Aslan confirmed the veracity of Bruckheimer's historical appraisal. "Iranians are Aryans," Aslan asserted. "If we went back in time 1,700 years to the mythological era, all Iranians would look like Jake Gyllenhaal."
Gyllenhaal maintains that "Prince of Persia" is simply a slice of old-fashioned Hollywood fantasy, a bit of cinema escapism that's as light in spirit as the vintage serials. That heritage — along with the fact that it's based on a video game — took precedence over any real-world context for his character.
"To me, it's not something I gave a lot of thought because all of it such a fantasy," Gyllenhaal said last month at San Francisco's WonderCon. "It's based on a video game, not something out of history. There's nothing real about this. It's just an adventure and it's fun and it's strange in a way to hold one part of it and say, 'That's not real or right.' "
Jack Shaheen, author of "Reel Bad Arabs" and a frequent commentator on Hollywood's distortions of Muslim cultures and people, refused to condemn "Prince of Persia's" depiction of ancient Iranians until seeing the film. But he critiqued the film industry's conventional wisdom that mainstream audiences won't shell out to see a non-white lead in a big-budget film.
"Hollywood is making a mistake," Shaheen said. "As a society, we're not seeing color like we used to. We're more integrated than we used to be. The country is changing. But I don't think Hollywood is at the forefront of that change."
chris.lee@latimes.com
Times staff writer Geoff Boucher and freelance contributor Sam Adams contributed to this report.
