A week ago, ace actor Leonardo DiCaprio was rumoured to be playing the 13th century Muslim poet Jalal-ud-Din Mohammad Rumi in an upcoming movie. Screenwriter David Franzoni and producer Stephen Brown said DiCaprio was their first choice, while Robert Downey Jr was being considered for the role of Rumi’s mentor Shams of Tabraiz. While Franzoni also said he considered Rumi “a kind of Shakespeare” and intended to challenge Muslim stereotypes in mainstream movies, the news generated a lot of controversy. The moviemakers were criticised for trying to “whitewash” an eastern mystic who was born in Afghanistan, and composed poetry in Persian. Critics of all hues and moviegoers from across the world debated the politics of race, and the construction of identity in Hollywood. DiCaprio’s spokesperson has recently announced that he was never approached for the role, and would not take up the project, but the debates continue to rage, and rightly so.
Race is an important determinant in the construction of identity, particularly when it is dichotomised on an east/west basis. Add to this the further complicating factor of religion. Taken in this context, there are different ways of interpreting Hollywood’s botched attempt at getting DiCaprio to play Rumi.
The choice of opting for a white actor to portray an Afghan can go both ways. Having an actor from one part of the world portray a character from another, especially a historical one, could be taken as an attempt to foster dialogue between different cultures. Hollywood is the world’s movie capital. What they make is truly global. It would be a step in the right direction for “them” to cinematise figures important to “us.” At the same time, the choice of the lead actor could also be interpreted as the west trying to acculturate the cultural “other.” The decision to cast a white actor seems to be predicated on the assumption that western audiences would only be able to communicate with Rumi if he is shown in familiar racial terms. A necessary corollary of this train of thought: moviegoers in theatres would associate not with the eastern mystic but with the recognisable Hollywood heartthrob playing Rumi. If this does not amount to completely translating a different ethos into your own cultural idiom, at least it reflects an attempt at abstraction.
It would arguably be more authentic to cast an Asiatic actor. But such an arrangement cannot guarantee an authentic portrayal of the character in question. Something like this happens in Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Even though Muslim hero Salah-ud-Din Ayubi is played by a Middle Eastern actor, the Saladin that emerges is a rather domesticated medieval potentate digestible to a western audience. “What is Jerusalem worth?” Balian the subdued but noble Crusader asks Saladin. “Nothing!” Saladin replies candidly, proceeds to look at his victorious army at the city gates, turns and says, “Everything!” with a smirk.
Hollywood taking on Rumi with whichever actor they wish to could also suggest that the western fascination with the mystical, not-entirely-fathomable east is still active. And, packaging the exotic has often been good for business, even if not always authentic or critically acclaimed. But was that ever the purpose? Not always. Particularly not with Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg takes his famous adventuresome archeologist to India in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). The title here is a giveaway. Consider. A religious structure with such an ominous nomenclature would rarely ever refer to a western establishment, say, a Presbyterian Church. Though there have been countless films dealing with shady business at medieval churches and the Vatican, and with clandestine devil worshipping, one might detect in most of these movies the filmmaker’s stress on portraying individuals — priests, bishops, popes — as hegemons who have corrupted the establishments that they lord over. This is the situation in the 1986 movie The Name of the Rose based on Umberto Eco’s novel of the same title. Angels and Demons (2009) is another, more recent example. With a title like “Temple of Doom” on the other hand, the whole enterprise has been irredeemably “other-ised.”
In films such as the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the hero has to make his way to an eastern cultural establishment, say the just-discovered interior of an Egyptian pyramid or the innards of an underground shrine, there is bound to be the stench of corpses, the cobwebbed skeletons of people buried alive, and sometimes a proceeding bonfire for human sacrifice. The hero here is the torchbearer of rational western forces. Accordingly, he would prevent human sacrifice, and thereby gain the gratitude of the young — usually female — victim.
Spielberg does all this but exoticises it to the extent that it becomes a parody. Perhaps the most shocking instance is a scene where Jones is at a grand luncheon in a Sikh boy-king’s palace. Jones is offered a place at the king’s table, an Oriental rug on the floor with fancy cushions actually. We then proceed to the main course. A dead python with a swollen belly is brought forth. With an incision into the side snakelets come slithering out and the Indians leap in ravenous joy. For dessert Jones and his damsel are given chilled monkey brain intact in decapitated monkey heads. In a similar scene from a James Bond movie called Octopussy (1983), the villain, an exiled Afghan prince living in (surprise, surprise!) India, plucks out an eyeball from a roasted goat head and consumes it in one bite. The cuisine in these films serves to highlight the virtual cannibalism of the heathen “natives.” A tried and tested method in Hollywood.
Asiatic people have long been laughable clowns, naked savages, crazy egomaniacs, or terrorists in mainstream Hollywood films like True lies (1994), Die Another Day (2002) and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) to name a few. It is about time we had a genuine attempt at breaking these stereotypes. A sincere endeavour at inter cultural harmony becomes all the more significant in the face of growing terror attacks, the migrants’ crisis, and the US presidential election in November. We may live within defined geographical borders, but we still have much to learn from each other’s values and ideals. Hopefully, that is what the makers of Rumi will have learned from the DiCaprio letdown.
The writer is a lecturer in English Literature at Government College University, Lahore. He can be reached at [email protected]