Moon Knight director Mohamed Diab criticizes Wonder Woman 1984’s portrayal of Egypt
"It was a disgrace," Diab says of the film's Cairo scenes
Aux News Moon Knight
When pitching the forthcoming Marvel series Moon Knight to Disney, director Mohamed Diab (Cairo 678, Amira) sought to focus heavily on Egypt and its role within the series. He not only wanted to make it as “authentic as possible” for the lore of the title character, but he also wished right some of the wrongs from previous Hollywood projects—namely, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984.
“In my pitch, there was a big part about Egypt, and how inauthentically it has been portrayed throughout Hollywood’s history,” Diab tells 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.”
In Wonder Woman 1984, Gal Gadot’s Diana Prince and Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor take off to “Cairo,” where the second large action scene of the film takes place. At one point, the two talk to a sheik, and Wonder Woman even gets the chance to heroically save two Egyptian children who just happen to be playing soccer in the desert. Diab knocks the film for playing into typical Hollywood tropes, and for inaccurately portraying cities in Egypt.
“You never see Cairo. You always see Jordan shot for Cairo, Morocco shot for Cairo, sometimes Spain shot for Cairo. This really angers us,” Diab says. “I remember seeing Wonder Woman 1984 and there was a big sequence in Egypt and it was a disgrace for us. You had a sheik—that doesn’t make any sense to us. Egypt looked like a country from the Middle Ages. It looked like the desert.”
Egyptian mythology plays a large role in Moon Knight as the titular character comes into his powers thanks to the Egyptian moon god Khonshu. Diab directed four episodes of the first season, and gives props to the comic books for their more accurate portrayals of Egypt.
“[It’s] part of the show because it’s part of the comic book. It’s part of how he gets his powers. It’s ingrained in it.” Diab explains. “There was definitely room to play [in Moon Knight] but keep it as authentic as possible, in the realm of being fantastical. Even in the original comic books they did a great job of researching and trying to make Egypt authentic.”
Moon Knight, starring Oscar Isaac, premieres on Disney+ on March 30.
158 Comments
I’ve not been so disgusted since Shyamalan shot North Philly-for-Cairo!!!
Speaking of Shyamalan, being a Southeast PA native, really really really fucked up with Signs. Basically the exact opposite of what Diab is talking about with Cairo. It was set in the next town over from where I grew up (and was living at the time), and he made it look like a stereotypical Midwest remote town with a quaint sheriff and hyper-rural trappings. Yeah, there’s some rednecks out there, and there are miles of woods and a bit of farmland, but it’s not Iowa. Doylestown is the county seat of one of the largest and most affluent counties in Pennsylvania. The police aren’t the “howyadoin” type, they’re the same militarized thugs that every suburban white-flight area has to keep the “right” people safe.Every depiction of life in that area was unrecognizable for the people who live there. Which stands in sharp contrast to the way Shyamalan handled the rest of the area in the various movies he made. Heck, the beginning of Split had me hooked from the first second, because it starts in the parking lot closest to the theater at the King of Prussia Mall, and every bit of localization is absolutely spot on.ETA: yes, I know every part of Signs was absolutely stupid, but I could barely process the stupidity over how angry I was that we’d all been so excited to have an Actual Movie shot in our area and it made us look like Mulder’s version of Luke Wilson’s character in the Texas Vampire episode.
Star for the Bad Blood reference!
Lol how did I get back in the greys?
To be fair, WW84 was pretty cringy all the way through…
I liked it. For once, a stupid superhero movie that KNOWS it’s as deep as a throwaway comic book.
100%, but I guess that is what happens when you write a script that was only concerned about figuring the most bassackwards way to bring Steve Trevor back, instead of, I don’t know, showcasing freakin Wonder Woman…
To be fair maybe the intent was simply to make Wonder Woman a sexual predator, and bringing Trevor’s soul back into an unwitting body (who’s soul apparently never left? Went away and came back? IDK) was the easiest way to make it happen!
I think they implied that the guy who the body belonged to was just magically rendered unconscious while Steve was piloting him? What a time for Wonder Woman to discover she has a coma fetish.
“Any time Steve is off camera, Wonder Woman should ask ‘Where is Steve?’”
Not just bringing Steve back, but Quantum Leaping him into some poor rando who had no say in the deal. So when Steve and Wonder Woman have sex, she’s actually fucking the body of an unconscious man who could not give consent. It’s like the writers stayed up all night trying to figure out the most uncomfortable possible way to go about this.
Not only did she have sex with a person who couldn’t possibly consent, she also did it right in the middle of the AIDS crisis. Do WW’s powers protect her from sexually transmitted diseases?
Don’t worry, she always uses one of her trademark invisible condoms. Unless she forgets. It’s hard to tell.
Amen
I still can’t believe Patty Jenkins was in charge. It felt like a hack job sequel done by people with no interest or knowledge of Wonder Woman.
Yeah the script was horrible and apparently Gal is not a very good actress. She’s great playing angry or bright and sunny, watching her try to do any other emotion is kind of embarrassing…
I’m not watching her for her emotions…
Neither was the casting director, they were paying attention to her…erm…
Don’t know who you’re thinking of, but her tracts ain’t huge.probably not even average.
So, Patty Jenkins
The thing that continues to kill me about WW84 discussion was‘Finally a film free of Snyder’s all destroying corruption’ -> WW84.To clarify, I actually don’t think Snyder is responsible for much of what made Wonder Woman movie tick, it was just that following the discussion back then which still sought to vilify Snyder even for Wonder Woman’s weak parts made the response to WWE84 pretty hilarious.In the name of honesty, and I am biased in this manner, I think the bigger issue with WW84 is that that is the film Geoff Johns got involved with.
Yeah I try not to get in on any pro/anti Snyder bs, it tends to drag the conversation down whenever it enters the fray.I honestly think it’s that Jenkins had more of a hand in the script. I feel like she’s a competent director but a bad writer.
That’s an excellent point about the script. I hadn’t actually realized that Jenkins didn’t even have a story credit on the first Wonder Woman movie.WW84 continues to be such a mystery to me as that decision to cram Steve Trevor into it was so mystifying. Like I get that Pine is good and he had a great part in the WW film, but it just derailed everything. And writing here, I realize that one of the reasons I was mentally putting it on Johns is that aside from him being responsible for Trevor being brought back to the DCU proper, if you compare the JL movie versions, the one he focused on reduced Diana’s longing back home.
Snyder was never the sole problem with DC superhero movies. He was more a symptom of executives who really didn’t understand what they could build with these characters. They saw the MCU with it’s mostly second stringers making all the money and thought “Well we got the “real” superheroes, let’s make one of these” without ever considering how the MCU came into being.
It was a bad movie, which makes Diab’s outrage that much more ridiculous because, in this case, it is low-hanging fruit.
I have to explain to people that, “no, Deliverance is in no way what life for me was like. That’s crazy.” I always set em in straight and tell em, “Why would we be raping strangers when we have perfectly fine sisters back at home?”
Where’s the pic of your sister?
Don’t have it. Traded it for meth.
But you kept the banjo, right?
Why wouldn’t he? Everyone already has their own.
I live in that part of Georgia, and now all the yuppies are moving up here, and the Floridians who need second homes in the mountains, and we can’t afford to buy a fucking house even though we have two incomes and no kids.
Also, my banjo is proudly mounted on the wall.
Welcome to modern America, the millionaires are buying up all the houses and saying that the rest of us are too ‘lazy’ to own a home
I mean he’s got a point. This is a picture of Cairo in 1980, even a few years earlier than the movie. It’s a city. Hollywood does have a habit of showing Cairo like it’s perpetually the dig site from Indiana Jones.
I come from Ireland, usually whenever someone features it in a big AAA Tentpole movie …well they do NOT do us well…
Down with this sort of thing!
Careful now!
edit. never mind. beaten to the punch
Its more then a few cottages and pubs, Dublin is a large and lovely city. Hell, Kilkenny is a good sized city.
What, you don’t all live in stone huts with thatched roofs in the year 2022?
You should try being from Northern Ireland. At least you guys get to be charming, friendly primitives.
If it helps most TV shows/Movies couldnt tell the difference between Northern Ireland and the Republic….or now I think about it Scotland
I dunno, there are countless comedies and romcoms in Oirland, but I challenge you to find any film set in NI that isn’t about the Troubles/a bunch of mad bastards murdering each other.(There are a few but they’re pretty obscure)
I grew up in Oregon, and when I was a teenager some bank with offices throughout the country ran a campaign in which the commercial featured scenes from various office locations. You saw an urban scene for New York, a guy driving in a convertible for Los Angeles, and to represent Portland, OR they showed a group of lumberjacks climbing tall trees. Because that’s totally Portland, it’s actually a pine forest with no streets or buildings.
I’m Canadian. I feel your pain all too well.
I’d love to see that commercial with a scene of just total anarchy thrown in for the Portland section.
Yup, that’s Hollywood for you. It’s frustrating to see Cairo or other places like Morocco still shown as they had been shown in movies 40 years ago as if we still haven’t heard of Orientalism. Same with how filmmakers lazily shoot scenes meant to be in Mexico with the ubiquitous Mexican Filter. There are varying degrees of progress, like how much more rare it is nowadays to see Asianless movies set in San Francisco. But a lot of filmmakers and a lot of audiences like their shortcuts.
*the country of africa has entered the chat*
I was stunned to visit Mexico and discover it’s not all various shades of overexposed yellow. They’ve got like a whole color spectrum down there! Who knew?
If you only knew Africa from movies, you’d be surprised they have cities… clothes, water, and everything else.
Personally? I’m more worried about how HE will depict mental health issues onscreen. I know it’s a comic book show so it’ll likely get a pass but the character of Moon Knight is pretty flippant about serious issues.
The Night Manager did a great job of showing Cairo as a modern city; thrown into chaos and still centered mostly around white people in that story, but still a realistic depiction of the actual city.
BTW here’s almost the same shot but 41 years later in 2021
Looks like they re-sodded.
Yeah, and Africa in general has this problem, as does the Middle East. A lot of Westerners are shocked when they learn that the Arab world has modern cities other than Dubai, and that Africa isn’t just a big jungle with some huts for people to live in.
sounds more like he criticized all of hollywood and used ww1984 as a recent example.
Yeah, he went after Black Adam too. Still, when in doubt about your own project, go after the ‘mistakes’ in a woman-led project (because the gals can’t get history right).
For some reason, I’m unable to load more comments beneath your reply, but I’m going to assume you were rightfully ripped to shreds for this incredibly stupid “fake woke” comment. Wonder Woman 1984 was fucking god-awful, and no amount of performative feminism is going to change that. The first Wonder Woman film was great! I loved it! But the sequel might possibly be the worst-written thing — certainly the worst superhero film — I’ve ever seen. It was fucking BAD, dude. I haven’t been so thoroughly put off by a film in years, if ever! And Gal Gadot’s well-known baggage, let’s say, concerning her feelings toward Israel and Palestine only muddy those waters further. The movie was bad and ignorant on a number of levels, and it deserves to be dragged through shit just as much as its preceding film deserves to be praised.(This really shouldn’t need to be said, but I’m going to add it anyway: This comment is coming from a far-left perspective. Female-fronted films DO take a lot of unwarranted heat from people on a number of levels, but this isn’t one of those times. I know tone-deaf liberal bullshit when I see it.)
WW84 is very bad though. It would be really cool if it wasn’t very bad, but people pretending it has merit due to Feminism isn’t a good thing. Supporting Feminism and having higher standards aren’t mutually exclusive.
minorities winning awards or accolades because they’re minorities and not for merit is performative and when things like the Oscars do it they’re basically congratulating themselves for it. It’s gross.
I wonder what he thought of the Cairo scenes in X-Men: Apocalypse, for contrast.
He probably didn’t see it. I know I haven’t.
I’ve seen it but I couldn’t tell you a thing about it other than that it somehow made the very handsome Oscar Isaac look like a goober
Goober! That needs to come back!
It’s gold, Jerry!
That’s the correct choice.
I like that we’ve come full circle back to Oscar Issac with this comment 🙂
Counterpoint: Cairo is a shithole. At least they didn’t shoot in Vancouver. His head probably would have exploded.
I imagine that just like any large city, there are parts that are beautiful and parts that are shitty.
2 words: Feral cats
2 more: yes and?
That’s all it takes to make a town a shithole? I thought Key West was pretty nice, but according to your criteria I guess it’s not.
REALLY feral cats
Counter-counterpoint: The whole world is shitty… why isolate Cairo for condemnation?
That’s wrong
Cario is so shitty the Egyptian government is spending billions to move its capital… He has a point.
San Francisco, too, is quite literally a shithole if you go to some neighborhoods. I’ve never seen characters dodging human poop, needles, and homeless encampments in any movie.
You have no idea how hard I lobbied to have characters dodging piles of shit and needles when I briefly worked for Pixar.
I would have been curious about how realistically you all would have rendered that notorious 20-pound bag of poop that stayed on a Tenderloin sidewalk for about a week.
The fact that there’s an area of San Francisco called “the Tenderloin” has always weirded me out.
Never seen it, but always been perversely curious.
My impression at this point is that it’s safe and gentrified, not the scuzzy hellhole it used to [have the reputation of] be[ing].
I’d be surprised if there’s much in SF at this point that hasn’t been cleaned up. Real estate is just too damn valuable.
Poor Wall-E, tracks smeared in shit and hypodermics sticking out of him in all directions.
Clearly you aren’t watching the right films.
That whole movie was a disgrace to moviemaking
To be fair to WW84, he only criticized its portrayal of Eqypt. He could have continued and also criticized its portrayal of love, consent, logic, fun…
Ah the classic way to promote Marvel: dunk on DC. Not Brand Echhh!
I wonder what Texans think about all the times in film that the deserts of California and Arizona have stood in for this mostly-not-desert state.
They’re too busy shooting two pistols into the air and stomping around in circles yelling about how “THEY TOOK OUR JOBS” or whatever it is they do there
They also stand outside of saloons with six-shooters and “call each other out” whenever someone does a bad.
‘…JERBS’ fify
Texans think?
ask sam elliot =D =D
Sam Elliot is from California.
He just plays a Texan on TV.
That’s the joke.
Growing up I honestly thought the state was mostly desert. I now live in Houston, which has more in common with low country SC and GA than AZ or NM.
I wonder what he would think of New Zealand standing in for Montana
I mean, Moon Knight is a caricature of mental health issues, which are very rarely if ever depicted realistically onscreen. But I’m sure his demand for authenticity includes that portrayal right?
Next he’s going to tell us how Afghanistan doesn’t look anything like Southern California.
Or that Korea doesn’t look like Malibu…
His overall critique of Orientalism in film in general and WW84 in particular is totally valid. The film industry has done a piss poor job of changing its conception of this part of the world and of telling stories that depict it accurately. This quote, however, isn’t terribly convincing as a main prong of his argument:“You never see Cairo. You always see Jordan shot for Cairo, Morocco shot for Cairo, sometimes Spain shot for Cairo.”This is pretty much how modern filmmaking works. You scout locations to approximate the actual cities or countries in the script. You find the easiest/cheapest place that fits the bill. You use it. So Vancouver stands in for everything from Chicago (I, Robot), to Dancing Elk, MN (Juno). It’s how Cleveland becomes DC in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. So yeah, It’s totally valid to complain that in general, portrayals of Egypt and other Arab countries are overwhelmingly stereotypical. WW84 is a particularly egregious example because it does reduce Egypt to a desert and goat herders and sheikhs rather than a modernized nation with a capital city, Cairo, of 10 million people. These are problems of narrative construction and writing as much (if not more) than they are problems of shooting locations. If the script writes Egypt as though it’s still in the Middle Ages, then you’re doomed from the jump. It just becomes visible through the selection of locations. The problem starts with writing and is manifested through production design and location choices.ETA: I also wonder if filming in an Arab country would have been a problem for WW84 given Godot’s past service in the Israeli army and, well, some of her past statements with regard to that. I can see how that might have encouraged the production to use Spain and the Canary islands to stand in for Egypt/Cairo.
“You never see Cairo. You always see Jordan shot for Cairo, Morocco shot for Cairo, sometimes Spain shot for Cairo.”This stood out to me as well. I don’t think he’s familiar with the way Hollywood works when it comes to budgets, incentives etc. Every movie or TV show that’s supposed to be set somewhere is nearly always filmed someplace else. The show NCIS, which is supposed to take place in Virginia, is filmed entirely in California. The Dukes Of Hazzard TV show (aside from the first 6 episodes) was also filmed in California, despite the show being about two good ole Georgia boys. Filming on location is expensive, and there’s only a handful of directors that still have the pull to do it.
This. I live in a suburb of Los Angeles and there’s filming going on every week because my neighborhood has a east coast kind of look.
I live in OC and it’s the same thing down here. Lots of shows use our beaches as a stand in for Florida.
I don’t think he’s familiar with the way Hollywood works when it comes to budgets, incentives etc.You really think that the 3 time movie director tapped by Disney to direct a major series starring one of the biggest actors doesn’t know how movies work?
Yes, sort of if we take his statement at face value, and there’s nothing being lost in translation. I believe he seriously misunderstands how many films and TV shows are decidedly not filmed on location. There’s a chance he’s not familiar with the industry in the US, as a quick IMDB check shows me he’s mainly directed films overseas. I understand his complaint, and quite frankly, I agree with it. I wish production was filmed on location, and it’s jarring when you can tell it’s not (Ferrari vs Ford was filmed at California Speedway, not Daytona and it was painfully obvious). Locations being filmed in a stereotypical way is another complaint I agree.But, I still think he’s overlooking the money, availability, and contracts in place that dictate where filming takes place. I don’t know how things work overseas, but I’m going to assume they film on location more often than not.
Or maybe you’re missing the point: Those aren’t suitable stand-ins for Cairo. Jordan is a desert, dry and dusty, Morocco is on the other side of the continent, separated by 2 countries and numerous distinct cultural histories, over 2000 miles away from the oasis that Cairo was built upon.
Yes, sort of if we take his statement at face value, and there’s nothing being lost in translation.There does seem to be. I, and it seems knappsterbot, both read his statement as being about how certain locations are not suitable as stand-ins for Cairo, not a rant against filming on locations that are not literally the place you’re trying to represent. There’s a chance he’s not familiar with the industry in the US, as a quick IMDB check shows me he’s mainly directed films overseas. Moon Knight is set in London, filmed in Budapest and Atlanta. And it seems the Egypt portions were filmed in Jordan. He’s definitely familiar with the process.He’s talking about filming in locations that are suitable stand ins. A dusty desert filled with tents and clay huts isn’t a suitable stand-in for a modern riverside metropolis.
Took the words right outta my mouth. Except:“This is pretty much how modern filmmaking works”‘All; ever’
This is pretty much how modern filmmaking works. You scout locations to approximate the actual cities or countries in the script. You find the easiest/cheapest place that fits the bill. You use it. So Vancouver stands in for everything from Chicago (I, Robot), to Dancing Elk, MN (Juno). It’s how Cleveland becomes DC in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.Y’all he’s obviously familiar with how movies work, the problem is that the substitutions aren’t suitable for what they’re substituting, unlike Vancouver/Toronto for US cities or Cleveland for DC. Those are pretty good facsimiles of the places they’re meant to be, but Cairo is especially egregious because it’s always played up as some village in the middle of the desert. It’s like shooting a movie in a small town in Montana and calling it NYC. This is an asinine criticism of what he’s saying.
What’s more asinine, dumb, trolly of you is not reading the first part and later parts of his comment where you both are in agreement.
I did actually, which is why I focused on the part that I disagree with.
QED: you’re being a dumb and asinine troll.
Bud you’re the one who’s just accusing me of being a troll, you seem to have absolutely nothing else to contribute. Am I trolling, or am I just expressing an opinion that you don’t agree with and you’re not mature enough to parse those feelings?
It was a head-scratching criticism, tbh, considering I think we’re fundamentally in agreement on what the actual problem is—narratives that don’t reflect the reality of places like Cairo. I never claimed the director didn’t know how filmmaking worked—just that this particular quote didn’t do much to support his argument given the way that the scripts, economics, and logistics of a production determine many shooting locations. But oh well, whattaya gonna do? Internet gonna internet. (I am a woman, btw, but that’s neither here nor there).
He just more or less admitted that he’s trolling you just to be a dick and get some stars out of it from fellow idiots on here. Internet gonna internet indeed. Especially on this website.
Lmao where did I admit anything like that?
I don’t know why it’s so confusing that someone can agree with one aspect of what you said while disagreeing with another. It’s not a complicated or uncommon occurrence. narratives that don’t reflect the reality of places like Cairo…this particular quote didn’t do much to support his argument given the way that the scripts, economics, and logistics of a production determine many shooting locations.This is exactly what I take issue with, you’re making the assumption that he’s more unfamiliar than you are with the chain of production if you think that. That’s insanely arrogant to assume. He’s not asking for every movie set in Cairo to be filmed in Cairo, he’s asking for better analogues when choosing a location to shoot in when it’s meant to be a modern city built on top of lush oasis.
No it isn’t
So, you just really missed the whole point of what I was saying, huh? If a movie chooses the Jordanian desert as a stand-in for the metropolis of Cairo, the fault lies first and foremost in the script/narrative, which is relying on a stereotypical representation of Egypt. If your script says you need a car chase in the Egyptian desert, then yes, Jordan or Morocco are perfectly acceptable locations if they are economically and logistically more feasible than Egypt. Diab’s criticism in this case should not be that other places stand in for Cairo, but that writers write movies where the Jordanian desert stands in for Cairo because those writers are relying on tired stereotypes rather than an understanding of the modern Middle East.With that in mind, yeah, I think his quote isn’t a particularly strong branch of his argument. Again, I agree entirely with his premise/overall complaint, just not this one piece of evidence that he used to support it.
I really don’t understand the point of what you’re saying. It sounds like you’re just adding more words to what he said, but working from the assumption that he doesn’t know all of that already.
Woops, just repeated what you said, but you said it better, so here’s your star.
Thank you. “This experienced director obviously has no idea how movies are made. Me, a random internet desk jockey knows much more.” Give me a fucking break.
Vancouver stands in for everything from Chicago (I, Robot), to Dancing Elk, MN (Juno). It’s how Cleveland becomes DC in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Or Toronto for Philadelphia in Shazam. I was particularly surprised by that one, since it isn’t exactly rare for movies to be shot in Philadelphia.
The article doesn’t even say if Moon Knight was shot in Egypt, so I’m guessing it wasn’t. Right?
Tangential comment – the idea that Vancouver is somehow more affordable to film in than..well pretty much ANYWHERE, is completely counter-intuitive to me.
What the hell is it with accommodation prices in Canada? I found it cheaper to stay at a damn ski-resort (Whistler) than it was to stay in Vancouver itself and I’ve just paid through the arse for a week’s accommodation in (that other popular ‘budget’ location stand-in) Toronto later this year.
For a long time Canada gave big tax breaks to film in the country.
Israel and Egypt are allies, but I love your image of the Arab countries where their biggest issue with Gal Gadot would be her *statements* about the Israeli army, and not that she is from Israel; not sure they’re the bastions of tolerance you seem to think.
People can understand that that’s how the business works but still want to see the actual location shown. It’s perfectly fine as part of his overall argument about lack of authenticity. If you’re familiar with those cities/areas, you can tell when it’s not real and it can take you out of the narrative a bit so I can understand getting annoyed when your city is constantly misrepresented, and even more so when compounded with orientalism. Even for American cities that aren’t little known you’ll see people saying it’s refreshing that a movie/show was actually shot on location in the place it’s supposed to be instead of Vancouver or LA or whatever.
Did most of the comment just point out about location? Cause the way I read he”s trying to say that Hollywood always portray Egypt like the Middle Age Desert/Arab City instead of a modern city. I mean a sheik ? With the political background of the 80’s ?
? The comment I was responding to was discussing his quote about other cities/countries standing in for Cairo, but yes, I agree that the gist of Diab’s overall complaint is what you said.
Egypt was a thriving democracy in the 1980s and didn’t have any sheiks.
I think the bigger point he’s making is in fact, as you say, that they never shoot Cairo as a major metropolitan city on a lush delta with a giant river running through it, but as a tiny backwards town with some folks in turbans next to a giant desert.
At least when Vancouver is being shot for New York, they’re doing it because it’s a cheaper place with similar skyscrapers. They’re not shooting a Nebraska townlet and calling it New York.
There’s no shortage of poor creative decisions in WW84.
I’m from Reno. Do not fucking get me started.
I promise not to get you started fucking.
Does Reno not look like a small city in the middle of the desert?
Kinda? It’s high desert, so it is adjacent to a lot of seriously majestic desert landscape, but it’s also at the foot of the Sierra Mountains, like 45 minutes from Tahoe. Weird location. The city itself though is always portrayed as seedy and janky, and it definitely has those aspects, but they’re not as prevalent anymore, as the city has gotten a lot more diverse and interesting in the last couple decades. Shockingly good food and arts, day trip distance to almost any kind of outdoorsy activity you could want to do, pretty neat place. I used to fucking hate it, so either it’s gotten better, or I have Stockholm Syndrome
Your cops *don’t* wear short-shorts?
Because if you get started, you will shoot a man just to watch him die?
The man has a point and I don’t want to, like, downplay it. But I know of a few friends who’ve traveled there that basically had to PRETEND TO BE MARRIED because being an unmarried woman in Egypt is apparently a no-no or something. That seems hard to deal with for a large production shoot.
Gonna need to see some receipts on that one. A city of 10 million people, shaming unmarried woman on a large scale seems low on the agenda.
Counterpoint – you’d have something to occupy your time all day, every day!
You definitely get harassed as a single woman in Cairo in a way that would make an American’s milk curdle, even one used to the catcalling of a big city here. That’s an unfortunate fact.
I mean, the fact that the lead was in the Israeli army is probably a way bigger sticking point for filming in Egypt. Egypt may have a formal peace with Israel, but that is not reflective of the Egyptian public’s view of Israel.
Wait, you mean to tell me a movie about Wonder Woman isn’t factually accurate? Oh dear…
Talking to an Egyptian friend of mine about Ramy, which we’re both fans of. He said he was watching the episode where Ramy goes to Egypt to see his family and gets lost in the desert, and his GF started asking him what it was like to grow up in the middle of a vast desert like that… then 5 minutes later he’s in a booming, modern metropolis, and my friend was just, “Like that,” and his GF responded, “Oh, so like Houston?” “Yes. Exactly like Houston.”
Sounds like everyone in this story knows what they’re talking about. Houston’s more swamp and forest than desert.
The point was Cairo has more in common with the city where they actually grew up – massive, sprawling megacity with loads of traffic – than 18th century Tunis, which is probably what most people think of when they imagine Cairo.
Fair point. Heck, look at Cairo in Raiders – it’s 100% stucco and tile, and that was late 1930s.
Story would work better with El Paso or Las Vegas.
You had me at “criticizes Wonder Woman 1984″.
Was this guy complaining about the Wonder Woman film when it came out or is he, just now, finding his ‘moment’? Apparently he’s ‘calling out’ Black Adam also.
But it wasn’t even Egypt in the movie, but the fictional country of Bialya. Here’s what one of its creators had to say…
I’m almost %100 Italian but my family is from northern Italy so I have fair skin and light hair which is common. However people are always shocked that I’m not tan with dark hair and ringlets and I tell those people “I’m northern Italian, not movie-Italian”.
And no, I’m not associated with the mafia.