INT. MOVIE STUDIO. DAY. An EAGER YOUNG MAN is pitching his idea to A BUNCH OF SUITS.
YOUNG MAN [Nervously]: So I know biblical epics with fantastical elements are back in a big way right now, and I was thinking of a Moses adaptation–
SUIT #1: Like the Ten Commandments. Love it. Young Heston. Bringing the rifles down from the mountain, yelling at the Statue of Liberty. “I am the Lord your God, you shall keep your hands off me, you damn dirty apes.” I can see it already.
YOUNG MAN: Where he’s a dark-skinned man with an African wife. Which is, um, actually true to the text–
SUIT #2: Can I just stop you and say that I love where you’re going with this, but I’m thinking more of a Chris Pine for this part?
SUIT #3: And what if Chris Pine can fly?
SUIT #2: EXACTLY. And everything he touches turns to gold.
SUIT #1: Can I just interrupt for a second? Is anyone doing Noah right now? What about the dark-skinned Moses movie, but it’s about Noah and we get a Russell Crowe type?
SUIT #3: Love it.
SUIT #2: Love it. And one of the kids from Harry Potter. And someone who looks like a young Christian Slater, but isn’t.
SUIT #1: “White Noah.” I love it. Let’s make it happen.
***
WHITE NOAH
EXT. DAY. The downpour is just beginning. WHITE NOAH stands in front of a BOAT (think Patek Phillipe ads) surrounded by his family.
NOAH’S WIFE [shouting to be heard over the deluge]: BUT WHITE NOAH
HOW ON EARTH ARE WE GOING TO SURVIVE THIS FLOOD
WHITE NOAH: IT’S GOING TO BE OKAY
I TOOK SAILING LESSONS AT THE YACHT CLUB
***
EXT. DAY. Shoot of THE ARK floating on top of a drowned world.
WHITE NOAH [O/S]: OH MY GOD
WHERE ARE MY SPERRYS
***
EXT. DAY. The FLOODWATERS have begun to recede, revealing a land absolutely littered with water-logged corpses. The only survivors in the entire world are WHITE NOAH, his wife, his three sons and their wives. The full realization of what has happened finally strikes WHITE NOAH.
WHITE NOAH: oh my god
who are we going to keep out of the Yacht Club now
***
WHITE NOAH: wait a minute
WAIT A MINUTE
if all of us are white
then being white is meaningless
if everybody is white we might as well have nobody be white
[he falls to his knees]
HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO US WHITE GOD
***
INT. ARK. NIGHT. WHITE NOAH has gathered his family members around him. They look grim, and also Caucasian. The normal kind, you know, the real far North kind of white. Nobody with curly hair or anything. You know what I mean.
WHITE NOAH: Listen. I know we’ve already been through a lot together, and that I’ve already asked you to sacrifice a great deal for this journey. And I also know that right now we need to come together and rebuild humanity, but we absolutely cannot all be white on New Earth.
[He pulls out a fistful of straws] Everybody take one.
The family members look horrified.
HERMIONE: Daddy, I get to stay white, don’t I?
WHITE NOAH: Of course you do, precious.
MRS. NOAH: What about me?
WHITE NOAH [grimly]: We’ll see.
WHITE NOAH: Anyone who draws one of the long straws gets to stay white. The medium ones are –
FADE TO BLACK
***
EXT. DAY. They have left the ark at last, but WHITE NOAH’S family proves resistant to the idea of relinquishing their whiteness.
WHITE NOAH [sobbing]: That tree…that tree over there, it looks Jewish. She can’t join the yacht club or date any of the boys. She will plow our fields for us.
MRS. NOAH: I don’t understand. There’s not even a concept of Semitism yet, much less anti-Semitism.
WHITE NOAH: THAT TREE CAN’T JOIN THE YACHT CLUB
***
EXT. DAY. WHITE NOAH is alone in the desert.
WHITE NOAH: WELL SOMEBODY’S GOING TO HAVE TO GIVE UP BEING WHITE AT LEAST FOR A LITTLE WHILE AND IT SURE AS HELL ISN’T GOING TO BE ME, THE GUY WHO BUILT A YACHT BY HIMSELF GETS TO STAY WHITE
Tags: bible movies, biblical whitewashing, logical conclusions, movies, noah, racism, the bible
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okay but Hermione has curly hair so obviously she does NOT actually get to stay white
look at that picture up there and tell me again what part of her hair is curly
I read and internalized way too many descriptions of bushy haired hermione to accept that as evidence
Bushy and curly are actually different things, aren’t they? I always took bushy to mean frizzy/thick/unmanageable, but not necessarily curly.
Thank you! I am so happy this article exists. Whitewashing drives me up a wall that’s a jillion cubits high.
I read an interview with the director where he’s all “we reproduced the ark that’s described in the Bible down to the cubit!” So…you did that but then cast a bunch o’ white people? WHY YOU NO SEE PROBLEM HERE??
YES! That sure shivers my timbers (wood joke because ark).
It sorta reminds me of Junot Diaz:
“Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they think we’re taking over.”
I adore Junot Diaz for many, many reasons, including the fact that every time he says a sentence it invariably starts with “motherfuckers.”
I think motherfuckers would like writers and professors a lot more if those nerds just followed Junot Diaz’s example.
*snorts*
My world is a better place now that I’ve read that quote.
Does anybody else think it is HILARIOUS that this movie is advertised all over weather.com?
YES I was checking the weather for the weekend (rainy), and just LAUGHED and LAUGHED
My response anyone’s expression of concern for any reason will now be: “IT’S GOING TO BE OK; I TOOK SAILING LESSONS AT THE YACHT CLUB. IT’S COOL, GUYS. I GOT THIS.”
Where do Jennifer Connelly’s gloriously thick eyebrows stand in all this?
Alone and proud as heck.
Ham is short for Hampton, Shem is a riff on Sherman and Japheth is the cutesy way Jeffrey used to spell his name in pre-K, which just stuck.
If I could give this 300 cubits of thumbs-up, I would
The wives went nameless because obviously they were called Muffy, Buffy, and Ashton.
I no-shit went to elementary school with a girl named Muffy Carrington.
I had a friend in high school named Carrington Cosby. The whole of 80s TV, in two words.
the greatest trick the devil ever played was convincing the world white people could play Biblical characters.
or that white people were Biblical characters.
If you take a picture of the face of every person on earth and mash them together on a computer then it looks exactly like Russel Crowe’s face in that first picture.
Nah I don’t think you need the computer. His face already looks like a bunch of stuff mashed together.
So he is both Michael Fassbender and not-Michael Fassbender?
If I remember correctly white supremacists say that Noah’s son Ham got to be black because God cursed him for looking at his dad when he was drunk off his ass.
So, that happened.
That used to be a mainstream belief, based on Genesis 9:25, although it says nothing about blacks being slaves: since all of Canaan’s (Ham’s son, Noah’s grandson) descendants are cursed to be slaves, obviously the curse was that Canaan and his descendants had to be black, and so it was really God’s will that all blacks were slaves AMIRITE SLAVERY IS AWESOME. FOR WHITE PEOPLE.
(More likely, the curse was a blatant later-period interpretation to justify the Israelites taking the land of Canaan from the descendants of Canaan. “WE GET YOUR LAND NOW GOD SAID SO” is an argument used surprisingly often in human history.)
Genesis 9:20-27 is actually super-weird: Noah plants a vineyard; Noah gets drunk and uncovers himself in his tent; Ham sees him and laughs to his brothers; Shem and Japheth cover Noah up; Noah wakes up, curses Ham’s son Canaan, and blesses Shem and Japheth. The Torah *doesn’t* say what happened in the tent — it’s essentially the same device used by Victorians where all the sex only happens between ellipses. So interpretations have ranged from “oh man it’s so bad to laugh at your father when he’s drunk” to “if you ever see your dad naked you will be cursed” to Canaan either sodomizing Noah, castrating Noah, or both. Yay multiple interpretations!
I always assumed Ham saw him passed out and drooling and laughed at his flaccid dingus and the lesson was don’t look at and mock your father’s dong.
Bible is some serious business.
I’m just glad they stayed true to the hoodie-over-long-sleeved-tee look that all the heroes in Genesis are famous for.
All costumes from Balenciaga’s “Biblical Moments” collection, resort 2015.
Oh my god you guys if Russell Crowe ruins Genesis 6-9 like he ruined Les Miz I swear.
Everyone knows that white people are sick and tired of dark skinned people getting all the good parts in the Bible. “Dudes will not abide,” they say in unison.
I think it’s safe to say White Noah is essentially the first Rich Dick. (Kroll Show, anybody?)
I don’t know what Hermione is actually doing in that photo, but I’m pretty sure she’s texting on her grass phone.
LOVE. That expression just yells ‘you have interrupted an important missive to my bff, you dork’
Mallory just tweeted “it is of course absurd that Noah would develop an anti-Semitic yacht club! (in no small part because Judaism did not exist)” and I believe that tweet is magnificent on its own, even out of context.
Oh, my God, this actually bananas person has been spamming us with comments and tweets about how this post is somehow an example of Holocaust denial (??) rather than a skewering of Hollywood whitewashing and I tried to (politely! for me!) explain to her and that’s what that tweet is about.
It’s actually tremendously sad! She is quite clearly unwell.
You were very polite and well-reasoned and that person is sad and confused and obvs. not well, like you said. I admire your restraint – I think arguing with eggs rarely turns out well (on Twitter and in life).
White Noah: Eh, this white god sucks. I’m going back to worshiping Odin.
I am so late to this thread but I just (belatedly, as is my wont) watched the trailer and from WHAT I CAN SEE, the animals just come to him all ready and willing and eager to go. And here I’ve held Noah up as a shining example of an animal husbandry practitioner lo all these years.
I had a friend in high school named Carrington Cosby. The whole of 80s TV, in two words.
I am cracking up over how well-fitted their clothes are. Oh my God, Hermione’s sleeves. They literally took 21st century clothes and made them out of “rustic” materials that are nevertheless obviously professionally manufactured.