The “Moon Knight” director Mohamed Diab does not leave a good hair on a film from the DC competition. The reason is absolutely understandable.
On March 30, 2022, the latest Marvel series will start with “Moon Knight” on Disney +. In it, the protagonist Steven Grant (Oscar Isaac) suffers from a dissociative identity disorder. One of his identities is the mercenary Marc Spector, chosen by the Egyptian moon god Konshu to use his supernatural powers to fight evil.
Since Egyptian mythology plays a very important role in “Moon Knight”, Mohamed Diab was hired as director. At least since his feature film debut “Cairo 678”, which appeared shortly before the Arab Revolution, the Egyptian has been known for dealing with socio-political issues from his homeland in his works. An accurate representation of Egypt and its culture, history and population is always very important to Diab. This also applies to “Moon Knight”.
In an interview, he revealed why this is so extremely important to the Egyptian director. As Deadline reports, Diab complained in the conversation that the western film world too often lacks sensitivity when depicting his homeland. He also gives an example that comes from Marvel’s competitor DC: “Wonder Woman 1984”.
“Moon Knight” director etches DC film: “Like from the Middle Ages”
Diab first said in the interview: “In my pitch there was a big part about Egypt and how inauthentic it has been portrayed in Hollywood history. It’s always exotic – we call it Orientalism. It dehumanizes us. We’re always naked, sexy , evil and are completely exaggerated.” He then adds: “You never see Cairo. It’s always Jordan, Morocco or sometimes Spain where they shoot instead of Cairo. That really annoys us.”
Then Mohamed Diab takes on Wonder Woman 1984: “I remember in ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ there was a big sequence in Egypt. That was a shame for us. They had a sheik – it doesn’t make sense to us ! Egypt looked like a country from the Middle Ages. It looked like the desert.”
Review of “Wonder Woman 1984”
Diab isn’t the only one who criticized “Wonder Woman 1984”. Shortly after the theatrical release, many criticized the portrayal of Egypt and especially the character of Emir Said Bin Abydos (Amr Waked). It was not only one-dimensional and clichéd, but also sometimes simply wrong. Because the title “Emir” is traditionally used in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar – and not in Egypt. In addition, the country was a democratic country in 1984, the period in which the DC film is set, and such honorary titles couldn’t exist in any case.
We’ll see if Diab can do a better job of portraying Egypt on March 30, 2022, when “Moon Knight” comes to Disney+.