Black Actress Who Plays Cleopatra in Netflix Show Says She’s Getting Death Threats, Has ‘Every Right’ to Play Doomed Queen

The biracial actress Adele James, who plays a famed Egyptian ruler, Cleopatra, in an upcoming Netflix docudrama, has received death threats as Egyptians accuse her of “blackwashing” and “stealing” their identity. In an interview with Glamour Magazine, Ms. James said that since the release of the movie’s trailer, she’s been the target of racial comments and death threats as well as ruthless trolling, and has had to ask someone to monitor her social media accounts. Regarding Cleopatra’s background, she said it’s something unknown up to the moment and that her production has “every right” to attempt to humanize the empress. “The only thing I can say about is that we just don’t know,” Ms. James said while adding that there are actresses with a fairer skin than her that have played Cleopatra. “We all put our blood, sweat, and tears into that show, and I think anybody else has as much of a right as anybody else to have a go at it because we just don’t know.” Under the direction of Tina Gharavi, the docudrama “Queen Cleopatra” aired on Netflix on May 10. It is part of the documentary series “African Queens,” produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, that explores the lives of “prominent and iconic African Queens.” Since the release of the official trailer last month, the series has received backlash from Egypt citizens and academics, who voiced their disapproval of the documentary as they believe Cleopatra, who was born in early 69 B.C. into a dynasty of Egyptian kings, was Macedonian Greek and not Black. Ms. James said it is “scary” to realize how easily a person can be exposed to trolling. Social media and the internet have blown up to levels no one in the production could have predicted, she adds. “All we did was release a trailer and look at the response,” Ms. James said. “I’m anticipating a wave still yet to come.”In an article for Variety magazine, Ms. Gharavi defended her choice to cast a Black actress to play Cleopatra. She said her decision stemmed from witnessing how Hollywood has misrepresented the pharaoh by choosing white actresses to play her part. The possibilities of Cleopatra being white “are somewhat unlikely,” Ms. Gharavi said. Egyptians view Cleopatra as a figure of the preservation of their history. Egyptian women also see her as a role model. “This is my history. This is my queen they are talking about. This is my hero,” a YouTube poster, Nora Elzeiny, said. Some Egyptians put up petitions against the documentary. An Egyptian lawyer, Mahmoud al-Semary, filed a lawsuit demanding legal action against Netflix and its producers to preserve Egypt’s history and cultural identity, the Egypt Independent reported. A former minister of antiquities for Egypt, Zahi Hawass, also expressed his discomfort with the documentary in an article written for Arab News. “Cleopatra was not black,” Mr. Hawass wrote. He added that the empress was the descendant of a Macedonian Greek general, Ptolemy, a contemporary of Alexander the Great.According to an American archaeologist, Duane Roller, Cleopatra’s ancestor was the Macedonian Greek King Ptolemy I, who established himself as the ruler of Egypt after Alexander’s empire was distributed among his powerful generals, the diadochi. After six successors, the descent reached Cleopatra’s father, meaning that Cleopatra “was no more than eight generations away from being pure Macedonian Greek,” Mr. Roller said in an article published by Oxford University Press. Regarding Cleopatra’s mother, Mr. Roller said the wives of the ruling Ptolemies came from the same Macedonian background as their husbands. Yet, he also mentioned that Cleopatra’s father had several wives, but were all from a significant status. Cleopatra’s mother was either Macedonian Greek or Mediterranean Egyptian, the two ethnic groups where women of status came from, Mr. Roller said.Yet, even though the show has been the target of backlash over the skin color of Cleopatra, classicists say that Greeks and Romans did not use skin color as a factor for categorizing ethnic disparity. To categorize people, they used concepts such as ancestral origin, location, and language, as opposed to skin color. During the interview, Ms. James said that under no circumstances it is acceptable for anybody to receive the treatment she and the rest of the crew have been receiving. She ended by inviting viewers to see Cleopatra as a “human being.” She also hopes viewers realize the empress was “so much more” than what we understand of her up until now.

Black Actress Who Plays Cleopatra in Netflix Show Says She’s Getting Death Threats, Has ‘Every Right’ to Play Doomed Queen

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