Em Thoughts - Blog Posts

vinsmokeemmy

8 months ago

Alabasta is my favorite arc because it's supposed to be so middle eastern! My grandpa is from Palestine and raised my mom there. I'd seen rumors that a Palestinian actress was in consideration to be cast as Vivi and I'm just a little let down. I've seen dozens of pictures and videos of the Straw Hat jolly roger being used as a symbol of liberation at Free Palestine events. I just...thought this really could've been something for the movement. Idk.

I am very disappointed in OPLA's casting for Vivi and King Cobra ngl. I am a South Indian Muslim woman and Alabasta is literally one of my favorite arcs. Casting South Indian descent actors makes no sense because Alabasta is very clearly inspired by Middle Eastern and North African culture, particularly Egypt.

The clothing and archeticture makes the Egyptian influence in particular very obvious. Specifically Crocodile's rainbase, the Jackal and Falcon as the cities dieties, and the heiroglyphic treatment in the tomb where Luffy and Crocodile's final showdown happens really proves the influence is inargueably Egyptian. Vivi and Cobra's family name is even Nefetari which is so similar to Nefertiti, the most obvious ancient Egyptian name.

AND!!!

At the time Alabasta was being published in the manga, beginning around 2000...

...Palestine was going through the Second Intifada.

Other MENA countries also had protests and uprisings in solidarity. In autumn of 2000, the Egyptian ppl in fact rose up against their president, Hosni Mubarak, against his support of Israel and in solidarity with the Palestinian Second Intifada.

A lot of the story beats in Alabasta clearly took inspiration from the political movements in support of the Intifada. Considering that Palestine is going through a genocide and ethnic cleansing and one of the producers is very Pro Israel, I can't help but think the producers deliberately wanted to hide the arca's influences to MENA uprisings in support of Palestine. But it's in the DNA of Alabasta itself.

Additionally, there is this terrible TERRIBLE habit of Western production companies conflating India and MENA as the same. India has centuries of cross cultural exchange with the MENA region but our socities, archeticture, and clothing are VERY different. I come from a family that has been Muslim in India for generations and even still our clothes, archeticture, and cultural traditions are very distinctly different from MENA muslims. This is because majority of the Islamic influence into India did not even come from the MENA region, it came from the Mughal Empire which originated in Central Asia.

Below is Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India:

and here's the Grand Mosque in Cairo, Egypt:

Now compare Jama Masjid above with Meidan Emam in Esfahan, Iran

Of the three shown here, which one looks most like the palace in Alabasta?

Its definitely not the masjid from India.

I'm very disappointed but unsurprised OPLA went in this direction. I would just like to encourage fans who aren't MENA or Indian to be more critical of these decisions as well. This casting is basically the same as the Disney Aladdin approach. Indians and MENA are not interchangeable.

I've been seeing a lot of posts celebrating that King Cobra and Vivi are not white and I would like to encourage those fans to reconsider giving Netflix and OPLA credit for representation when a critical look at the source material shows the casting decisions are incorrect and seem to be politically motivated. I know that Oda is deeply involved in OPLA but that still doesn't justify the swap.