On the Orientalism and Imperial Gaze of Western Horror Films

Detractor Lee Cronin's latest film, The Mummy, starkly embodies the problematic Orientalism and imperial gaze often found in Western horror films. May Calamawy's convincing portrayal of Detective Dalia Zaki, albeit challenging to understand due to a lack of fluency in Egyptian Arabic, becomes overshadowed by a corny performance that feels like a mockery of a "real native".

Similarly, the Magician, played by Hayat Kamille, is reduced to a caricature of the "Egyptian" character. The film's Arabic is peppered with a faux-accented, unintelligible language, akin to the fabricated "Chakobsa" in Denis Villeneuve's Dune. The only authentic character is the young colleague of Calamawy's, seemingly dubbed by AI.

The film's narrative reduces Egypt to an object of imperial fantasy, devoid of authentic cultural insight. Instead, it brims with stereotypical "Eastern" visual cues and imagined Sahara desert landscapes. Even the film's protagonist, the Magician, is nothing more than a puppet performing a role in this narrative. The film's evil is depicted as a native sickness, contaminating an otherwise flawless child of empire, a blatant Orientalizing trope.

This exoticization of Egypt as a foil to civilization is a glaring instance of Orientalism. The film's depiction of Egypt completely ignores its actual sights, sounds, and daily life, presenting a sanitized, distorted version. This lack of authenticity is further exacerbated by the unrealistic portrayal of female characters in uniform, language, and behavior.

The film's mummy plotline is preposterously conceived, with the demon only requiring a new host every so often, and the Magician targeting the daughter of a Cairo-based American journalist as the new host. In doing so, the film reduces Egypt to a setting for a crude, exploitative storyline, devoid of humor, wit, or any genuine scares.