09-12-2008, 10:44 AM
Randall Wallace
William Morris Agency
One William Morris Place
Beverly Hills, California 90212, USA
CC: Will Smith
Overbrook Entertainment
450 N Roxbury Drive
4th Floor Beverly Hills, California 90210, USA
![[Image: will_smith.jpg]](http://www.gilgameshgames.org/photos/will_smith.jpg)
10th September, 2008
Dear Randall Wallace,
I recently read that you are currently penning The Last Pharaoh, which revolves around Taharqa, the pharaoh who will be played by Will Smith, who battled Assyrian invaders, under the command of King Esarhaddon, in ancient Egypt beginning in 677 B.C.
I write to request that before you complete the screenplay you consider the pervasive Orientalism framework - first coined by the late Edward Said - that has long been used to diminish the history of both the African and Middle Eastern people by depicting them as blood thirsty, exotic, decadently corrupt, despotic and regressive. This racist framework was first constructed by European colonialists during the 18th century and reinforced by European writers and historians, to justify their control of third world nations and the expropriation of their resources.
This same framework was reflected by Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner who between 1916 and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over Egypt. He went on to insist that black Africans could not possibly have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders, including Taharqa, must have been light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the “primitive Africans.â€
William Morris Agency
One William Morris Place
Beverly Hills, California 90212, USA
CC: Will Smith
Overbrook Entertainment
450 N Roxbury Drive
4th Floor Beverly Hills, California 90210, USA
10th September, 2008
Dear Randall Wallace,
I recently read that you are currently penning The Last Pharaoh, which revolves around Taharqa, the pharaoh who will be played by Will Smith, who battled Assyrian invaders, under the command of King Esarhaddon, in ancient Egypt beginning in 677 B.C.
I write to request that before you complete the screenplay you consider the pervasive Orientalism framework - first coined by the late Edward Said - that has long been used to diminish the history of both the African and Middle Eastern people by depicting them as blood thirsty, exotic, decadently corrupt, despotic and regressive. This racist framework was first constructed by European colonialists during the 18th century and reinforced by European writers and historians, to justify their control of third world nations and the expropriation of their resources.
This same framework was reflected by Harvard Egyptologist George Reisner who between 1916 and 1919 offered the first archaeological evidence of Nubian kings who ruled over Egypt. He went on to insist that black Africans could not possibly have constructed the monuments he was excavating. He believed that Nubia’s leaders, including Taharqa, must have been light-skinned Egypto-Libyans who ruled over the “primitive Africans.â€
