“It Was A Disgrace”: ‘Moon Knight’ Director Has Issues With Egypt Depiction in ‘Wonder Woman’
The new Marvel series about Moon Knight is directed by Mohamed Diab, Egyptian screenwriter and filmmaker. You might be familiar with his debut work “Cairo 678” and the 2021 movie “Amira.”
Mohamed Diab plans to pay due respects to his motherland, Egypt, when it comes to the upcoming Marvel series ‘Moon Knight ’, mainly because he appears to be dissatisfied with how the country had been depicted by Hollywood before.
“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” Diab recently told SFX Magazine. “It’s always exotic – we call it orientalism. It dehumanizes us. We are always naked, we are always sexy, we are always bad, we are always over the top.”
Egypt is important to the main character in ‘Moon Knight’, Diab continued, because “it’s part of how he gets his powers, it’s ingrained in it.”
“There was definitely room to play [in ‘Moon Knight’] but keep it as authentic as possible, in the realm of being fantastical,” the director noted. “Even in the original comic books they did a great job of researching and trying to make Egypt authentic.”
Hollywood, however, keeps failing to properly represent Egypt, according to Diab. He pointed at ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ as the most recent example of such failure: many critics accused the movie of fueling racist stereotypes due to an Egypt-related storyline.
Fans, however, had a small tweak to add.
Still, it’s worth remembering that the ancient kingdom of Bialya described in the DC Universe was located in the lands of modern-day Egypt. So technically, it’s not like Diab’s comments are that baseless.
Fans will have their chance to check out Diab’s depiction of Egypt in ‘Moon Knight’ after it premieres on Disney Plus on March 30.