# Prince of Persia and "blackface" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 18, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851 "2010-05-18T02:11:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/1 "2010-05-18T02:11:01Z")
Ok, I’m just posting this to see what others think. A friend and I saw a “Prince of Persia” trailer. So here’s the conversation: “OK, so Jake Gyllenhaal plays the prince? Is he Persian?”- friend “Not that I know of, I think he’s Swedish.”-Me “So, they’re having a white actor play a Middle Eastern character? Is that like having a white actor play a black character? Blackface, I think it was called. And no one seems to have problem with that? Are there no Arab actors in Hollywood?”-friend “Actually, Persians aren’t Arab.” etc. I know it’s based on a video game, but I think you get the gist of it. So, why aren’t white actors prohibited/ barred/ etc from playing other ethnicities like they are from black characters? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/2 "2010-05-18T02:14:43Z")
It’s nothing at all like blackface. It’d only be similar if they tried to make him look Persian by putting sunless tanning lotion on him to try to make him darker. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/3 "2010-05-18T02:17:50Z")
As Persia doesn’t really exist anymore, and it’s based on a video game, with magic in it, I think rules go out the window. It’s like having a Scotsman play a Spaniard while a Frenchman plays a Scotsman. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/4 "2010-05-18T02:21:47Z")
Before, when white actors played black characters, they would put on a blackface that insultingly exaggerated black phenotypes. That’s why it was insulting: it was meant to make fun of blacks, just like an actor putting on a big crooked nose to play a Jew. If a white actor plays a member of an ethnicity in a way that isn’t ridiculing members of that ethnicity, only overly sensitive people will take offense. It’s even possible for a white actor to play a black person, as long as it isn’t done insultingly (e.g.: Robert Downey Junior in Tropic Thunder). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/5 "2010-05-18T02:26:11Z")
White actors aren’t prohibited from playing black characters. They just aren’t very convincing as black characters. Persians basically are caucasians, so it’s not that much of a stretch. Asian and Hispanic actors play wide variations of ethnicities all the time. A Brazilian guy played Xerxes (a real Persian King who was not Brazilian) in _300_ and nobody cared. ---
**Author:** ![choie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/choie/32/7829_2.png) [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/6 "2010-05-18T02:30:25Z")
A white person playing a black person isn’t “blackface,” in the offensive meaning of the word. F’rex, [this white actor (Scott Thompson) in a comedy sketch](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU1snQ7aT28), playing a black man, has dark makeup on, but is not giving what most would call a “blackface” performance. I don’t see this as any different from an actor putting on a wig, bald cap, putty nose, old age makeup, etc. A white person slapping on shoe polish, with huge white rims around his eyes and lips, and shucking/jiving the way no black person has ever shucked/jived, is “blackface.” Which sort of performance JG is giving in _Prince of Persia_, I have no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/7 "2010-05-18T02:34:27Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Persia doesn’t really exist anymore, Persia is Iran. It was just a [name change](http://www.iranchamber.com/geography/articles/persia_became_iran.php). The Abbasid Caliphate, etc., are long gone, but the country was called Persia into the 20th century. Some people still call Iranians “Persians.” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/8 "2010-05-18T03:31:25Z")
You left out President Barak Obama, as played by Fred Armisen. (His voice sucks, but the mannerisms are perfect.) ---
**Author:** ![planetcory](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/planetcory/32/1032_2.png) [@planetcory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/planetcory)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/9 "2010-05-18T03:43:13Z")
I think you’ll find many actual Persians aren’t too happy about it either. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/10 "2010-05-18T03:43:24Z")
And Darryl Hammond as Jesse Jackson. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/11 "2010-05-18T03:48:29Z")
Many Iranians are not any browner-skinned than the average European anyway. [Here](http://www.iranfreedomconcert.com/images/womansign.jpg) [are](http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/bm~pix/young-iranians-1~s600x600.jpg) [some](http://tehrandaily.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/iranians_protest_election_results_7.jpg) [not-particularly-brown](http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/03/13/iran_leaflets_wideweb__470x312,0.jpg) [Iranians](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42752000/jpg/_42752849_tehranprotestgallery_afp.jpg), and [here’s Jake Gyllenhaal](http://fabricmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/jake-gyllenhaal.jpg). Not a very striking difference except for the eye color. And [some Iranians even have light eyes](http://torkzadeh.com/ali/files/mahnaz.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/12 "2010-05-18T03:57:36Z")
I don’t think blackface is “prohibited” either. As has been said it’s rarely convincing. (Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder excepted–there’s no race that man can’t convincingly play, IMO!) ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/13 "2010-05-18T04:04:56Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > It’s like having a Scotsman play a Spaniard while a Frenchman plays a Scotsman. There can only be one. Declan ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/14 "2010-05-18T04:35:21Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > And Darryl Hammond as Jesse Jackson. And Adam Sandler as Bill Cosby. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/15 "2010-05-18T04:50:48Z")
Incidentally, Gyllenhaal is only Swedish from his father’s side - his mom’s a Sephardic Jew. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/16 "2010-05-18T04:55:14Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#): > > Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder excepted–there’s no race that man can’t convincingly play, IMO! I came in to post this, plus I remember seeing Ricardo Montalban play a Japanese ganster on Hawaii 5-O ---
**Author:** ![Electronic\_Chaos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Electronic\_Chaos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electronic_Chaos)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/17 "2010-05-18T04:56:03Z")
What bugs me most about the trailers is the fact that the actors have British accents… and Jake Gyllenhaal obviously has an American accent. I mean, Persia/Iran was never colonized by the Brits, correct? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/18 "2010-05-18T05:18:05Z")
> [@Electronic\_Chaos](#): > > What bugs me most about the trailers is the fact that the actors have British accents… and Jake Gyllenhaal obviously has an American accent. > > I mean, Persia/Iran was never colonized by the Brits, correct? Are you also bothered that they’re speaking English? If not, why get hung up on their accents? ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/19 "2010-05-18T05:22:06Z")
Yeah, I figure just ignore the accents. It’s usually got no bearing when it’s a foreign and/or ancient culture. I thought they did a good job in HBO’s Rome series because they were all speaking in English accents but the upper class ones had the more posh accents as opposed to a more lower class one for the plebs. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851/20 "2010-05-18T07:06:08Z")
It would have been nice if the film makers had made an effort to locate some talent that looked a bit more appropriate to the story, but does anyone really have high expectations from this movie? There is an ancient tradition in Hollywood that Middle-Easterners should only ever be played by white Americans, so you can’t really blame this film for that. I’ve only seen the trailers, but this movie struck me as being heavily inspired by _Assassin’s Creed_, another video game. The parcours, the leap of faith, etc. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-of-persia-and-blackface/539851.md?page=2)