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.
Honestly I should've added this in the original post but I was writing it during work.
I understand there are some claims the clock tower in Alabasta is a reference to a clock tower in Johdphur. While Oda may have taken some visual inspiration from that clock tower for the design, the clock tower in Alabasta is 100% reference to a clock tower found in the Cairo Citadel, where the mosque I posted above is located.
In my haste to post, I didnt put the correct name of the mosque, the Muhammad Ali Mosque. Also known as The Alabaster Mosque.
The name comes from the stone used
The mosque itself is located in the Cairo Citadel, which is itself located in Historic Cairo a UNESCO world heritage site.
And has a famous clock tower that for the longest time did not work. (In fact they just finished restoration in 2021)
The Cairo Citadel clock tower is copper, which is not a look Oda seems to have wanted for the arc. There may be some visual influence taken from Ghanta Ghar, but the idea of including the clock tower and it not working clearly comes from the Cairo Citadel clock tower. For comparison's sake, here are all the clock towers together.
Ghanta Ghar:
Cairo Citadel clock tower:
Alabasta clock tower:
All that to say I think it's pretty indisputable Alabasta is heavily referencing Egypt. And the most obvious reason for the casting choices is anti-Arab racism, coupled with zionism. And Netflix can get away with it because Western audiences are comfortable with Orientalist casting choices, where one culture is swapped out for another.
I am once again just imploring fans to stop calling the casting good representation when its very clearly an attempt to avoid drawing parallels with current world politics.
