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The Netflix documentary, produced and narrated by Jada Pinket Smith, has been widely lambasted for its depiction of Cleopatra VII Philopator as black, whereas the historical figure was a Macedonian Greek member of the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt between 305 BC and 30 BC.
The controversial series has also sparked lively debates on social media on the issues of historical revisionism, race, ethnicity, and representation.
What do you all think of this?
https://greekreporter.com/2023/04/14/petition-cancel-netflix-queen-cleopatra/
Just more division imo... I prefer to ignore mainstream stuff as much as possible and filter the content I consume as hard lined as I filter men.
Has it really sparked lively debates? Or boring, predictable rants?
Elizabeth Taylor wasn't Macedonian, and none of the past Cleopatras of screen were either. Let's think about that for a moment. Controversy these days is actually often just old norms manifesting in new ways.
The modern concept of race is completely different from how ancient people thought of race. We use “race” to refer to ancestry and a set of phenotypes, whereas to ancient people, a race was an ethno-cultural group, which included everyone who had completely assimilated into the culture. Since Egypt was a destination region populated by people from all over the place, you could have just about any skin color and still be described as Egyptian.
That being said, Cleopatra was a member of the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty, who were Macedonian Greek (originating from northern Greece/Southern Balkans) and like many royals of the day, kept rule within their own family line, with few outside genes allowed in. So likely she was what would call “white” (as well as “inbred”). Does that mean a white person should play her? Not necessarily. As long as race isn’t a plot point of the film, I’m a fan of colorblind casting for historical characters and older works (otherwise, Shakespearian films would be 99% white, and that would be boring). So why not? Liz Taylor wasn’t Greek, but she played Cleopatra. For claiming to be against racism, woke casting is always weirdly focused on skin color. Like when they cast Rami Malek to play Freddy Mercury. They made such a big deal out of getting a brown-ish actor to play a brown-ish person (even though Malek’s ancestry is Egyptian and Mercury’s is British West-India), while completely ignoring that they got an American guy with mediocre vocal abilities to play a British guy with out-of-this world vocal talent. And then they focused the whole film on gay angst (oh yeah—while also ignoring that Freddy was bisexual). I think woke casting is just as bullshit as all-white casting.
cool, can we petition to have removed all of the shows that portray scrotes and strugglebandits in a positive light (oh those dopey rascals, teehee) because inaccuracy??
i think people need to get on with their lives...
on kind of a related note, i love Ancient History Fangirl's running jokes about Julius Caesar and Marc Antony 🤣💀 if you haven't listened to them yet, i 10/10 recommend.
Cleopatra and the King of Rome: The Show Notes - Ancient History Fangirl