God’s British Accent???

Herman and I just saw the movie, Exodus: Gods and Kings, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Christian Bale. I must say I usually avoid movies with biblical themes, but I recently read Herman Wouk’s This Is My God in which he gave a brief history of the Jewish religion, and that got me interested in the character of Moses.  According to Wouk, the Jews revere Moses because he was, according to legend, the only person whom God conversed with.

I would be generous in giving this movie three stars. I felt both the writing and the acting were lacking, and there were scenes (like exploding buildings) that were so off the wall we laughed out loud. The plot was lacking, too, but I understand the need to keep it close to the biblical myth.

I do give the film a thumbs-up for trying to make almost all of the miracles seem like naturally occurring phenomenon.

There were few surprises with the storyline, but I do question why the director chose to portray the character of God as a petulant, Caucasian, seven-year-old child with a decidedly English accent.  I mean, I get why they showed him as a petulant child, God often acts like that throughout the pages of the Old Testament. I even understand why they made God white. Lord knows the bigoted Christian in the U.S. would boycott the movie if they’d had the nerve to make God brown like the people he ruled over. No, we mustn’t unsettle the faithful with something so appalling as a brown-skinned God. What struck me as odd was that they chose someone with an English accent to play God. Was that an attempt to make him even whiter? Or was that a way to make a child seem wiser (research suggests that American’s think spokespeople with British accents have more credibility, are wiser.) I honest can’t think of any other reasons. I found it quit jarring. If it was to make him seem wiser, it failed.

I can’t recommend the movie. But as I’ve already said, I have a certain biases against biblical themed movies. This movie, once again, shows a god only interested in saving the tribe of Abraham, the Hebrews, which, to me, is simply a form of self-glorification by the people who follow the religions that sprang from the Hebrews.

As far as I’m concerned, the fact that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all created a god who only looks after their own tribe, and to hell with the rest of humanity (not to mention all the other living creatures,) only goes to reinforce my believe that man only worships two things: himself and money, and money, of course, is only another means of self glorification.