Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com - Netflix's new movie about Queen Cleopatra has upset many people. Starring Adele James as Cleopatra, John Partridge as Julius Caesar, Craig Russell as Marc Antony, and Michael Greco as Cleopatra's brother Pothinus the four-part series launches worldwide on Netflix on May 10, 2023. Each episode is 45 minutes long.
The docu-drama attempt to uncover the truth about the powerful Queen Cleopatra. It sounds promising, but many are furious because a black woman plays the iconic ancient Egyptian Queen.
Left: Actress Adele James as Queen Cleopatra. Credit: Netflix - Right: Bust of Queen Cleopatra. Credit: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
“We don't often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them!” says producer Jada Pinkett-Smith, wife of Hollywood actor Will Smith.
“Cleopatra is a queen who many know about, but not in her truth. She’s been displayed as overtly sexual, excessive, and corrupt, yet she was a strategist, an intellect, a commanding force of nature, who fought to protect her kingdom and her heritage is highly debated. This season will dive deeper into her history and re-assesses this fascinating part of her story.”
Egypt is unhappy about the movie and accused Netflix of misrepresenting history by casting a black woman in a new series to play Cleopatra, its most famous historical figure.
On Thursday, April 27, the Egyptian official government statement marked an escalation in a feud that has sparked demands for the show's cancellation amid a broader debate over representation in popular culture.
In a press statement, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Archeology confirmed that Queen Cleopatra was light-skinned and had Hellenic features (Greek).
"Queen Cleopatra's works and statues are the best evidence of her true features and Macedonian origins.
Referring to the documentary series announced by Netflix over the coming period and in advance of Queen Cleopatra on May 10, in which its heroine, who plays Queen Cleopatra VII, has African features and dark skin, Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Archeology, said that the appearance of the heroine in this body is a falsification of Egyptian history and a blatant historical misconception, especially because the movie is classified as a documentary and not a drama," the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities declared in a press statement.
Dr. Mustafa Waziri said that movie producers should invest time in the accuracy of historical and scientific facts to ensure that the history of civilizations is not falsified.
He added that archaeologists and anthropologists should have been contacted when making documentaries and historical films that will remain a witness to civilizations and the history of nations, noting that there are many depictions of Queen Cleopatra on artifacts and coins confirming her true face. These ancient objects all show Queen Cleopatra's Hellenic (Greek) features in terms of light complexion, drawn nose, and fluffy lips.
Dr. Waziri also made it clear Egypt rejecting Netflix's Queen Cleopatra movie "before its screening comes from the heart of defending the history of Queen Cleopatra VII, which is an important and authentic part of ancient Egyptian history, and away from any ethnic racism, certainly on the full respect for African civilizations and our brothers in the African continent that unites us all."
In a lengthy press statement, the Egyptian government elaborated on why the movie was wrong on all levels.
Dr. Nasser Mekkawy, Head of the Egyptian Department of Archeology, Cairo University, said that Queen Cleopatra's appearance as black in this film competes with the simplest historical facts and the writings of historians such as Plutarchus and Diocasius, who recorded the events of Roman history in Egypt in the reign of Queen Cleopatra, who affirmed that she was light-skinned and that she is pure Macedonian origins.
Cleopatra, born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC, succeeded her father, Ptolemy XII, in 51 BC and ruled until her death in 30 BC. Afterward, Egypt fell under Roman domination. She spoke many languages in addition to her native Greek.
Ancient depiction of Queen Cleopatra. Credit: Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Tudum, the official companion site to Netflix, earlier this week quoted the producers of the series as saying: “Her ethnicity is not the focus of [the series] Queen Cleopatra, but we did intentionally decide to depict her of mixed ethnicity to reflect theories about Cleopatra’s possible Egyptian ancestry and the multicultural nature of ancient Egypt.”
Could Queen Cleopatra have been a black woman?
“Egyptians did not bear the features of sub-Saharan Africans,” said Dr. Samia Al-Mirghani, former director general of the Center for Research and Conservation of Antiquities, in a statement citing evidence from anthropological studies and DNA tests.
Inscriptions on ancient tombs and statues, she argued, “portrayed the [ancient] Egyptians with features as close as possible to the contemporary Egyptians. She admitted however that there was “a great diversity” among Egyptians due to the kingdom’s fluid, international nature.
According to NBC News, "one of Egypt’s most famous archaeologists and twice-serving antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, was adamant: Cleopatra was not Black.
“If we see statues and forms of her father and brother, we will not find any evidence supporting this claim that she was black,” he said in a statement.
Adele James as Cleopatra in Queen Cleopatra. Credit: Netflix
Hawass added that Egypt at the time of Cleopatra’s reign ruled over the Kingdom of the Kush, also known as Nubia, in what is now Sudan and southern Egypt, with its distinctive Black African culture. “But they have no connection with the Pharaonic civilization,” he said.
Some have difficulties understanding why a black actress playing Queen Cleopatra can cause such outrage.
“To ask whether someone was ‘black’ or ‘white’ is anachronistic and says more about modern political investments than attempting to understand antiquity on its own terms,” Rebecca Futo Kennedy, an associate professor of Classics at Denison University, told Time magazine.
“There is nothing wrong in casting Cleopatra as black,” Kenan Malik wrote in the Observer this week. “The problem lies in the resonances that flow from that. James is no more and no less authentically a Cleopatra than Elizabeth Taylor was. Ancient commentary on Cleopatra reveals little interest in discussing her identity in the way the modern world obsessively does.”
According to the Guardian, "a BBC documentary in 2009 claimed that Cleopatra had African blood, an assertion that passed without incident."
But Egypt refuses to accept the new Queen Cleopatra documentary. Egyptian lawmaker Saboura al-Sayyed repeated an earlier call for Netflix to be banned across the country this week.
Written by Jan Bartek - AncientPages.com Staff Writer
