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ben-talks-art · 5 months ago

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We need to make "explain but doesn't excuse you" a more popular sentence

I was thinking back to my list of favorite characters, and how I have people like Rameses in it and thought to myself "Why do I like this guy again...?" and then I started to recall why I was so into his story, and honestly ended up liking him even more.

Something that I noticed about the way writers try to handle backstories nowadays, is that they love to use a sad past to make people be on a character's side and then proceed to absolve them of their crimes.

Like, we love redemption arcs, we love character development, we love bad guys turning good... But I feel like we might love it a bit too much, as if we were waiting to forgive a character for all they did before even getting to them realizing the mistakes they made.

People love picking a villain they're into and going "Oh, it's not their fault, it's because they were raised that way, it's because they were abused as kids, it's because they lost someone they loved, it's because society treated them like trash, it's because they never had friends, it's because their girlfriend dumped them on Christmas eve..." and so on.

There is an obsession with "My character did nothing wrong because their past justify their actions!"

And here's something people tend to forget. A past explains one's actions but doesn't justify it.

Being abused by society, being trained by terrible morals, being oppressed and attacked... they all explain why someone would think it's okay to hurt others, but doesn't actually justify them hurting others.

Just because we know why someone's doing all the things they do, doesn't make the stuff they do any less bad.

This is why I love Rameses. They show the human side of him, they show he wasn't just born evil, they show that he could have been a decent person if he just had the right people to raise him.

They could have so easily made him just a cartoon villain who happened to be born evil and take joy in making others suffer under his command, but no, they show how he became this way, how he went from just a regular kid to a tyrant unable to feel sorry for others' pain and suffering, who was so brainwashed by the traditions of his family that he couldn't even process the harm he was bringing to others and why he couldn't even see the slaves as actual people in agony.

And, again, what I like about this story is that they explain how he became this way, but they don't paint him as blameless. The story acknowledges that he has blood in his hands, even if he himself doesn't, and it makes sure that he pays for what he did, even if what he did was the result of a long process of terrible lessons being passed down by generations that he didn't start.

At some point he became an adult, he became free from his father's command, free to make his own choices, and free to listen to the right people, free to look at what his actions were causing...

He had agency for his choices... And he still made the wrong decisions.

I feel like if others tried to tell this story today, they would either have made Rameses more evil from the start so you wouldn't feel bad for the tragedy that befalls him, or they would give him some sort of realization where he thinks about the harm he did and develops a change of heart in the last second.

I keep thinking about how there was a group of people going "Azula did nothing wrong!" when the new live-action Avatar show started and they basically tried to move all the blame from her to her "big bad evil father."

It makes me wonder if they released Prince of Egypt today, if there would be some sort of revisionism where people would try to argue that Moses is the villain for "not saving his brother" or something like that.

To the point I'm beyond curious about how things are going to end up in Arcane, since that series has a very similar story with two siblings that ended up splitting apart and reuniting but realizing that they were completely different in the paths they chose to follow, with one trying to fix the errors from the past and the other embracing them and trying to view them as part of who they are.

Is Arcane gonna go all the way and make Jinx an irredeemable monster that needs to be taken down, or are they gonna try to pull a "deep down, Powder is still there!" stuff?

I really hope they don't. I hope they give her an ending similar to Rameses where he's defeated but doesn't even get the luxury to die, just left alone and powerless while watching his most beloved family member moving on with his life while he's still stuck in the past and suffering the consequences of his actions and realizing that he achieved nothing.

And what I especially like about his ending is that even at this point he still doesn't realize why he's being punished so much, just showing at full power the danger of ignorance and refusing to see what's right in front of you.

It would be a terrible tragedy, but I think it would make for a great message.

#rameses #prince of egypt #your past may explain you but doesn't excuse you #the prince of egypt #explanation isn't justification

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autistic-ben-tennyson · 1 month ago

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PoE: Actual Thoughts

This is going to be my last post regarding the discourse that I was responsible for starting. A lot of people probably think I hate the movie and am Lily Orchard 2.0 because of what those like spot-the-antisemitism claim. I’ll be leaving my actual opinions on it as well as the fandom and why I don’t love it as much as I used to. Contrary to what Zionists like Emperorsfoot claim, I can think for myself and have my own beliefs.

TPoE used to be one of my favorite movies. I wrote an essay back in 9th grade encouraging people to watch it because it had great music, great animation and an emotional story one could appreciate regardless of their religious beliefs. I still think it’s a good piece of filmmaking and has its place in theological and historical discussions. James Baxter worked on some of the animation sequences and would later create iconic moments from shows like Adventure Time and Steven Universe.

So what’s the problem? Well, the reason my opinion towards has soured is multifaceted. Being an anime fan has played a role in me seeing it as just another movie as opposed to the greatest animated film ever due to watching movies such as Spirited Away, Suzume or The End of Evangelion. Its fandom is another thing I dislike. Some say you can’t let fandom ruin something for you but if a majority of the people in a fandom are jerks, then it’s valid to not want to engage.

While it was wrong for me to call it “Zionist propaganda”, I have gotten anon hate from its stans including suicide bait. So many of the people in the notes of the post as well as the OP were either transphobic radtrads like griseldafury21, “vote blue no matter what” liberals like Short-wooloo or all the fandom Zionists like Prismatic-bell. YouTube comments are full of “anti woke” creationists using it to trash modern Hollywood, which is terrible but not for the reasons they claim. Liberal Zionists do use it to support their view of themselves as perpetual victims who can do no wrong. Killing people is okay as long as they’re oppressive in their eyes, whether Egyptian or Palestinian.

So maybe I do dislike it but not because I think it’s a bad movie or propaganda, but because it’s fandom has soured me towards it. One could certainly use its liberation message as a commentary on the oppression of Palestinians but that probably won’t get any support from the movie’s top fans. The behavior of the hardcore fans is what has turned me off to it, especially their concern trolling over gofundme scams. Same reason why I’ve been less enthusiastic towards Steven Universe. Still has a place in my heart and was a big factor in my anime obsession but the amount of fans who are racist milquetoast liberals has pushed me away from the fandom. I don’t single out Jews for being Zionists either. I would be disappointed if Rebecca Sugar supported Israel but I’d feel the same about Makoto Shinkai, Hideaki Anno or Dwayne McDuffie, if he was still alive, and others I admire. I judge people based on their actions and principles, not their religion or ethnicity.

So that’s what I actually think of the movie and it’s fans. Some of the songs like “When you believe” are pretty emotional and as someone with a complicated relationship with my brother, the conflict between Moses and Ramses does get a tear out of me, even if that’s not what happened in the Bible. I still have fondness for it, but many of its hardcore fans have ruined it and people’s lack of willingness to criticize any aspect is disappointing. Criticizing it or SU does not make someone Lily Orchard or Lindsay Ellis as people can develop their own opinions without influence. The Prince of Egypt is a great work of art in my opinion but it’s not above criticism and the way people use it as well as other “wholesome” media as a shield should be talked about more.

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine #the prince of egypt #western animation #prince of egypt #liberal zionists #my thoughts #anti zionism #toxic fandom #Religion #christianity #judaism #Harassment #steven universe #Everyone wants to think of themselves as Moses #No one wants to admit that they could be Ramses #unpopular opinion #fuck zionists

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ultraericthered · 7 months ago

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Recently learned that the Dreamworks' The Prince of Egypt stage musical was a thing, and... yeah, the Disney's The Huncback of Notre Dame stage musical is still by far superior in terms of non-Broadway, divergeant musical retellings of an animated masterpiece.

And it's not like The Prince of Egypt is a terrible show the whole way through. It recieved a lot of middling reviews from people who were just whelmed by it. Some of the ideas behind what they added to the story are actually interesting and easily workable. But at the very end, they do something that is absolutely unforgivable to me in how it straight up spits in the face of the source material it was adapting. And it's ironic because I'd said with Hunchback that what the movie gave us of Esmeralda surviving, a big action climax against Frollo, and the big feelgood ending, feels like a Focus Group Ending wherea the stage show felt more like how the story naturally would play out, whereas here it's the reverse - the stage show plays out like a Focus Group Ending that the original movie wisely and boldly avoided!

Where it starts is in alterations made to Rameses' character and in how his and Moses' brotherly relationship falls apart. In this telling, Rameses is more easily won over to hearing Moses' initial argument and promises him that he will let all the Hebrew slaves go, fully intent on doing so. But when his wife Nefertiri and High Priest Hotep make him secondguess himself, he goes back on his word and doubles the slaves' work load instead. This itself is not a harmful change - Queen Nefertiri and the sway she could hold over her husband's decided courses of actions was a thing in The Ten Commandments, so it's neat to see it added back into this story, and High Priest Hotep is more like this version's equivalent to the Dathan character from The Ten Commandments than he is a Hotep-Hui composite character. The story plays out like you'd expect it to from there, with Rameses stubbornly doubling down and becoming a spiteful antagonist to Moses and the Hebrews who refuses to let them leave Egypt, with only the death of his and Nefertiri's child making him finally relent.

Then comes the finale. Rameses and Hotep raise an army to pursue the fleeing Hebrews to kill or re-enslave. Moses parts the Red Sea so that the Hebrews can pass through, but this time as the Egyptians pursue, Moses decides he will turn himself over and ransom himself for his people's safety. So he stands before Rameses, with Hotep urging the Pharaoh to kill him. Rameses has a long pause...and then refuses to kill his brother, rationalizing that there has been too much death already, and as such, "he will be the wink link that breaks this chain of destruction and suffering." This, people, is the epitome of "He Would Not Fucking Say That". The tragedy of Rameses in the movie was that his desire to be a strong leader for Egypt and to uphold the legacy of his father and dynasty without tarnishing it was all-consuming, and so was the stubborn pride, wrath, hatred, and dehumanization of others, even his own foster brother, that came with it. No matter how many plagues he and his people were made to suffer, he would refuse to relent and become that weak link; Seti's strict and abusive upbringing had ingraved this too deeply into him. Here, it seems much the same until right at the Red Sea, right at the cusp of triumph where he could kill his former brother who, need I remind you, is responsible for the death of Rameses' child, Rameses just...decides to finally stop trying to live up to the expectations set by his father and change his tyranical ways. His heart just magically softens on the whole matter. And it gets worse: he and Moses share a loving embrace, renewing their brotherhood. Again diminishing the tragedy of the film's story, the weight of what Moses had to sacrifice in order to do God's work and liberate his people from bondage and oppression. In the movie, Moses' faith and devotion to the will of the Lord, and to his enslaved people that he now could see, love, respect and dignify as people, was so strong that he had to see God's plan through to the end, had to work all of the Lord's miracles in order to free his people, even at the cost of having to be Rameses' enemy, and as a result, his loving, brotherly relationship with Rameses completely shattering beyond repair. Because doing what's righteous against an unjust reality is usually not easy and never without cost. Moses' place in Egypt and his relationship with the man he once called brother was the price he had to pay in order to win freedom for the Hebrews. Once it was gone, he could never get it back. Yet this stage play has him win the Hebrews freedom AND keep the love of his brother even if they have to go their separate paths in life, so I suppose you could say Moses ends up with "All He Ever Wanted!"

But here's the kicker - when Rameses refuses to kill Moses and the rest of the Hebrews, Hotep takes command of the army in his place, so it's he who gets swept away in the Red Sea with the rest of the Egyptian soldiers, and unlike Rameses in the movie, God does NOT spare Hotep! This is literally that "the story now acts like this cronie of the main villain is and always was the main villain who gets his comeuppance while the hero and villain suddenly become buddy-buddy with each other" stupidity from Goodtimes' Hercules! As much power as Hotep may hold as High Priest, it makes no sense that he take authority over the fucking Pharaoh, the actual antagonist of the Biblical story of Exodus. This is the culmination of what Alex Woods' review on the show was on about with how this version of the story "makes Pharaoh's power far less absolute." It hurts the narrative rather than helps it, detracting from Rameses' pathos and menace.

Can you imagine a version of Infinity Train's third season where Samantha the Cat talks Simon into using the memory tape extractor rather than him going to her to get it, and then Samantha ends up with the Apex when Simon's leading it at the end, and then at the moment where Grace saves Simon from falling off the train, he has a change of heart and reconciles with Grace only for the Cat to try to kill her and so the Cat gets killed by the Ghom instead of Simon? That'd be absolutely absurd, neutering the power in those character arcs and the haunting tragedy of the whole situation. But that's pretty much what this play does in regards to Moses and Rameses' story! It's like the script was written by someone who'd not been able to take the harshness of how things actually ended in the movie, so this is their Fix Fic where Rameses sees the light, he and Moses renew their brotherly bond, and they all live happily ever after. And it just does not work. Rameses is an animated villain I don't think I have ever seen anyone give the Draco In Leather Pants treatment to, since the film makes it abundantly clear the two truths that A: he is a complex, layered, tragic figure whose struggle to be a mighty king is pitiful because he is, in the end, all too human and fallible, and B: he's a fucking slavedriver who literally owns human beings as slaves and towards the end of the story intends to commit mass genocide of them - not something you can simply walk back from. So when he ends up losing everything that mattered to him, he's brought it on himself. This is widely understood. There was no need to change it.

If this show is ever revived, someone needs to rewrite the ending. 'Cause sometimes, the villain just needs to remain a villain, dammit!

#Dreamworks #The Prince of Egypt #musical #opinion #criticism #Moses #Ramses #King Ramses II #Queen Nefertiri #High Priest Hotep #stupidity #bad writing #character derailment #adaptation decay #completely missing the point

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scarabjewels · 2 months ago

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Why The Prince of Egypt Suceeded As A Movie , Not just as an Adaptation of the Biblical Story

I watched this so many times, that it awoken the complicated feelings of empathy, sympathy and conflict in me. I have watched so much reaction videos about this and no disrespect to Christians (I grew up Christian btw) however I think that a lot have missed the point of Ramses as Moses' family and instead took the original Biblical passage to heart so much, that the complicated themes were sort of thrown out the window.

Biblical stories are a little tricky to adapt. People who grew up exposed to the religion know what it was like watching those animated shows and videos of biblical stories and how in your face the religion is. I still remember watching the dubbed version of Super Book (if ya know, ya know). There is a whole subject dedicated to just studying Christianity, carrying bibles and learning and relearning passages, assigned reading at weekly masses, and having quizzes about the homily everyone slept on after the holy communion (it was supposed to be wine, but they probably made is drank grape juice with some water, the "bread" is a little piece of wafer that just disintegrates in your tongue the moment you eat it).

I speak for this very specific audience, I know. To the people who didn't, this is what it was like. But funny enough, not once did they play the Prince of Egypt for us. Actually, I remember some of my peers not liking it, and they were hardcore Christians, by the way, like voluntarily praying in cathedrals. Yet, I have also heard people who aren't even Christian LOVE this film. It's just a beautiful film of so many other aspects.

I found it ironic that the complicated parts of the story was the hardest part to really understand. Yet there I was, 12 years old, one of the ones who weren't so devoted to the religion, binging this movie. I wanted to understand those complicated feelings, especially with Ramses and Moses.

Let me discuss the emotional stakes here and how sad and sympathetic everything was.

First, I am glad that Moses was really portrayed to be part of the royal family. That's what a lot of the adaptations did not take on with creative liberties with, Moses was always portrayed as a snobby prince in the first act. Moses was Ramses' brother and best friend, and you can tell how much they trusted and loved each other. They were really a family. Ramses, despite being older, looked up to Moses, as he was there for him ALWAYS. The love they shared was so great that it made the movie so sad. Their destinies to be enemies were so heartbreaking.

Now Ramses. Hey, I do not condone any of what he had done. However, he was a result of his upbringing. Pressured to be Pharaoh, all his life, his belief that slavery was just hard laborers to a good cause they are building was passed down to him. I can not blame him entirely for growing up to be what he is. The tough love was so tough, there was NO love. That man got daddy issues, he really promised to make an even greater Egypt than what his father built by literally having a larger monument of him than his father's. Its like Homelander and Gus, the need for approval of a father was so rooted in Ramses, it lived on even after his death. Let me also say there was no changing him, even when Moses was still in his life. Moses was also brought up like him. The beliefs passed down were the same, and they were raised in the same environment after all. But like any other two people living in the same system, they were bound to be different, but no one could have prepared their fate to be against each other in the future.

No matter how many scenarios we can make up for both of them to still be brothers and not be enemies, there was really nothing that could change what was going to happen.

It hurt to see how happy Ramses to see his brother, welcoming him with open arms, not as Pharaoh but a brother. Moses, too, I could not imagine having to do that to his adoptive family, his beloved brother, and best friend.

But well, they OUTGREW each other, but damn they really just had to be enemies, huh?

I will say, making them brothers makes sense how Moses got away with the plagues of Egypt. Not just because he WAS royalty of them or just because the Pharaoh was so stubborn, but because even when Ramses is Pharaoh, he loves Moses so much, even with resentment. He could never imagine to eliminate or to imprison him. I appreciate the writers connecting that and it was so much more impactful for the story.

Only when Ramses' son was gone where the hatred overcame him to really attack the Hebrews.

Oh, the taking of the first borns. It was a brutal crime for Ramses's father and predecessor to eliminate the first borns of the Hebrews, but it was just as brutal for God to take the first borns, too. The scene where Ramses lay his son's body to be then mummified and Moses even trying to console him, only to be hissed at (UNDERSTANABLY). He set the slaves free, yes, but this is an important scene that no one really won. Moses broke down, we know he never wanted this, he couldn't get through Ramses but this didn't have to happen. Ramses was stubborn and prideful, yes, but he is still a father. He is overcome with extreme hatred at this point, that Moses is not his brother anymore, but a man who is responsible for his son's death.

Damn, Ramses loved his son the way his father never did. I feel like he raised his son like the way he and Moses had fun. Those small scenes of pure affection and adoration for his son, his son was always involved in the kingdom, always hugged and protected by him and just before the scene where Moses turned the lake into blood, you can see him and his son bonding and just having fun. That essence of fun literally could have only come from his bond with Moses, which DOUBLES the sadness. Man, my overthinking makes this way too harsh on me.

Nonetheless, that "death" scene should never have been glamorized and I am glad that it was portrayed like that. Its not sweet revenge, it was brutal. No one had to die, especially children. No one was really happy in this scene, even with the grant of freedom.

The animation, by they way, I learned that it was a mix of PAINTINGS and 2D animation, damn those animators should be proud of their work. This is such a masterpiece.

There is another animated adaptation after this, by Dreamworks as well. It was Joseph: King of Dreams. The animation is made to TV level but otherwise okay. I do wish they made one of Queen Esther. If you guys don't know or are interested, pick up the bible. I tell you now, as a literature enthusiast, the bible has stories that should be told in the way Dreamworks succeeded in telling the Exodus story. No fanatic air please.

CAN I ALSO JUST SAY HOW HOT EVERYONE IS

I think my type was born here, the men were good looking, Moses got that good beard and Ramses had age with him actually, the jawline and those sculpted cheeks?

But, Ramses' mom though? GODDESS. Zipporah? HER EYES AND SPARK and Miriam, girl, I think my type came from her. Jawline, smile, kindness damn.

#exodus #moses #blog #opinion #movie review #film #movie opinions #prince of egypt #ramses #tzipporah

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kitkat1128 · 1 year ago

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Moses and the Burning Bush Scene Movie VS Scripture Comparative Analysis (Part 2/2)

(Part 1)

Back to God and Moses’ conversation. POE (Prince of Egypt) Moses’ response to being asked to go to Egypt to liberate God’s people is a very simplified version of Exodus 3:11 and 4:10.

But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11 NKJV)

Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” (Exodus 4:10 NKJV)

However, the matter of speaking to God’s people is not because of what seems to be a speech impairment but of right. How could someone who was once a son of a tyrannical pharaoh convince those oppressed people to follow him out of Egypt? Very ironic. He feels he does not deserve to even be around them. He sees himself as a traitor to his own people. We see this clearly in his story arc.

POE Moses goes so far as to say “You’ve chosen the wrong messenger!” Yikes, but don’t worry, the Bible Moses kind of says it too: But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.” (Exodus 4:13 NKJV) And this comment was after God said “Who made man’s mouth? Who made the deaf, the mute, the seeing, or the blind?” comment.

Understandably to help balance between the movie and the Scriptures, God was angry towards Moses here instead of later. In the Bible, God was angry with Moses after he tells Him to choose someone else. God suggests his brother Aaron to help him and meet him all the way outside of Egypt.

So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses, and He said: “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. (Exodus 4:14 NKJV)

For Bible readers, the conversation ends there. However, as I said, the movie mixes around some things. There were still some things left that the Bible did say.

Despite the Lord's anger, He still was gentle with Moses and even showed him more of His glory and presence. So much He made him almost float! Some Christians today would confirm that it is just like this. I truly agree. The gentle peace, tranquility, awe, serenity, glory.

God tells Moses that He will be with him when he goes to Egypt and that the pharaoh will not listen to him. Thus, God will smite Egypt with His wonders. This is told in Exodus 3:12, 19-20.

So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:12 NKJV)

But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go, no, not even by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst, and after that, he will let you go. (Exodus 19-20 NKJV)

Ultimately, God’s presence whether seen or unseen is still with us. Everywhere. That is what POE Moses’ needed, someone by his side to help him do this great task. This was the whole point of God’s character. He is present with us as a compassionate, kind, patient, loving Creator.

Now, speaking of God being with us. Immanuel. The angel of the LORD in the bush. As the angel of the LORD, who was a messenger BUT spoke as a representative of God. Remember when I mentioned that He is who He is? Who could possibly be a messenger who is equal to God? Yep, the angel of the LORD is Jesus Christ.

As it says in the Bible, the angel of the LORD was the one who was present in the burning bush. The pre-existent Christ obviously couldn’t completely reveal His form just yet so He used a burning bush. Why? Not much of an idea. Now, why won’t God the Father Himself come down as the burning bush? It’s because He is so pure, just, righteous, and glorious that He cannot be in any presence of evil and our human sense would not be able to handle such a pure Being. Moses is human. Any human who would see God the Father in all His glory physically die.

But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!” (Exodus 33:20)

Some have thought they saw God face-to-face, like Jacob/Israel when he wrestled with Him in Peniel (Genesis 32:22-32), or Samson’s parents seeing the angel of the LORD. For Jacob/Israel, it was purely a physical manifestation of God not His fully glorious presence. Samson’s parents had the same experience as Moses. The angel of the LORD is not fully God the Father as He would be in heaven. It may be confusing, but either way. This presence of the LORD was still His presence but in another form.

The angel of the Lord and Jesus Christ the Son are the same but in different forms. The angel form of the Christ is more spiritual not physical. Jesus of Nazareth is God but clothed with humanity. (John 14:9)

Thus.

Looking in Moses’ eyes is the best clue that this is the angel of the Lord, AKA the spiritual pre-existent Jesus Christ. Consistent with Scripture and how God is shown with the authority He has? Yep. That convinced me.

So, now that we know who this is, essentially.

Immanuel, עִמָּנוּאֵל, God is with us. His presence of love, light, purity, gentleness, mercy, and grace. This is the core of who He is. Yes, He gets angry. Yes, He gets jealous. However, He also holds gracious love for us so much we can not even fathom how deep, wide, long, or high it is. So, that is why I truly love how the movie decides to show God’s love for Moses. He promises to teach him. He promises He will be with him many times. THIS. Wow.

God knew more than anyone that Moses was scared. So He told him what he needed to hear in this tough time. He showed him His glory and power. This later helps him to gain the confidence to show the pharaoh the power God gives him in his staff.

To summarize, the movie gives a wonderful presentation of God’s character. Is it perfect? Of course not. Do we expect it to? Of course not! As a Christian, this movie did a fantastic job. The love of the Lord is what’s most important. He is to be feared, but also to be worshipped. He has many mysteries but through Jesus Christ even before His earthly birth through Mary, He was watching out for His own people. He reveals Himself in many different ways but He is still the same Person.

I have heard so many people come to Christ thanks to this movie. I truly am grateful! Glory be to the Lord and may the Lord guide you in your endeavors with abundance and blessings!

In Jesus’ name, Amen!

#moses #bible #christianity #judiasm #abraham #movie analysis #prince of egypt #poe #moses prince of egypt #God #Jesus #Holy Trinity #Burning bush #Exodus #character analysis #analysis #biblical analysis

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shae-la-hyene · 3 years ago

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10 animated intros that slap you off your feet

(part of my ongoing war against stupid MsMojo top ten videos)

10 Robin Hood

For an old one, this intro is memorable, mainly because it's hilarious. Good way to actually introduce every character which are not recognizable (because they're animals). Back then the intros where mostly just names and credits on an artsy background, not super imaginative. But this one has that music that is just so good, especially sped up at 175% and the visual gags are on point. I'm biased because I'm a furry, but Robin Hood's intro holds a dear place in my heart.

9 Dinosaure

There's just something about the narrative of this one... It has the same vibe as the journey of Moses' basket on the Nile in The Prince of Egypt, but longer and just... wickedly interesting. You discover a whole world and it's thrilling. Also the music, the soliloquy... I just like it.

8 Mulan

This is an Aesthetic. The ink on paper making clouds is just *chef kiss* it's so beautiful. But what I love most is the dark atmosphere of Shanyu arriving on the Wall, the knowledge that the guard there was most definitely going to die and used his last moments to light the fire, for something far bigger than him. And the lighting of the fires one by one, almost as good as the lighting of the beacons in Lotr 3, but it did its job : we're shaken. A war started and we are perfectly aware of that fact. It's dark and serious and beautiful and scary. Mulan's intro is not joking around, it needs you here and now, because people are in danger and this is war. You chill out instantly. It's a good preparation for when all songs stopped after they discover all the dead bodies. This is serious. This is war.

7 Beauty and the Beast

THE fairy tale intro. None nailed it as well before, and none did since. Everything is here : the velvety voice narrating the beginning of the tale (ok Cinderella was good too for that but the voice just didn't have the same emotional impact), the tragic backstory, the gorgeous settings of old stones, forest, stream and roses bushes, the evil enchantress, the cursed prince, the visual elements... And those stained glass... Man nobody forgot Beauty and the Beast's stained glass. They set the aesthetic the same way Sleeping Beauty's tapestry art was announced right away. And the symbolism of the statues becoming gargoyles and... Damn everything in this is so perfect... They couldn't have done it better and I'm so so grateful.

6 Aladdin

Depending on the dubbing version, the lyrics of Arabian Nights vary to more or less dirty. I love it. For a long time, I was able to recite completely the seller's speech that follows the song. I wonder if I still can... Probably. My memory has weird priorities. But anyway. The colors are of this are fucking gorgeous. The animators LOVED the desert, and it fucking shows. You can feel the burning sand under your feet, the suffocating air all around you, you are blinded by the sun and you're THERE. That songs is like a crooked finger, inviting us deep into a world that smells of spices and heavy fabrics. This is one of those intros that just say 'come, follow me, so I can whisper you a story around a fire, and we can only follow. Again, it sets the scene perfectly, we know exactly where we are, what we are going to see, what world we are entering, and we know there are gonna be jokes that shouldn't be in a kids movie.

5 Shrek

'someBODY' is what I saved that gif as, which is the reason I struggled to find it again, but no regret because it's still making me laugh. I love Shrek so damn much, and every single second of it. But we must admit that the intro slapped. The song is like 63% of it, but we do already have the laugh, the very clear setting, the 'aww' moment of the tale just... broken beyond repair when Shrek wiped his ass with it... The hilarious disgust of seeing his 'hygiene' routine. And yet we get why he loves his little life in his little swamp. It's homey, it's his, it appeals to the deep rooted wish we all have at least sometimes to live in a cottage with a garden and a fireplace and pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist. If I was an ogre, I would totally want that life. Since I'm mostly human I want actual toothpaste but apart from that, it checks out.

4 The Prince of Egypt

Deliver us is sooooo beautiful. So heartbreaking too, leaving a bitter taste in our mouth, and the kind of rage in the face of injustice that makes us want to go to war. Slavery, the physical reality of it, is revolting, as it always should be, and is very rarely depicted like that. But not for The Prince of Egypt. His animators aren't fucking pussies and they'll talk about what people don't want to hear. They were slaves. They were pushing through in abused malnourished bodies, under the very real threat of whips, and they will do what no living being should have to do. All for the glory of a Pharaoh that doesn't care about any of them. The voice of the singers is bitter, tired, with an anger thinned by time. There's no escape from that, but faith.

The love of a mother that is ready to do anything for the hope that her child will be okay, it always rings true and deep. Seeing her baby drift away is the hardest thing she'll ever do, but she has no other choice, she does it for a feeble hope. It's the kind of strength that you won't see on a battlefield, but has more impact on life and the world than a thousand warriors. Then seeing the basket go through every danger the Nile can hold is terrifying, especially lived through the eyes of his sister, hope becomes thinner and thinner and you're ready for that thread to snap, but it doesn't, it's stronger than it looks, and eventually hope, and the basket's content, lives on to see another story start.

3 Tarzan

So many emotions in so little time... We asked Phil Collins to make the songs for Tarzan he said 'hold my beer'. He didn't have to go that hard, but he did it, he did it for us. It SLAPS HARD, man. Slaps you across the face and leave you in tears. There's the fear, then the hope, the determination, the euphoria, the happiness, and then it crashes down with terror and despair and a heartbreak so sudden you didn't saw it coming. By the time you realize the baby gorilla is dead, it's only two minutes in but your world had shaken on its ground. And can we talk about THE BEST TRANSITION EVER, when the leopard's eyes were replaced by the sun, then the moon ? Damn that was powerful... What happens in the end, is the best narrative representation of 'what is grief if not love persevering ?' She had love left to give, and she'd fight to have someone to give it to. Also I really really love the way they drew 'Tarzan' as if carved into stone, illuminated by torchs, with the drums it has that Jumanji vibe that I loooove.

2 The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

I love this so much, man... Sometimes I just play the movie just for the first few minutes, for the chill, the powerful ring of the bells, the chorus that fill your chest with strength and passion. I could talk for hours about that song, but I'll try to keep it short. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is the source of my deep love for Gregorian Chorus. That story, movie or book, is the reason I went to see Notre-Dame when they rang the bells again after years of silence, went just for it. Every time I go to Paris, a few hours are spent just standing there, looking at her, or sitting on her benches, and just loving her. Notre-Dame is home. Please, please, listen to it in french. A lot of songs from that movie are good in english but they are 'oh fuck me' moaning level in french. I'm not even kidding. The Bells is one of them. The intensity of that whole song and scene is just overwhelming, I don't think I've ever felt like that with any other piece of media. One of the few animates movies that went as hard as showing us a cold blooded murder, on screen, within the first five minutes. That's ballsy. The BANG when the screen shifts to show us the towers peeking above the clouds are like a jumpscare, but good. The love for the mundane setting of old Paris, the tale told by a gypsy joker, the puppets and theatre decor, the amazed faces of the children, and then boom, the dark backstory starts. The cruel intervention of faceless soldiers, the cold demeanor of Frollo, almighty on his hard horse, with a face that says he doesn't allow any mercy. I've been obsessed with the gesture of the soldier's hand locking the handcuffs, it's just so fluid and beautiful and final, like sealing a tomb. Then the chase, with the chorus that speeds up to an out of breath fear and rage. Them reaching their peak as Frollo totally planned on killing a baby on screen after killing his mother, it escalates quickly and frankly you thought he was going to do it. The snow... Then the lighting flash effect as the image of Clopin and the priest alternate, and you know those children in front of Clopin are having the time of their lives because he's one hell of a story teller... That transition of him using the curtain as cape... The silouhette effect of Quasimodo growing up in the tower and then. Then it's the moment that breaks you. The chorus reaching the biggest peak with a light escalation, Clopin singing off the top of his lungs, Quasimodo ringing the bells in time with it, with all the strength of his crooked body, each pull taking his whole body with it, each ring of the bells shaking the ground you stand on. There's the strength of Quasimodo's body in that moment. Forced out of deformed limbs, built up from years and years pulling on ropes and moving steel monsters, claiming a story that isn't pretty but that is his.

Sorry. I rambled. I really love it. In case you couldn't say.

Honorable mentions

Wall-e : because the reality of what the world has become and why it ended up like that comes crashing down on you on a cheery music and you can't really justify any thought of 'it's not that bad'.

1 The Lion King

Few things can actually beat the Bells, that's true, but I can guarantee that there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD that can beat the energy that the Lion King introduction has, or the impact it has on someone when they come back to see it as an adult remastered in a cinema, eyes glued to the screen as all the children in the theater go 'ooooooohhhh' and they smile, knowing it was going to stay in those kids' mind forever. Again, Disney animators LOVE african deserts, and I can't really blame them. That gives us a color palette to drool at, full of fire and heat and baked earth. Makes every shadow so much more powerful. Every time a sun ray pierces through the clouds to the ground, I can't help but think of this song. That very powerful moment that made every pet cat in the world HATE disney with all their cat heart. It is super weird but there is something shaking and sobering in seeing a giraffe bow. This is a ceremony, a very important one, a ritual as old as time as just as important. You can't just... not be there for it. The first series of frames, showing all the animals travel from everywhere, they are all masterpieces that would just deserve prices on their own (I use all of them as wallpapers because I can) and they're all in succession, one after the other, and there's no way you're still breathing by then. Seeing The Story of Life for the very first time is an experience, one that changes you and that you never truly forget.

Also see : Top ten Villain songs, Top ten sad songs, Top ten romantic songs, Top ten intros that slap, Top ten pretty songs, Top ten not-that-bad sequel, Top ten worse sequels, Top five terrifying villains

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hellzabeth · 3 years ago

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i have opinions about The Prince of Egypt musical adaption and you’re going to listen to them: An Essay

So, quick disclaimer: The Prince of Egypt is one of my favourite movies of all time. The casting, the music, the animation, I think it’s one of the top-tier movies that have ever been made. I went into seeing the London West End production of PoE with a full expectation that nothing I saw on stage would ever live up to how much I love the movie. I was fully aware there are plenty of limitations to what can be shown live on a stage with human actors and props.

That being said, I was enormously disappointed with how the whole thing was handled.

The Good

Now before I launch into a whole tirade of what I didn’t like about the production, it does behoove me to say what I think they did do well.  

The casting of the role of Moses was done fantastically, as was Miriam, Tzipporah, and Yocheved. The swings and the ensemble were really engaged and well placed, going through lots of quick changes to go from Hebrews to Egyptians to Midianites and back. 

The two Egyptian queens, wifes of Seti and Ramses, are actually given names, lines, and character beyond being simply tacked onto their respective kings. We get to see how they feel about the events happening around them, and there’s even a scene where Ramses meets his wife and courts her, whereas in the movie, she stands in the background and says nothing. This is one of the areas I was hoping the musical, which would naturally have a longer run-time, would expand on, and I was pleased to see the opportunity was taken.

Light projections on enormous curtains were used to very good effect, taking us instantly inside the walls of the palace and then out to the desert.  

Over all, the work was really put in to be engaging and emotional, and the orchestra really worked to deliver the right musical beats. 

One of two stand out scenes as being done very well was the opening “Deliver Us”, which included a bone-chilling moment of Egyptians separating a mother and her baby, with her screams as she’s dragged off-stage, and the blood on the guard’s sword. It really brings home the fear as Yocheved tries to lead Aaron and Miriam to the river with her, not to mention Yocheved’s actress nailed the lullaby.  

The second was at the other end of the show, “When You Believe” was beautifully performed by the whole cast, though it was somewhat stunted by what came before...

The Bad

Oh boy.

So the main problem with this show is not the music, not the staging, not even that sometimes the ensemble was a little off-beat (the lai-lai-lai section in Though Heaven’s Eyes comes to mind). Any mistakes there can all be forgiven, since sometimes things just happen in live performance, someone’s a bit off or something’s just not possible to do on the budget allotted.  

The problem is in the script.

The Prince of Egypt movie is a story that stands not only on the shoulders of its fantastic music and visuals, but also on its emotive retelling and portrayal of the characters within - mainly Moses and Ramses. And while the stage musical does spend a lot of time with the two mains, it neglects two other, incredibly important characters.

Pharaoh Seti, and God.  

In the movie, Seti strikes an intimidating figure. He is old, hardened, and wise in the ways of ruling his kingdom - and is voiced by Patrick Stewart, who brings his A-game to the role. Both Moses and Ramses admire him and look up to him immensely as young men, and the relationship he has with both of them deeply informs their characters as the story progresses. It’s from Seti that Moses learns that taking responsibility for your actions is the respectable thing to do (and later, the true horror of having your idol turn out to be not what you think), and it’s from Seti that Ramses takes a huge inferiority complex.

There are two lines that Seti gets in the movie, one spoken to Moses, and one to Ramses. These two lines define Moses and Ramses’ actions later on in the story:

To Ramses - “One weak link can break the chain of a mighty dynasty!” To Moses - “Oh my son... they were only slaves.”

Guess which two lines are absent from the musical?

One Weak Link is turned into an upbeat song, rather than shouted at a terrified and cowed young Ramses. Instead of being openly a traumatic, internalised moment of negative character development for Ramses, it’s treated as a general philosophy that Seti passes down to his son. Instead of a judgement that is hung over Ramses’ head like a sword of Damocles, lingering in his mind through the whole story and coming up in a shouted argument with Moses later, it’s said and then moved on from.  

The “they were only slaves” comment, on the other hand, is absent entirely. This changes Moses’ relationship with Seti enormously, as well as his relationship with the Hebrew people. Upon finding the mural depicting the killing of the slave children, Moses is appropriately horrified, and Seti shows up to comfort him and defend his terrible actions. Moses leaves this interaction... and then sings about how this is indeed all he ever wanted! He has no moment of horrific realisation that his father thinks of the slaves as lesser, as lives that can be thrown away. This means that the scene where he kills the guard doesn’t lead into a discussion of morality with Ramses as he runs away, but rather Moses breaking down about his heritage as though it’s a negative, instead of something he’s realised is just as valuable as his life as an Egyptian. Instead of Moses being shown as having a strong moral core that protests against the idea of any life being lesser, he bemoans his Hebrew blood loudly, and makes little mention of the man he killed. His issue that causes him to run away is being adopted, rather than his guilt that he’s a murderer, and nothing Ramses can say will change it.

Later on, we don’t see Ramses express this opinion either (in the movie - M:”Seti’s hands bore the blood of thousands of children!” R:“Hah, slaves!” M:“My people!”) so it seems the core reasoning for the necessity of the extremes God had to go to in order to convince Ramses to let the Hebrews go is completely gone.

Which leads us into God Himself, as a character.  

God is a tricky topic in general. He is hard to talk about as a concept and as a character, and even harder to depict in a way that won’t offend someone. The Prince of Egypt movie always struck me as a very good depiction of the Old Testament God - vengeful and strong-willed, commanding and yet nurturing, capable of great mercy and great cruelty in one fell swoop. God is incredibly present in the story, a character in and of Himself, speaking with Moses rather than simply commanding him. The conversation at the Burning Bush is bone-chillingly beautiful. Moses is allowed to question, he’s allowed to enquire, he’s allowed to express how he feels about God’s choice, and God is given the chance to respond (and reprimand, and comfort).

In the musical, the Burning Bush scene lasts all of two minutes, during which God (the ensemble cast, acting as one moving flame, speaking in unison) monologues to Moses, and Moses is not given room to question, talk to, or build a relationship with God. Later on, once some of the plagues have gotten underway, Moses rails against God, flinches in his resolve, and tries to back out... and God says nothing. It’s Miriam and the spirit of Yocheved that convince Moses to keep going. As a character, God is nearly absent. Even when it comes to calling upon the Plagues, or parting the Red Sea, God’s voice is absent. Moses does not pray. He does not even use the staff that God encouraged him to pick up as a symbol of his becoming a shepherd of the Hebrews out of Egypt.  

It’s these little changes, these little absences of such vital lines and presences, that ends up changing the whole vibe of the show. Seti is more like a dad than an emotionally distant authority figure, and God is more like an emotionally distant authority figure than a character at all. Ultimately, the whole feeling that one is left with at the end…

The Ugly

… is that the script doesn’t like God, or religion in general.

A bold statement to make, considering the source material is one of the central biblical stories in EVERY Abrahamic religion. Moses as a figure is considered so important and close to god, that The Prince of Egypt, even with its sensitive portrayal, cannot be aired in a number of Islamic states, because it’s considered disrespectful to depict any of the prophets, especially an important one like Moses. Moses is arguably the MOST important prophet in the Jewish canon.

However, I haven’t highlighted one of the most noticeable script changes - the elevation of Hotep, the high priest, to main antagonist.

In the original movie, Hotep is a secondary villain, a crony to the Pharaohs, bumbling and snide and two-faced. He and his fellow priest Hoy are there primarily to juxtapose how charlatans can control power through flattery and slight of hand, reassuring Ramses that Moses’ miracles are merely magic the same as what they can do. They even get a whole villain song, “Playing With The Big Boys” which is a lovely deconstruction of lyrics vs visuals, where while the priests boast that their gods and magic are much more powerful, in the background the staff, transformed into a snake by god, devours and defeats the priests’ snake handily. The takeaway from the song is that God’s power is true, and doesn’t need theatrics.

It’s a good little nugget of wordless world building. And it is completely absent from the stage musical, with only a vague reference to the chant of all the gods names.

Hoy is gone, and Hotep is the only priest. He actively speaks out against the Pharaoh, boasts about having all the power, and is played as bombastic and proud. He’s a wildly different character, even threatening Ramses at one point. In the end, it’s shown that Ramses won’t let the Hebrews go not because he has inherited his father Seti’s cruel attitude towards the lives he considers beneath him, but because he is being actively bullied by the priest, and will lose his power and credibility if he doesn’t do as he’s told. Ramses is even given a whole song about how little power he really has. The script desperately wants us to feel sorry for Ramses’ position and hate the unrepentantly, cartoonishly evil priest.

That’s another matter as well - a LOT of time is dedicated to making the Egyptians more human and sympathetic, portraying them as largely ignorant of the suffering beneath them, rather than actively participating in slavery. Characters speak out of turn without regard for formality and class, even to the royal family. They are casual, chummy even. And this would be fine - in fact, it’s good to have that sort of third dimension to characters, even ones who are doing reprehensible things, to show the total normalcy and banality of evil - if it were not for the fact they still include a completely open-and-shut case of evil right next to them.

Hotep has no redeeming features. And on the other side, God is barely present, certainly not in a relatable context. Moses has several lines about how cruel and unnecessary God’s plagues are - and you know what, in this version, they are unnecessary! Ramses is not the stone-hearted ruler that his movie counterpart is, he has no baggage over being a potential failure, because it was never really given to him in the same way! By taking away Ramses’ threatening nature, numbers like the Plagues lose half their appeal, as the back-and-forth ‘you who I called brother’ lines between Moses and Ramses are completely absent. Moses is faithless, and is less torn between the horror of what he’s doing and the necessity of it for the freedom of his people, and more left scrabbling for meaning that he doesn’t find. And the only thing hanging over Ramses is Hotep nit-picking everything he does and threatening him, which is considerably less compelling than the script seems to think it is.

This is best exemplified at the end, when all the issues come to a head. The angel of Death comes and takes the Egyptian first borns (which was actually a well done scene), and the Hebrews leave to a rousing rendition of When You Believe. But then we cut to Ramses and Hotep, with Hotep openly threatening to revolt against the Pharaoh - whom was believed, especially by the priesthood, to be a living god! Hotep is so devoid of redeeming features he cannot even be trusted to stand by his beliefs! - unless Ramses agrees to chase after the Hebrews. Reluctantly, Ramses is badgered into the attempt.

Back with the Hebrews, Moses parts the Red Sea… not with his faith, not by praying to God for another miracle, not even by using his staff as in the most famous scene of the movie… but by holding out his hand and demanding the ‘magic’ work. Setting aside the disrespect of Abrahamic religions to call one of the most famous miracles “magic” (and my oh my, if there was a fundamentalist of any religion in the audience they might have gasped to hear it), it again belittles the work of God, and puts all the onus on Moses, not as a conduit for God’s work, but as the worker himself. Then, the Egyptians arrive in pursuit, lead by Hotep, not Ramses. Moses sends the Hebrews through first, lead by Miriam, and stays behind with Tzipporah… to offer his life in penance to Ramses! The script has completely stripped both Ramses and Moses of their convictions towards their causes, and Moses cannot even stand by his decision to lead his people.

Then, in a moment of jarring melodrama, Moses has a sudden vision that Ramses, his brother, will one day be called Ramses the Great (an actual historical Pharaoh who reigned 1279-1213 BCE). There is no historical evidence that this was the Ramses that ruled over the Hebrews (there are 11 Pharaohs called Ramses through the history of Ancient Egypt), and maybe if the scene was acted a little better, it wouldn’t have been so sudden or jarring. Even more jarring, is that then Hotep arrives with the rest of the army, and Ramses refuses to lead the charge into the parted sea. Hotep does so himself, and is the one to have the final dramatic moment, being crushed under the water.

The Takeaway

After watching the show, I’m afraid I could never recommend it as either a play, an adaption, or even as a faithful retelling of a bible story. Its character drama isn’t compelling enough to be good as a standalone play, with it two main characters declawed and their core motivations reduced to a squabble between brothers rather than a grand interplay between two cultures and ideas and trauma handed down from their father. As an adaption of the movie it’s upsettingly bad, with grand numbers like the Plagues rendered piecemeal and fan favourites like Playing With The Big Boys missing entirely. As a retelling of the bible story, it’s insulting, completely cutting God out of the equation, taking no opportunity to reintroduce Aaron as an important character (which he was, in the bible, as Moses was a notoriously bad public speaker, with a stutter, and Aaron often interpreted for him) and more importantly, completely erasing God’s influence from the narrative.

I don’t know who this show was… for, in that case. If it wasn’t for drama lovers, movie fans, or people of the faith, then who the hell was it for? Why change such a critically acclaimed and well-beloved story? Why take away all these defining moments? If you wanted to tell a story about how religion is the true evil, how God can command people to do terrible things, and how those who uphold organised religion like Hotep are unrepentant, one-dimensional monsters… why would you tell that through the Prince of Egypt?

Underwhelming at best, infuriating at worst… just watch the movie. Or read Exodus. At least the Bible’s free.

#the prince of egypt #the prince of egypt musical #PoE #review #essay

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cornerofhell · 3 years ago

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Why I Love Prince of Egypt

So I got asked earlier “what would happen if your favorite horror characters in your favorite non-horror movie” The movie that I used was Prince of Egypt. If you don’t know of this masterpiece somehow, it is the story of Moses and the Exodus of Egypt. It does indeed change... a few details but it very much tries its best to match the source material. Many people of other religions adore this movie. The animation was way ahead of its time, every song in it was catchy, EVERY SONG, the characters were relateable and written so well, and they didn’t make the characters in EGYPT white! For those of you who DO KNOW ABOUT THIS MOVIE... you’re probably wondering what else there is to talk about. “You talked about most of it... to quote Derek from Swan princess, “What Else is There?”” ---- Alright. I’ll tell you. I grew up with a pretty religious christian family, and besides the story of Jesus and/or Adam and Eve... Moses was talked about A LOT during the few years we went to church. He is one of my favorite bible characters of all time. Why? Because Prince of Egypt made me understand him. It made him more than a... guy with a beard who did God’s work for me. Was prince of Egypt ENTIRELY ACCURATE? No. Moses knew who he was since he was little. But.... Prince of Egypt made him make sense to me. The man grew up as a prince, and then as he grows up, he realizes his home is being built on the backs of HIS PEOPLE. And so when he kills one of the soldiers, he runs in FEAR. He fears HIMSELF and what he can do to others, so he RUNS, something that... anyone would do. So he’s living life, happy family and shit, and then he sees a FUCKING BURNING BUSH and he finds out that GOD wants HIM to free his people. God wants him, a known murderer, to go back to what he called home, and fight. Moses is all like “Dude, what the fuck, I’m was the son of the man who slaughtered their BABIES, and you want me to go back there and have them LISTEN?!” But let’s skip ahead. To the plagues. It shows Moses... as anyone would react. He’s watching innocent people, children and families losing everything, and he HATES HIMSELF for it. He wants it to stop. He doesn’t want to fight the people he grew up with. But he’s forced to for his people. And then he warns Rameses about what’s coming. He can’t say, but he knows. He’s begging. Pleading. He can’t bear this. The other plagues were bad but... “Something else is coming. Something WORSE than anything before!” And then Rameses threatens the people... and Moses knows it’s as good as done. He just.... stares at the little boy, knowing what would happen to him, and he can’t do ANYTHING. “Rameses, you bring this upon yourself” And then it happens. Every first born is killed. Moses has become the man with thousands of children on his hands, including family. And his reminder is the blood-curdling screams and sobs of people who lost their children and families. Any bond he ever had with Pharaoh is broken. His people are free... but his mind never will be. So what does he do when he walks out of the palace? He collapses... and sobs. Like anyone else would. He’s aching. He’s in pain. He did this. He’s the reason they’re screaming. And if you notice, for the rest of the movie after that... He’s tired. He’s broken down. He’s worn. The guilt almost takes the life out of him. That’s why I love Prince of Egypt. They didn’t make Moses some “wise-old dude” they made him a PERSON.

#prince of egypt #and before you ask #no I am not that religious #dreamworks #moses #rameses

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piracytheorist · 4 years ago

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I watched and react to Lindsay Ellis' 100 minute long "apology" video so you don't have to

First of all, the word apology is in quotes because she herself on that video mocks the whole concept of an apology video, which is fair cause truly that whole concept is fucked up, but I didn't want to call it excusing either because that's not what she does either... for some parts. Long post ahead.

So into the video, homegirl starts by saying she was recently in a restaurant. Recently. Restaurant. I'm not gonna make a deep research to find out where she lives, she mentions she's from Tennessee but idk if that's where she lives now, so unless she's somewhere in like Australia or New Zealand or any other place with significantly low numbers of covid cases... what is she doing, not only going into a restaurant during a fucking pandemic, but also telling it to her entire 1 million subscribers specifically and the whole world in general? I think it shouldn't be said it's irresponsible as it is, it's also a bit insensitive considering so many of us don't get to have that kind of luxury as it is now, either as customers that don't get to enjoy an evening/night out or as restaurant owners that watch their businesses collapse. Small thing to complain, but still.

That said, personal note, because I know some of my followers live down there in Australia or New Zealand; I'm happy for you, but I'm also jealous, and in a weird way right now being in a country with few covid cases is kind of a privilege. So enjoy that for yourselves.

Ok, second, introducing the concept of cancel culture, she goes on to talk about some cases where two white people made some well-intended but overall insensitive jokes and she talked about how their behaviour was, particularly, white privilege. Ignoring the fact that she's showing her own privilege by saying that she went at a restaurant during a pandemic, she says it all in the whole meaning of how cancel culture focuses on targeting, bullying and verbally lynching a person who acted on their privilege instead of looking out to tell them "Yo what you did was shitty but look out to do better" and how that either originates or is strengthened by nazis who pretend to be cool progressive lesbians of colour on twitter (that latter part is my own description, but similar to what Lindsay said). And the whole point about cancel culture is valid - she the use of the ol' "Listen to voices of POC" and that it is not valid because behind those "Queer progressive POC" accounts hide nazis... but she ignores the fact that another way to see that is "Are you white? Have you considered shutting the fuck up?"

And I say that as a white woman myself. I am very well aware that there are topics I cannot touch upon. Like, I have my thoughts, ok? About all races, religions (at least the major ones), sexualities, gender expressions. I can't help the thoughts... but I try my best to control my actions. There are times that I think something and I go like "Wow, can you realize how much the internet would drag you if you said that on a post?" so I shut the fuck up because a) I recognize my privilege and b) I'm mostly uneducated on most things I may have problematic thoughts on. Lindsay... idk exactly how educated she is, I know she has degrees, but in this case that doesn't seem to matter because she doesn't seem to have the concept of Shutting the Fuck Up White Person. That's what the "Listen to voices of POC" started for. Because historically POC have been the ones to be silenced and ignored by white people. So it doesn't matter if you're a woman, if you're bisexual, if you're educated, whatever whatever. If it's not your area, learn to shut the fuck up. And it's there that the problem begins, that Lindsay doesn't seem to get that idea.

Later on she says that a person on twitter compiled a thread of Lindsay's "sins" aka screenshots of problematic (or not) tweets, and though she (tbh rightfully so) considers making that compilation weird and creepy, she goes on to address every tweet on that thread.

I'm not gonna go down all of them cause from my judgement, some were legitimately very far-fetched to make her look problematic. And look, I don't think she's problematic. It's just that she has a lot to say and sometimes it feels like she has a need to say it all.

At the beginning, she mentions that twitter is garbage. Which, agreed, I've hateposted about that hellsite tons of times. But she's been knew it was. She had people bully her about her tweets before, and she kept at it, white person speaking, and like at some point you're like... is it fucking worth it? You know twitter is garbage. Is the clout you'll make on it worth it? You know people will judge you. You know they will take your sayings out of context. You know there are people obsessively following your page just to spot the tiniest piece of stuff you didn't think three hours on before posting so that they can crucify you over it. You been knew, we been knew. So I'm asking again, is it fucking worth it?

She even said it wasn't the first time she was cancelled, it's just that this last time has been the biggest one (... yet). So... why are people fucking obsessed with that fucking site? I'm a former bully victim, I detest and oppose bullying of any kind, but after a point, when you see a minefield, you gotta know that if you go skipping around without a second thought... ya gonna get hit. I may understand some people staying on twitter out of spite and/or in the hopes of "fixing" it... but again that's kinda hopeless and we all know that. There’s a saying in Greek that translates to “No matter how sugar you pour on it, shit won’t turn into lokum.” And that’s exactly what twitter is. Shit that people try to make functioning. It won’t.

I know the Shut The Fuck Up may be a bit excessive but... we all have opinions, yeah? It's a bit frustrating too considering she makes long videos that clearly have a lot of thought put into them, and then she goes on twitter and posts whatever the fuck comes up in her mind like... you should know better. In a way, Shutting The Fuck Up is also a way to avoid being seen as a bigot when you're not. Let oppressed groups do the talking for you, 'kay?

On another "receipt" she admits she was wrong, quote: "It was insensitive and careless. I definitely should not have said that." At the same time she says that she was influenced by her environment, and she also doesn't actually apologize. In a way she's sincere because a good sociopath would have searched and found that a good apology includes the words "I'm sorry" or some variation, and not trying to explain yourself by the circumstances surrounding you. So, it's sincere, but it feels a bit void. No-one cares what brought you to do this, we only care to see if you’ve changed from that.

I'm also putting the word receipt in quotes because I just think the whole concept of "receipts" is fucking weird, and as I said, some of them are completely pointless and taken out of context to make Lindsay look like the next Hitler. But I don't have another word for it so I'll go with that.

The next "receipt" is about her tweeting about the film The Prince of Egypt and mentioning the scene of killing the Egyptian first-borns, and being accused for anti-semitism because of it. First of all, your problem there ain't the film, it's the Bible, a work that was created by people who thought that a woman is a man's property, and then later on translated and modified by people with similar or worse problematic ideologies. The Prince of Egypt is a film that is inspired by the book of Exodus but at the same time... it doesn't fully excuse the plagues. They're portrayed as a necessarily evil, but whether that bothers you or not depends on whatever your relationship is to God and the fact that he allows covid to be a thing right now. But on the video, Lindsay talks about the portrayal of the plagues and how they're excused so that the Jewish people can be free.

But... it feels a bit... maybe she hasn't watched the full film in some time, and considering she doesn't really like it, I understand why she's making the mistakes on thinking it does. Yes, the film shows the plagues as a necessary evil. But the whole song The Plagues is about Moses being torn in two about the whole thing. "And even now I wish that God had chose another. Serving as your foe on his behalf is the last thing that I wanted." When he warns Rameses about the last plague, the "camera" shows the depiction of the previous massacre of the Jewish children... and Rameses' son is at the bottom of the children being dropped in the water.

It not only foreshadows the boy's death, it also compares the two massacres. It's like "Your father did that to the Jewish people, so the God of the Jewish people will do the same to your people." The scene where the Egyptian first-borns are being killed is haunting. It's dark, without music, eerie... you're not supposed to be happy about it. So I don't see how all that's excusing. In a way, to a people that at the time was enslaved and even now still faces discrimination, it could feel like vengeance. There's a big talk about morals that can be done there but again; WE'RE WHITE. We should consider shutting the fuck up. At least on our own, if talked about with someone who’s part of Jewish culture, that’s another thing.

Lindsay also says that in the film it looks weird that from the moment we see Rameses lamenting the loss of his son, the film cuts to the Jewish people singing about Miracles. And like... again I guess she hasn't seen the movie in some time, cause that's plain out wrong. At the time Moses sees that the son is dead, he already looks depressed. When he hears the cries of the people crying for their children, he breaks down and cries too. When the Jewish people walk out and sing for not being slaves anymore, that's when he starts smiling a little, and more when they're finally out of Rameses' kingdom. And again, it's about the liberation of an enslaved people whose culture we're not presently a part of. Like, the death of the Egyptian children was a bad thing - in retaliation of the same thing happening to the Jewish babies - but whether it’s being excused or not has context behind it.

I'm also talking a lot about it because she mentions she likes the film Noah from 2014, and she shows a small clip from the flood scene where the people on the Ark are depressed (that's not the right word but I can't find it right now) because they witness the deaths of the people who weren't on. I haven't seen the film, so I don't know how much that impacts the survivors later, but she's completely ignoring the fact that The Prince of Egypt also frames the death of the first-borns as tragic and that also Moses breaks down over it.

On my own opinion; I'm agnostic and anarchist af so while I also disagree with the depictions and the actions that God took to free the Jewish people... it's a fucking fantastic film. Animation, voice acting, music, directing... But at the same time, I've watched a bit of her videos and I may be a bit sarcastic here but I don't trust the taste of anyone who watches Treasure Planet and only refers to it as "Disney's space pirate flop" instead of the underrated masterpiece that it is. But I'm also mentioning it not-so-sarcastically, because underappreciated as it is (because Disney deliberately made it flop by the way), Treasure Planet has not had a widely massive impact. Speaking as someone who adores Treasure Planet, it has had a huge impact... to those few who've watched it. So while I meh'ed at her calling Treasure Planet what she did, it was just that; a meh.

But The Prince of Egypt? It has had an impact on ME, an agnostic anarchist. I cannot even begin to imagine what impact it has had on the millions of Jewish people worldwide. So when someone who has studied Media (or whatever, I'm not gonna search through the "Lindsay Ellis is cancelled" results on gοοgle just to see what she has studied), and decides to make a... while a bit understandable, not so well-studied critique on a film with that kind of impact... Have you considered Shutting the Fuck Up? She says that on twitter, she got responses on said tweet where people talked about how important that film is to them. Is that what she needed, to learn about this film's impact? For her to not know that... it's a bit hard to accidentally be that blind about that aspect, especially with her studies.

It's once again difficult territory to wade through - and she deliberately placed herself in it. And as I said, her problem is with the Bible. Not with the film.

So... yeah. I don't think it was anti-semitism on her part, but definitely not a good, well-thought move to make.

Next is her talking about the time she wore a niqab in a non offensive (I guess) way on an old video. She mentions she addressed it on a stream where they laughed about how... cringe-y of the time the whole concept of the video was. And again, the "Not thinking before acting" as well as White Privilege comes out, both in the video and in the way she presents the circumstances behind it. What inspired her to do it doesn't fucking matter. What matters is that she didn't think. Though she says she regrets it, she seems she only does so because she got responses from Muslim followers that told her "Please don't do that." Again, the fact that she needed someone else to say it... that's uninformed. And honestly, when you have such a following, you have a responsibility to know better. Money from patreon and youtube ads carry that. She does say she regrets it though.

Next, is her being called out for her "Dear Stephenie Meyer" video. In it basically she talks about how a lot of the earlier hate for Twilight was because of the fact that society hates teen girls and hates what they like and consider it inferior, and since a lot of teen girls like Twilight, the society had to hate Twilight. At the end of the video, she even said "I'm sorry" towards Meyer. That's a very quick summary and she had some good points, but this is Stephenie Meyer we’re talking about.

Oof. There's a LOT to unpack here.

For those of you who don't know, Twilight as a whole franchise has a ton of issues with racism, particularly against indigenous people and the very real, existing Quileute tribe. Lindsay says that at the time she made that video (2018), the backlash on Meyer was not so much about said racism. And boy, that's plain out wrong. She just didn't do enough research for it. And again, it's not deliberate. I'm not accusing Lindsay of racism. But Twilight was problematic (and even I as a semi-follower of the Twilight Rennaisance, as well as most of the fellow fans I've seen, admit that openly and we hate Meyer for it), and as I had watched that video, I know she did research on it. I find it outright impossible that a search for "Twilight criticism" wouldn't turn up some mentions about the Quileute racism, especially in 2018 with the fandom’s resurgence. There's an entire page from the Burke Museum in Seattle talking about the misconceptions of the tribe in the books and how little benefit the tribe has seen from having their culture appropriated by a white woman. Saying that it wasn't a common criticism is either a poorly put lie or an open confession that she didn't search much. Maybe she only searched about Stephenie Meyer and misogyny. I don't know.

Look, it is true that at the time of late 2000′s, the criticism was what Lindsay said; all about hating teen girls. I'm sure that there was criticism on the racism, but it was either less promoted or was trumped by the former type. But ignoring it completely, when at the time she made that video the criticism on racism was already getting more and more recognition... just why, Lindsay?

So again, I don't think it's deliberate. But it's poor pre-thought, poor work on it, and again when you have such a big following (and while Lindsay keeps saying how she's not that much famous on youtube, when you have a million subscribers and ten thousand patrons... ya ain't unheard of either) you have a responsibility to know better and research better before you do anything on it. Youtube is Lindsay's job, and she doesn't do a very good job at it when it comes to recognizing her white privilege and working beyond it.

Then she says that she talked with some indigenous (she doesn't mention they're Quileute btw) people about it; some said they hated the depiction, some said they liked that they were represented. Although why you would like to be represented by Jacob in Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, I have no fucking clue. In any case, it feels like because there were indigenous (no mention of Quileute talking with her, again) people who were okay with the inclusion, she felt that it was okay to make the whole Meyer apologia video without a single mention to the racism fact.

She also showed a video of a Quileute woman talking about how after Twilight, they were able to get back land that was taken from them. Given back by Obama, by the way. And... including this clip feels like... an excuse. Saying that Twilight, despite being racist, was somehow okay because it brought attention to the real Quileute tribe, and I hope y'all see why that is messed up. Meyer could have handled the issue better, and included the characters with much more respect and given them credit and some idk money from the millions she made appropriating their culture (though Lindsay mentions that last thing), but Lindsay thought that apologizing to Meyer anyway for being against her due to internalized misogyny in the late 2000's was the right move. It is true that at the late 2000's little of the known criticism was about the racism, but it's still a big fucking problem and purposefully ignoring that to apologize to Meyer... not a good look.

Again, blind due to white privilege, and acting without trying to see the whole picture. She says that Meyer, a white, rich, Mormon woman does not deserve the harassment she got, and again I'm against bullying but like... Meyer fucking sucks, and we ought to at least recognize that. She's not the one who deserves an apology - the Twilight fans *cough*me!me!me!*cough* who just wanted to enjoy the books and films (horrible as they were) in peace are.

By the way, the Quileute tribe has a fundraiser so that they can move their land to a higher ground where they won't be affected by tsunamis (and to her credit, Lindsay mentioned it and shared the link, but she said that another youtuber brought that to her attention, and again, where's the fucking research, Lindsay, pretty much every Twilight Renaissance post I've seen about the anti-indigenous attitude mentions that fundraiser and you're telling me it didn't come up in your searches) so if you can donate you definitely should: mthg.org

I mention around how Lindsay doesn't say "I'm sorry", and while as most people, I'd rather have no apology that a performative apology, it feels a little icky, that while she recognizes some of her screw-ups... I'm not sure if she recognizes that said screw-ups that-veer-towards-but-are-not-exactly-or-intentionally racism, ableism, anti-semitism, and transphobia... that shit is the shit twitter nazis thrive off of - and not to cancel people, but to build their own bigotry and take the attention away from actual hate crimes happening. And as a youtuber with a million subscribers and ten thousand patreon supporters, again, she should recognize her privileges a little more. Am I blaming her for nazis using her poorly thought tweets? Should she be super duper careful and spend a lot of time on her tweets to make sure nothing remotely problematic is on them?

... I mean, why the fuck do y’all think I hate twitter?

Next, she mentions being called out for "saying" that "trans-men are less oppressed than cis women" which she says is not what she said, but instead that "she's spoken to trans men who told her that they experience less misogyny after coming out". She even openly mentions it as "anecdotal" in her original tweet. And while I get that, my question is.... what's your fucking business about it? You're cis, shut the fuck up, let trans people talk about it.

Like, fuck. We haven't reached a time where acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, is at such a high that cis people by themselves can openly discuss about the experiences of trans people. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Just show your support for trans people, let them do the talk about their lives and experiences, and share their content if you want your followers to know about trans experiences. If trans men experience less misogyny after coming out (and like, I understand why that would happen in some cases), that's not your area to gather twitter clout from. Think before you tweet.

TW: suicide mention, skip to after the ~ symbols if you want to avoid.

Next one is not problematic, it's just proof that Lindsay has no filter on twitter... which is probably the core of all the issues on this post. So condensing the whole thing; a Zack Snyder fan said "I don't like when people say that Zack Snyder hates his mother". A film critic was discussing with Lindsay about Snyder fans, and Lindsay, having never seen any Snyder fan actually say what the fan above said, responded in an obviously sarcastic way "I have it on good authority that Zack Snyder hates his mother." The next day, Zack Snyder's daughter killed herself, and twitter flooded to hate on Lindsay. Of course by the video, Lindsay seems to be upset by the whole thing and how bad the timing was for the post she made - and it is irrational to blame her on that. But! Zack Snyder's mother died in 2010, btw, from what I saw, and like... I think that some discussions around celebrities should be kept private, and this specific conversation between Lindsay and the film critic should have been private. Again, not problematic, but seems to show how Lindsay doesn't think before tweeting.

Next, she admits she was wrong about defending yellowface on the film Cloud Atlas and saying that it wasn't as bad as blackface. "My bad", no "I'm sorry". Again I don't know if an apology is what I "wanted", after all I'm also a privileged white woman, but idk some recognition that stuff like what she said are what twitter nazis thrive off of would have been nice. Because again, the good intention is there, especially by acknowledging how bad blackface is.

Anyway, some final thoughts, no I don't think she's problematic, or racist, or transphobic, or anything the twitter nazis like to label her as. I just think she's bad at tweeting (like many many people including yours truly, twitter sucks we've established that), and that as a youtuber with such an audience, she should understand her privileges a little more. Though she said she’ll step off from twitter and only use it to promote her books and other creators, so she did learn something from that.

As I said, we all have problematic thoughts. We all think of stuff that, if given a bit more thought, we’ll go like “why the fuck am I like this”. Our actions, on the other hand, is something fully on our control. And twitter thrives on people not putting too much thought on their actions, and letting their quick thoughts control them.

In conclusion, know your privilege, fuck twitter, and STAY THE FUCK AT HOME (except for you, Aussies and Kiwis, go all out - literally)

#Lindsay Ellis #tw: suicide mention #suicide mention tw

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sunshinesteves · 4 years ago

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some prince of egypt things:

the cast is incredible. especially ralph fiennes as ramses, jeff goldblum as aaron, and of course, steve martin and martin short as hotep and huy

not only did dreamworks acknowledge at the beginning of the movie that they took some artistic liberties, but the things they changed made sense. they added more to the story - especially with making ramses moses’s brother instead of his father.

music!!!! every single song is such a goddamn bop

ofra haza (an israeli singer) played yocheved. the hebrew she sings in deliver us translates to “my good and tender son, do not be frightened and do not be scared”

when yocheved sings her lullaby to moses, she sheds two tears - one from the inner corner of each eye - and her hair blows in front of her mouth. later, when miriam sings the lullaby (also to moses) the exact same thing happens. kills me every time

music motifs!!! off the top of my head - yocheved’s lullaby plays during some significant moments when moses is still in egypt (no i don’t remember which specific moments just take my word for it), all i ever wanted plays while moses is shepherding right before the burning bush scene, deliver us plays when moses tells tzipporah about his people wanting their freedom, and the plague song is basically an all i ever wanted reprise

ok so cool thing about colors - moses is always red, ramses is blue. the accents on mose’s egypt-wear are red, so are the plumes on his horses, and the huge-ass robe thing he got from jethro. when he’s younger, ramses’s clothes are accented with blue, his horses’s plumes are blue, and so is his armor in the red sea scene. in the plague song, when half of each of their faces join to make one face, moses’s face is lit up red, ramses’s is blue. at night the palace is lit blue. the one blue thing moses owns is ramses’s ring - which he ends up giving back.

what they did with tzipporah! in the actual torah they don’t meet until moses saves her and her sisters (i’m pretty sure the whole “moses falling in” thing doesn’t happen in the torah either...stellar scene. truly) the way she’s handled in the movie just adds a lot of history and background to her and moses rather than it being out of the blue. obviously it doesn’t get off to a...great start...but i just think it’s cool that moses helping her escape leads to him finding out who he really is, which leads to him running away, which leads to them falling in love, etc. good job prince of egypt writers!!

not that it matters but making moses stupidly hot and not like 80 (which he canonically is) was. galaxy brain. thank you for making me horny for the leader of my people dreamworks

i don’t know jackshit about animation but that red sea water looked fucking real. WHAT–

also! the fact that the bottom of the red sea isn’t just straight up flat sand cause that is literally just. not how a sea floor works? it’s like it’s own mini mountain range! and it takes them a while to cross!! FANTASTIC

when moses turns the nile to blood and there’s a little circle of water around him!! true to the source material!! (in the torah it says that it was still water for the israelites)

THE FUCKING DREAM SEQUENCE OH MY G O D

it’s so cleverly done, especially when the moses!fam is running from the egyptians and they run on the ceiling or on the pillar in front of all the drawings. the MUSIC. the COLORS. and according to my art history mother, all those trees were literally everywhere in Egyptian art. THEY👏🏼DID👏🏼THEIR👏🏼RESEARCH👏🏼

how they tried to show just. how many people there were. like there were around 600,000 israelites!! and that’s just the men over 20!! and you could tell that it was a TON of people (especially when you see them leaving and on mount sinai)

BURNING BUSH SCENE

fun fact! the voices of god are a man’s voice and a woman’s voice layered on top of each other!!

fun fact part two! the male god voice is the same guy who voices moses! oh the metaphors

the “who made the blind, the deaf, etc.” line is a direct quote from exodus

ANGEL OF DEATH!!!!!

obviously that’s like. a very difficult scene to do (maybe even more difficult than the bush scene??) without pissing off a lot of people and they did. a good fucking job.

moses’s hair is just. really important. you know what? zuko vibes. moses is zuko, zuko is moses, they are the same.

the kids singing in hebrew as they leave egypt are singing the song of the sea! in the torah, it’s sung as they cross the red sea. also it’s sung by a children’s choir how CUTE

it’s little but in the actual torah moses doesn’t spend much time with kids because he’s busy leading a bunch of whiny bitches (i’m jewish i’m allowed to make the joke lol) through the desert for forty years, so just that little moment where those two kids jump on his staff..he really was a leader of the people, yknow?

how when old!pharoah (no i don’t remember his name) stands in the throne room in profile and it perfectly lines up with his bigass statue of himself right outside. and then ramses does the same exact thing except his statue is like. much bigger. i think he’s overcompensating for something lol

the movie ending on the ten commandments is obviously v good but i’m just laughing because we’re just gonna. gloss over the tablet smashing lol. it’s ok i’ll let it slide

AND IT ENDS ON YOCHEVED SINGING DELIVER US AGAIN!!!! Y E S

and at the very end, three quotes about moses - one from the torah, one from the new testament, one from the quran!!

there are lots more lol i could go on about this movie for a very long time

#this has been in my drafts since pesach #so like. 2 months at least lol #pls enjoy my prince of egypt mania #the prince of egypt #long post

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ahopefuldoubt · 5 years ago

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The Prince of Egypt MBTI Profiles

Finally done! From a 2018 draft; notes and MBTI learning from 2016-2020.

Miriam: ENFJ (Fe-Ni-Se-Ti)

Judging functional axis: Extraverted Feeling/Introverted Thinking Fe-Ti

Miriam is a warm-hearted advocate; insightful, inspiring, and active. She wants to effect (and see others effect) positive change in the world. Forthcoming with her opinions and emotions, at times she can be a bit forceful with them, sometimes rolling over others, or not immediately considering their perspectives or feelings, in an effort to get her point across or get things done (Fe-Ti dynamic; can come across as an “I know best” kind of attitude, which to be fair Miriam pretty much does) — one example of this is the well scene with Moses.

As a function, Fe is focused on the external world and making people-factored decisions and judgments: Fe dominants especially are concerned with what others should and shouldn’t be doing and with promoting cooperation (the higher any function is in someone’s stack, the more natural influence and use — “dominance“ — it has). At various points in the film, Miriam becomes disapproving and stern with Moses and Aaron, the latter when he’s confronting Moses with his critical outburst (“Aaron. You shame yourself.”). This is perhaps a demonstration of Fe-Ti taking-a-stand and/or inferior Ti: Miriam swiftly taking Aaron to task for his doubting, disharmonizing words against Moses, overlooking their value/validity and his viewpoint. With Moses, as shown in both the well and mud pit scenes, she knows what his role is, encouraging and reminding him to act within it, connecting his responsibility to their people, and affirming his tie to them.

Miriam tends to speak in ways that appeal to human connections and welfare, as evinced by the sensitive speech she gives to Moses, in which she expresses the pain of her experience as a slave, and recounts Gd’s presence in his/their lives. She tends to put others’ needs before her own, at the same time knowing how to defend herself and to trust her judgment, is loving and reassuring, and can rally people together through low and lofty times.

Perceiving functional axis: Introverted Intuition/Extraverted Sensing Ni-Se

When Moses returns to Egypt, Miriam seems to just know why he’s come back (knew he would come back, even), perhaps also from taking in his robes and other aspects of his physical appearance. It’s comparable to when Moses first shows up in Goshen years before: She sees the broader implications of his homecoming, why he must be here at last. Her sight is forward-reaching and personally meaningful; a specific goal that she's determined and focused on, grounded by both her faith and observations of the world around her. She knows how things should/could be, how she wants them to be, and takes actions in the present to make those things a reality.

Miriam believes in others’ — particularly Moses’ — potential (“And you are, Moses. You are the deliverer.”), which is a further reflection of her Ni. Though able to reconcile and adapt to changes when they occur (Ni-Se being adjacent functions in an ENFJ), it is nonetheless indicative of an Ni-Se dynamic that Miriam becomes stressed during the well scene when current reality and facts — that Moses wasn’t told who he is and hasn’t returned to help them obtain freedom — don’t match up with her beliefs/ideals or the underlying truth. She understandably protests this unexpected change, and can’t/won’t let go of what she has put her hopes in, and been fortified by, for so long. She doesn’t actually let go, but I think it does make her want to fight for these hopes more… and, in this scene and others, push Moses to achieve his promise.

Aaron: ISFJ (Si-Fe-Ti-Ne)

Perceiving functional axis: Introverted Sensing/Extraverted Intuition Si-Ne

Aaron is practical, reliable, protective of family and others; trusting of personal experience and wary of what is new or uncertain. Because these two naturally opposing functions, Si and Ne, are also located on opposite ends of an ISFJ’s stack, resolving the tension between them is more difficult, and this is true for Aaron, whose own journey involves overcoming his fear and becoming more open to trust and faith, stepping out of his comfort zone.

Aaron tends to make concrete, habitually self-sacrificing, gestures and actions. He cares about others and their physical safety; it is Miriam he most clearly looks after, but this includes Tzipporah, Moses, and the Hebrew community (a camel, too). While Miriam is often the sibling on the front lines, and, after resisting the call at first, Moses eventually comes to accept his position as a leader, Aaron plays a more supportive role, and is the one whom the other two can count on in times of need.

When Moses returns to Egypt, Aaron immediately calls attention to how Moses behaved in the past, believing and perhaps also fearing that his younger brother hasn’t changed. Si-doms reference meaningful past details to understand the present, noticing consistencies and inconsistencies. It’s telling that Aaron hasn’t let go of events from years ago, and that he draws a comparison between what happened and what is happening: the way Moses treated Miriam, and that he didn’t care about slaves.

His inferior Ne manifests in his fearful, cautious attitude towards things that seem to him unfamiliar or unrealistic (such as Miriam’s beliefs about Moses), and in his inclination to expect all possible negative outcomes, which are based in his (objectively negative) known, prior experiences. One example is the well scene, but also the Nile to blood scene where Aaron despairs, rather realistically, that Pharaoh still has the power over their lives. (I’ve thought about whether he’s in an Ne-grip, or even a Ti-loop, for most of the film.) However, once he starts to experience with his own senses that freedom is attainable, tangible, he starts to trust these changes, challenging his established security and his courage by walking into the parted waters of the Red Sea.

Judging functional axis: Extraverted Feeling/Introverted Thinking Fe-Ti

While more reserved and even-tempered than Miriam, Aaron in general does not withhold how he feels, expressing his opinions, fears, anger, affection, joy. He is mindful of his and his people’s position within Egyptian-dominated society (certainly dominant Si-related too), to the point of affirming his, Miriam’s, and Moses’ roles when Moses appears in Goshen — an attempt to mitigate their very tense interaction with perhaps a bit too accommodating desire for group harmony. Aaron makes decisions based on values and how people relate to one another. For example, during the same scene his plea to Moses is an emotional one; as in, Aaron is calling to Moses’ mercy, trying to reach with Miriam’s appearance of illness some compassionate part of this threatening prince.

Aaron makes a similar, albeit angrier, appeal to Moses during the mud pit scene, this time rousing, whether he knows it or not, Moses’ sense of guilt and morality, and asking when Moses started caring about slaves. (I’ve always felt like there’s a resemblance between Aaron’s and Miriam’s scolding/“shaming” styles.) While still speaking to concerns that affect people, Aaron is able to form analytical conclusions, checking logic and what “makes sense” (other illustrations: “In fact, Moses, when did you start caring about slaves?”, and, “But, Moses, didn’t you see what happened? …”). He uses his Fe-Ti to assert himself during the mud pit scene, a kind of “sounding off” that shows that he’s reached the point where he won’t be silent any longer (it doesn’t help that he’s had to sit on these emotions for years).

Moses: ISFP (Fi-Se-Ni-Te)

Judging functional axis: Introverted Feeling/Extraverted Thinking Fi-Te

Sensitive and just, impulsive and good-natured, Moses typically acts and reflects upon a deep and personal(ized) sense of values, of “right and wrong.” He defends Rameses by taking responsibility for their mischief; he knows to feel remorse after he’s mistreated Tzipporah at the banquet. When Moses finds out the truth about his origins, he is appalled by Seti’s use of infanticide. With Tuya he asks, “Is this where you found me?”, again calling attention to the wrongness he feels. And of course, he takes a stand against oppression. Like Miriam and Aaron, Moses factors how people relate to one another into his decisions (all three siblings are Feelers, though Miriam and Aaron use Fe, not Fi).

Furthermore, Moses tends to share his strong feelings more privately; his one-to-one interactions with Rameses suggest this. Not only does “All I Ever Wanted” act as a mustering of personal conviction, “this is who/what I am,” it’s also Moses’ inner monologue wherein and whereafter he sits and processes his emotions on his own.

Moses is quick to internalize blame when things go wrong, which of course anyone can do, but in Moses’ case this points to (especially dominant) Fi’s concern with upholding its integrity. Part of his running away from Egypt is spurred on by these blows to his sense of self/self-worth and morality. (He’s troubled by his own ignorance and identity upheaval.) Under the guidance of Jethro and his people, Moses rediscovers and redefines his values, learning to see himself objectively — “Through Heaven’s Eyes” — as well as the dignity of every life. His encounter with Gd and conversations with Tzipporah and Rameses allow him to reckon with the fact that he truly must “learn to join the dance” and cannot remove himself from the world nor neglect doing what he knows is right. It’s in his later confrontations with Rameses that he’s able to step up and express his values and wishes in a firm, organized way.

Perceiving functional axis: Extraverted Sensing/Introverted Intuition Se-Ni

As a teenager, Moses is a reckless seeker of sensory experiences, pursuing enjoyment in the here-and-now and competition alongside Rameses (“Oh, come on. Where’s your sense of fun?”). He follows Tzipporah out of intrigue — as well as a desire to make amends. His humiliating Tzipporah can be seen as not thinking about the impact of his whims. Even so, a healthier auxiliary Se shows in how he’s able to see the facts about himself and admit mistakes, in his adaptability, and, with maturity, in his unimpetuous playfulness. As an adult, Moses remains someone who doesn’t much hesitate when he encounters something new: For example, he isn’t entirely cautious when he catches the flickering light of the burning bush, though one can argue that he’s also drawn there spiritually. Another instance: He’s happy to be hands-on in Midian, minus the dancing at first.

Although Moses’ tertiary Ni surfaces in his ability to grasp the potentials that people and situations hold (“I know [Rameses] will live up to your expectations. He only needs the opportunity.”), Moses’ sense of direction and of greater purpose are shaken after he becomes unsure of what good/worth he can contribute to the world. He “loses” himself in the present, to a free and joyful life in Midian. However, he regains his drive and sight of the larger picture, with the help of all the figures in his life — Jethro and Tzipporah, Gd, Miriam and Aaron, and Rameses — committing to the task given to him.

Last edited: 6/8/20

#the prince of egypt #miriam #aaron #moses #mbti #new stuff #my writing #oh hi i'm not back #just finishing what i started #did my best with these #one of the reasons this took 4 years was bc i kept harping on all the details #(mud pit scene you hurt so good)#editing this has been a good distraction tho #would totes write 5000 more words for each sibling #but i want to move on too #i think mbti is interesting and helpful but it's also not my only guide

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serene-faerie · 5 years ago

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21st Anniversary of The Prince of Egypt

To think this movie is already 21 years old (fun fact, this movie came out the date before my birthday, in the year after my birth), and it’s such a beautiful masterpiece!

To celebrate, here’s a list of my favourite moments in no particular order:

1) Deliver Us- This song is perhaps my most favourite song in the whole movie. It’s epic, bitter, and the music is so rhythmic as it captures the suffering of the Hebrews and sets the tone for the rest of the film. There’s also the brief glimmer of hope it offers when baby Moses is found by Queen Tuya, who immediately takes him in after being completely charmed by his adorableness, and Miriam’s lovely reprise of Yocheved’s River Lullaby. And of course, we cannot forget Ofra Haza’s amazing vocals as Yocheved, especially with how she sings in Hebrew in her introduction. She had such a divine voice, and she shall be missed forever.

2) The Plagues- Of course, this song will also be one of my favourites as well. The emotion in the music, the way the choir sounds so intimidating as they sing lines like “I send the thunder from the sky, I send the fire raining down”, it truly conveys God’s wrath, all while underscoring the turbulent emotional conflict between Moses and Rameses. Hearing the pain in Moses’ voice as he’s forced to watch the Egyptians suffer, and hearing the bitter anger in Rameses’ voice as he remains stubborn to Moses’ pleading... this song is truly a masterpiece. It also really shows how human Moses is. The Old Testament never really shows Moses feeling any remorse for the suffering that the Egyptians go through, but this movie makes Moses so human, so much more real, and shows how he still cares about Egypt, even as he’s trying to free his people.

3) The Return to Egypt- I love the music that plays during Moses and Tzipporah’s journey back to Egypt, especially with the additions of Ofra Haza’s beautiful vocals that underscore the suffering of the Hebrew slaves. And that determined, serious expression on Moses’ face as they near the palace just makes him look so badass, especially when he and Tzipporah enter the palace and make their way to the Pharaoh. I especially loved the festive undercurrent of that particular section of the soundtrack, with Moses and Tzipporah walking with determination into the great hall as the people look at them in surprise and suspicion, all while the dancers are dancing before the Pharaoh. It’s quite a phenomenal scene, really heightening the tension to reveal the Pharaoh upon the throne as Rameses, upon which the music ends. It’s such a determined, badass scene that I just had to include it here.

4) Look Through Heaven’s Eyes- After Moses has lost everything he’s ever known, after his entire life has been destroyed, he feels so unworthy of honour and praise. But with Jethro’s patience and kindness, the help of the Midianites, and the support of Tzipporah, Moses rebuilds a brand new life for himself as a shepherd. It’s such an uplifting song with beautiful lyrics that encourages us to look at our lives in a different perspective, that we all have meaning within us, we just have to find it. And really, it’s so wonderful to see how Moses learns and adapts to a new way of living, how he makes new friends, and of course, how blissful and happy he is after marrying Tzipporah. Plus, seeing Moses and Tzipporah falling in love is super sweet. Ultimately, it’s a song that I’ve now taken to heart, and will remember if I’m ever stuck in a rut.

5) The Burning Bush- Who can ever forget this scene, when Moses meets God? Oh my gosh, it is such an amazingly powerful scene; from the wistful music that plays when Moses discovers the burning bush to the way the bush flowers after God speaks to Moses... I really have to hand it to the filmmakers; they’ve successfully managed to capture the powerful and almighty presence of God. I love how God chastises Moses for questioning Him, then immediately comforts Moses like a loving parent, promising him that He will be there with him, just like any parent would say. It truly is a wonderful, amazing scene that’ll always leave me breathless. Also worth mentioning is the moment before, when Moses gives Tzipporah a kiss in the morning, and after the scene, when he picks Tzipporah up and twirls her around a bit. It’s so sweet and touching to watch, and they’re just so believable as a married couple!

6) The Hieroglyph Nightmare- Despite how dark and horrifying the whole nightmare sequence is, I really love the animation in that scene. Seeing the events of the beginning from Moses’ perspective in the style of hieroglyph paintings is really impressive, but it’s also so chilling to actually see the soldiers tearing babies from their cradles, from their mothers’ arms, all while such terrifying music plays in the background. Every time I watch that scene, I get chills down my spine when I hear the screaming of the mothers and babies that underscores the scene, and then Moses seeing his biological mother sending him as an infant in the basket always pulls at my heart. And the inclusion of the sun disk, Aten, is quite a clever way of showing that God sent Moses the nightmare in a way he understands.

7) The Chariot Race/Moses and Rameses’ Bond- Honestly, this is what really made me love this movie’s portrayal of Moses. As someone who studied the Old Testament in high school, this scene really offers a unique, refreshing portrayal of a Biblical character. I haven’t seen too many Biblical movies, but most of the time, Moses has always been portrayed as old and serious, especially when he returns to free the Hebrews. Seeing Moses portrayed as young, handsome, mischievous, and playful really makes him so much more human, especially when we see how close he and Rameses are. This movie shows that Moses has fond memories of his upbringing in Egypt, and that he truly loves and cares about Rameses, which makes it so much more painful when he’s forced to be enemies with his adoptive brother. And his close bond with Rameses is truly one of the sweetest parts of this movie, especially when Rameses bear-hugs Moses in front of the entire court, which makes the gradual destruction of their brotherhood all the more tragic.

8) The Parting of the Red Sea- Apparently, it took the animators two years to do this scene, and it really shows. It’s so epic and gorgeous to watch, and the passage of the Hebrews through the partition was so amazing. I love how we saw the whale shark being illuminated through one of the walls of water; it truly adds to how majestic this whole scene is. On an emotional level, seeing Aaron being the first one to encourage the Hebrews to cross, and putting his faith in Moses, it’s quite a touching moment. And on a nightmare-fuel level, watching the walls of water collapse and drown all the Egyptian soldiers while pushing Rameses back to the shore is truly terrifying. Honestly, this is another scene that really shows God’s wrath and cruel mercy, and will always chill me whenever I watch it. It truly is a spectacular, sublime moment in this movie.

9) When You Believe- This song is truly a beautiful, touching piece of music, with incredibly uplifting lyrics, and for it to come after one of the most darkest and saddest moments in the movie, I find it quite fitting, actually. Despite the fact that Moses has officially lost Rameses for good, he’s finally succeeded in freeing his people, even though it has come at a heavy price. While Rameses giving Moses permission to leave Egypt with his people was such a bleak and despairing moment, this song offers a glimmer of hope in the darkness. In addition, the children singing “Mi Chamocha” was so sweet, especially as we see how the Hebrews gradually become more cheerful once they realize that they’re free for real. It goes from being sorrowful and tentatively hopeful to triumphant and optimistic, and it’s such a beautiful scene to watch. And of course, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey’s version is truly the best as well.

10) Playing With The Big Boys- This song is quite a scary song, but it’s just such a cool scene to watch as well. I love the rhythmic invocation of the Egyptian pantheon, especially with how ominous the music is. But I also love how it shows a sharp contrast between how Moses invokes the power of God and how the priests invoke the power of their gods. Moses didn’t need any theatrics or magic tricks to turn his staff into a snake, while the priests literally use smoke and mirrors and elaborate rituals to turn their staffs into snakes. And the fact that the song ends with their snakes being consumed by the snake from Moses’ staff really foreshadows just who ends up winning in the long run, making it quite a good song. And plus, I also like to read the YouTube comments on this particular song, they’re just hilarious.

And those are my top moments of The Prince of Egypt. Of course, it’s an incomplete list, but this is all in no particular order, since I just love the whole movie so much. So happy anniversary to this beautiful, wonderful movie!

#the prince of egypt #prince of egypt #tpoe #poe #moses #rameses #tzipporah #dreamworks animation

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