Egyptians in Uproar Over Netflix’s ‘Afrocentric’ Decision To Portray Cleopatra as Black

Some citizens of Egypt are in a snit over an upcoming Netflix docudrama about the life of Egypt’s last pharaoh, Cleopatra, because the title character is portrayed as a Black woman despite most historical evidence indicating that she was fair-skinned and of Greek descent.The complaints allege that “Queen Cleopatra” — billed by Netflix as a “documentary series” with Jada Pinkett Smith as the executive producer — is riddled with historical inaccuracies and perpetuates historical misconceptions about the origins of the queen. The show, the second season of a series titled “African Queens,” amounts to cultural appropriation of Egyptian heritage, some of these critics claim.A former antiquities minister of Egypt, archaeologist Zahi Hawass, has been quoted by Egyptian press outlets as saying that the series is inaccurate and called on Netflix to halt the release, expected in the coming weeks. The notion that Cleopatra was a Black woman is “completely fake,” Mr. Hawass told the Egypt Independent. “Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was blonde, not black.”A trailer says the series is about a time “when women ruled with unparalleled power, as warriors, queens, mothers of nations. And there was none among them more iconic than Cleopatra … her story resonates with every woman.” One interviewee in the program asserts, “I remember my grandmother saying to me, ‘I don’t care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was Black.’”In the series, the role of Cleopatra is played by a Black actress, Adele James. Responding on Twitter to the vitriol she has been subjected to in recent days, she told critics not to watch the show if they have a problem with the casting. “Or do & engage in (expert) opinion different to yours. Either way, I’M GASSED and will continue to be,” she said. Netflix has not publicly waded into the debate.Two Egyptians were so incensed that they went to the trouble to put up a petition against the show on the change.org platform. The petition was reportedly signed by 85,000 people before being mysteriously removed. Another one that popped up in its place is also demanding that the series be canceled. “Afrocentrism is a pseudoscience that is pushing a group’s agenda to claim Egypt’s history and rob the actual Egyptians of it,” it says. “By using false articles and zero evidence, they are still attempting to falsify history.”Another aggrieved resident, a lawyer named Mahmoud al-Semary, reportedly sued, demanding legal action against Netflix and the producers “in order to preserve the Egyptian national and cultural identity among Egyptians all over the world.”A similar controversy, from the other end of the cancel culture wars, erupted three years ago when the Israeli actress Gal Gadot announced that she would be producing and playing Egypt’s most famous woman in an upcoming film. Liberal critics accused her of “whitewashing” and insisted that an Arab or Black actress should play the character.Scholars and historians generally agree that Cleopatra VII, who ruled Egypt between 51 and 30 B.C. and was the kingdom’s last Hellenistic pharaoh, was — while probably nowhere near as pale as Elizabeth Taylor, who played her in a famous 1963 film — almost certainly a fair-skinned woman of Greek descent. She was the last in a long line of offspring of Alexander the Great’s general, Ptolemy, and so was not even Egyptian.

Egyptians in Uproar Over Netflix’s ‘Afrocentric’ Decision To Portray Cleopatra as Black

Egyptians in Uproar Over Netflix’s ‘Afrocentric’ Decision To Portray Cleopatra as Black

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