How racist is Prometheus?

whatisthematrix...Are you serious? If you're post doesn't show ignorance and racism then I don't know what does. The post was at the least largely hypocritical.

Lol I dont think it was anything to do with racism! The idea of engineers being white is cos they need to look a bit sinister and they are probably clones and never saw sunlight (working in dark places) amongst other reasons...they might even have a bit were the engineers come to earth in Africa and alter the DNA to change us from ape to man later on!

There is nothing in the movie that suggests that man did not evolve from Africans.

*giggling* I have no a clue how u got that idea, You should explain your self a bit better please. [img]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/__yamtf7cB2g/SLfIgGTOeyI/AAAAAAAAAHU/vAQ1uWPrBO4/s400/Cthulhu+Evolution.jpg[/img]

African yes, but I think Egyptian is more like it? Mesopotamia would support the Sumerian connections?

Where the hell did you come up with the fact they were reluctant to accept H sapiens evolved in African?

Prometheus movie deals with the panspermia which hypothetically answers questions of abiogenesis aka creation of the single cell lifeforms from which other animals are [u]evolved[/u]. It doesn't answer questions related to the evolution, because that is not the scope of the movie. The reason prometheus deals with abiogeneiss is because we have no proof for the abiogenesis and that is why we have lot of creation theories. Evolution on the other hand is observed process among us which works after the creation - whatever means it started. So there is no sign of racism in prometheus.

Please don't make a race issue where there isn't one. There are at least three shots of earth in the movie, and each time the continent of Africa is highlighted. This more than anything, indicates that Ridley DOES think Africa is the cradle of life. [IMG]http://i46.tinypic.com/350s7c3.jpg[/IMG]

give me a break....

I think what's happened here is that chthon thought he was onto something clever, came on here thinking he'd struck gold, posted something he thought would generate plenty of chatter and maybe even shine a new light on Prometheus as a whole, then we all blew him out of the sky like a clay pigeon and laughed. Hohohoho. @chthon: Everything you just wrote there was entirely ridiculous and wrong. Massively. We're all having a a bloody good laugh at this on my end. Laugh?! I thought my trousers would never dry.

All hail cthulu.

I would indeed laugh a lot, except I don't feel like to. Racism in Prometheus... Now I heard of everything.

Hm. Although, perhaps, phrased a little presumptuously, in my own opinion...nevertheless, I do think this is actually a very interesting question - and probably a difficult discussion to have. That might be all the more reason to have it. Perhaps you have made it a little easy to dismiss it with a, "LOL", and also, perhaps, by making the wrong specific object the target. I read your content quite carefully. The actual query you have seems to be something like, "Why is it that the Engineers are actually [i]pale-skinned[/i], not [i]dark-skinned[/i] when, in the context of what we understand to be the origins of Man, it certainly would not be nonsensical if the the Engineers were black - and it might even make more sense, given the nature of this story, if they were?..." If correct, I don't know why you would not just say and ask that question more directly, rather than present your conclusions and have the Forum struggle to determine how you are getting there?.. Anyhow, in respect of what I believe your actual question is, personally, I wouldn't say that, "Prometheus", in particular, was being racist in that regard - that is: not in any greater sense than anything else is racist - but that, in turn, is not say that Prometheus is not making choices that are dictated by its [i]environment[/i], and that those choices do, perhaps must, given the context, communicate only a version of a kind of Truth, which may not necessarily an [i]absolute[/i] Truth - but are a contextually comfortable and practical, "as good as", Truths. Issues of the overall presentation of the Engineers did cross my mind a couple of times...but I formed an opinion about that, which is much less about, "Prometheus", and much more about, "Society". There is no reason at all why they could not have been dark-skinned - it might even make more,"sense": but making them light-skinned is costless, in context. Making them dark-skinned, within our current context, is not costless - it becomes challenging for a great many reasons and that then adds a dimension which, the Authors may have chosen not to saddle themselves with. That does not [i]necessarily[/i] make them, "racist" - it just means that telling the story with that dimension is a "needless" cost, given the story they are trying to tell and the context in which they are making the film?.. I'd say a person does need to be quite careful when using this word - it does have a goo-like potency all of its own - and I'm not all that sure it's always appropriate when we discuss some of the specific products, of a wider environment.

lol way to go overboard there I think this thread was answered in the first 2 posts no? :P

allinamberclad’s point is a really good one. The film would likely have IMMEDIATELY been labeled racist somehow IF the Engineers did have [i]any[/i] skin pigmentation, especially since their motives are ambiguous in the opening scene. It was clearly SAFE to model them that way physically, but that does NOT make the underlying message racist in any way. Shaw identifies them as being a MATCH for [u]humans[/u]. That in no way implies that they are a match for 2,000-year-old Greco-Roman humans but not Afro-Asiatic humans at the same time. We are evolved into human "races" simply due to environmental factors. Those environmental factors are relevant to our specific planet, Earth, and its relationship to Sol. And, if you still doubt the production's impartiality on this point, see Svanya's post above.

hmmmm....what about on a technical level? If the sacrificial engineers DNA was the basis for homo-sapien, then it must have been the basis for homo-erectus and so on. Well, I hope I dont fire anyone up with this comment, but there was a time when our ancient ancestors were completely covered with hair. During that time period, there would be no real reason for dark pigmentation....the skin was not directly affected by the sun. So, being dark skinned is an evolutionary mutation that served humans well, but was not the way it began...Africa or not, it doesn't really matter...technically speaking.

@Nrlfetmefan That's precisely my point. Based on what we know about the fictional context of the film, could we say that the film is prejudiced against Neanderthals because the Engineers are apparently hairless?

Chthon. Like Svanya said "Ridley does think Africa is the Cradle of Life" also one of the main heros in Prometheus is Captain Janek (Idris Elba). So......

@sukkal + @Nrlfetmefan I have to say: beautifully put, both. In respect of this subject, I find it very hard to see an actual issue, to do with this specific film, to answer, here... It's not often I feel like defending this very peculiar example of a film but, between you and @Svanya, you've surely closed this particular case.

Maybe the engineers are like cuttlefish - they can be any color wooooooooooooooo....why are people seriously answering this the guy that started it probably hasn't looked at it since lol!