’ll stop dragging this out and just say it. Jake Gyllenhaal will play the prince of Persia. Yeah, the guy with those dreamy baby blues. I mean, come on. The guy’s so fucking Nordic he wouldn’t look out of place charging off a Viking longboat and pillaging Wessex.

Am I wrong to find it offensive? I’m not from Iran, or any other country that might once have been encompassed by the Persian Empire, but isn’t it a bit embarrassing that Hollywood doesn’t have the guts to cast a non-white lead in a big movie? Can audiences simply not buy the idea of a Middle Eastern male as a good guy? Is it terrorists or nothing?

And then there are the awkward practical questions. Are they going to have Gyllenhaal black up, minstrel-style? Maybe the studio will just send him on a long holiday around the Persian Gulf in the hope that he’ll magically assimilate. Will the rest of the cast be of authentic ethnicity, or will this be a Persia populated by blonde surf bums and Pamela Anderson look-alikes, complete with ripped abs and designer shades fashionably nestled in their ruffled hair?

One thing’s for sure – they’ll get the ethnicity spot-on when it comes to casting the bad guy. After all, audiences are more than happy to accept a demented Iranian sorcerer (read: suicide bomber) bent on world domination (read: turning apple pie Americans all Islamic and stuff).

It’s a double tragedy because I think Jake Gyllenhaal is a massive talent. It’s really rare for such a young actor to have so many superb performances under his belt (Brokeback Mountain, Donnie Darko, Jarhead, Zodiac), and it’s depressing that he’s going to be at the centre of a film that seems bound to end up as god awful Hollywood drivel.

Okay, I can feel my bile returning to tolerable levels. Thanks for bearing the brunt.