“Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?”
This is the argument Tina Gharavi, director of Netflix’s “Queen Cleopatra” series, executive produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, gave in defense of her casting of black British actress Adele James in the title role.
(Video: YouTube)
Well, for starters, the four-part series bills itself as a “documentary,” so one would think that historical facts would matter.
Cleopatra was Greek, and no amount of disco glitter eyeshadow and politically-motivated tantrums will change that.
The portrayal of Egypt’s most mysterious queen as a black woman is, according to Cairo’s former antiquities minister Zahi Hawass — a man who has spent his entire life studying the subject — “completely fake.”
“Cleopatra was Greek,” Hawass said, according to the Daily Mail, “meaning that she was light-skinned, not black.”
But Gharavi, in an essay for Variety, argues that Cleopatra was “eight generations away from” her “Ptolemaic ancestors, making the chance of her being white somewhat unlikely.”
“After 300 years, surely, we can safely say Cleopatra was Egyptian,” the director writes. “She was no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston. Both are one generation from Greece.”
https://t.co/PKgLCqIYfz Removes Petition to Stop Netflix's Queen Cleopatra https://t.co/g0WuhkaG7y#greece #greek #greekcitytimes pic.twitter.com/uK3yGyVRUV
— Greek City Times (@greekcitytimes) April 14, 2023
And she certainly wasn’t as white as Elizabeth Taylor, Gharavi says, so why not make the casting a “political act” and erase history just like the Egyptians tried to erase Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten from the history books over his unconventional religious beliefs?
It is, after all, 2023, and “blackwashing” historical figures is a super woke trend that Hollywood loves, even if it outrages Hollywood’s audiences.
“Queen Cleopatra is part of a larger woke Hollywood trend of ‘blackwashing’ in which black actors are cast in the roles of real-life white historic figures, often royalty,” according to Breitbart. “Other examples include Netflix’s upcoming Queen Charlotte series — which features a black actress as the German-born British queen who was married to King George III — and the AMC series Anne Boleyn, which starred Jodie Turner-Smith as the second wife of King Henry VIII.”
(Video: YouTube)
If you object to the absurdity of casting a black woman to play the ill-fated wife of Henry VIII, you clearly embrace “misogynoir,” Gharavi claims, another woke term to describe prejudice against black women.
Because, again, this is 2023, and facts just don’t matter anymore.
“It’s almost as if we don’t realize that misogynoir still has an effect on us today,” Gharavi wrote. “We need to liberate our imaginations, and boldly create a world in which we can explore our historical figures without fearing the complexity that comes with their depiction.”
Like, the complexity of being honest.
Queen Cleopatra
Historical (1 AD): Netflix (2023): pic.twitter.com/l4HIOSdbTy
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) April 14, 2023
What is truly remarkable, directors such as Gharavi are so desperate to make black-empowering statements, they’d prefer to reimagine history than focus on the historical accomplishments of actual black people.
In Egypt’s Twenty-Fith Dynasty, the country was ruled by actual Nubian pharaohs who “sought to bring back the glory days of the old and New Kingdoms of Egypt,” according to Ancient Egypt Alive.
They battled the ancient Assyrians and literally preserved in stone Egypt’s creation story.
One must wonder how Gharavi would react to having Keanu Reeves or Leonardo DiCaprio play Nubian King Piye…
Regardless, backlash over Netflix’s “Queen Cleopatra” is fierce.
https://twitter.com/RolimMayne/status/1646452638958120960?s=20
“Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilization is black,” Hawass said.
He is calling on Egyptians to take a stand against Netflix, the Daily Mail reports, and on Sunday, attorney Mahmoud al-Semary filed a complaint with the public prosecutor demanding that he take “the necessary legal measures” to block the streaming giant.
According to al-Semary, the show’s content violates Egypt’s media laws and Netflix is guilty of trying to “promote the Afrocentric thinking … which includes slogans and writings aimed at distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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