Exodus: Gods and Kings has everyone talking, and it isn’t even out yet (it hits theaters tomorrow). The reason? Because of its all-white top-billed cast, which director Ridley Scott is making no apologies for. On casting Christian Bale as Moses, Scott told Variety: “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.” Real smooth of Scott to defend a racist movie with a racist answer. The cast is rounded out by Joel Edgerton as Ramses, Sigourney Weaver as Tuya, John Turturro as Seti, and Aaron Paul as Joshua. Exodus isn’t the first movie to use white actors as stand-ins for the rest of the human race, nor is it the first racist big-budget flick ever made (let alone their first racist movie Scott ever made). It’s actually in very recognizable company. Here are the 10 most racist blockbusters of all time.
Black Hawk Down (2001)
Photo Credit: Columbia Pictures
Scott has been under some fire recently for his complete whitewashing of his new film, but, uh, maybe he just doesn’t know what people from certain areas of the world actually look like? In his 2001 film Black Hawk Down, he cast African-Americans as Somalis. If you’re unfamiliar, African-Americans don’t look like Somalis, and they were demonized as a bloodthirsty mob who had no reason to attack U.S. Army Rangers.