Ava DuVernay Responds to Director’s Apology for Whitewashing Gods of Egypt

Ava DuVernay, the award-winning Hollywood director, is not known for biting her tongue, or holding back her Twitter fingers.

She is outspoken about diversity, or the lack thereof, in Hollywood, telling The Huffington Post recently that too many films focus on the ”white, straight, male” paradigm.

So it’s no surprise that she has opinions about the whitewashing of Egypt in Gods of Egypt. Amid backlash over the casting of the film, Lionsgate and director Alex Proyas apologized for the film’s lack of diversity.

“The process of casting a movie has many complicated variables, but it is clear that our casting choices should have been more diverse,” Proyas wrote. “I sincerely apologize to those who are offended by the decisions we made.”

DuVernay tweeted that the apology was “an unusual occurrence worth noting.” But she also seized the moment to celebrate the diversity of characters in Creed and Star Wars.

https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/670621098950574080https://twitter.com/AVAETC/status/670626867901153280

And Twitter was not having the apology. Director Lexi Alexander and Empire writer Eric Haywood weighed in with funny memes.

https://twitter.com/Lexialex/status/670318159878991872https://twitter.com/EricHaywood/status/670314592476598272

Gods of Egypt, which stars Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Brenton Thwaites, is scheduled to be released on Feb. 26.

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