Egyptian lawyer sues Netflix over Queen Cleopatra

[Estro Felino]

Breaking news!! Hollywood is shallow

Definitely.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Is Cleopatra defined by the color of her skin, or is there something more essential to her character that ultimately defined her?

When I went to see the stage production of Six, I wasn't taken aback or dismayed to see the former wives of King Henry VIII played by three Black women, two White women, and one Asian woman, all speaking and singing in anachronistic English. While I didn't go to see Six expecting to be given a history lesson, I did receive another kind of universal lesson in how some historical figures have been perceived and represented by those in power. The race of the actresses was not a distraction when it came down to the individual experiences recounted by each of these Tudor queens.

This is a significantly different context because of the years-long tension between many Egyptologists as well as Egyptians on the one hand and Afrocentrists on the other. I explained it in my earlier posts in this thread; one can't fully appreciate the scope of the issue with the depiction without being familiar with the backdrop against which this is happening.

When a depiction of a historical figure lends tacit approval to a narrative that designates an entire nation as being composed of "invaders" and denies their connection to their heritage and history, it's much more than just an issue of the skin color of one historical figure.

All controversy and accusations of Afrocentrism aside, I'm curious to see what Jada Pinkett Smith does with this role. I also think it's a good thing to see more people of color becoming visible in stage and on-screen performances, creating new representation and role models for those that Hollywood had previously ignored for a very long time.

This doesn't mean that I will automatically like this Netflix production, but I'll reserve judgment until after I've actually seen it.

I think Hollywood has many ways to create new representation and role models without being disrespectful toward another country and its history. This seems to me a situation where American producers are trying to appeal to an American demographic at the expense of people in another region—all the while flippantly dismissing the latter's concerns about the production.

Personally, I hope the backlash causes the show to fail or at least not succeed as it could otherwise have, because I see this level of disregard for other nations' history and cultural nuance as something that should be nipped in the bud instead of being encouraged. For me, seeing the show wouldn't change the historical inaccuracy or the Afrocentrist theme; they're already clear from the very beginning due to the casting choice for the lead actress (which I wouldn't have minded if it hadn't been in an alleged "documentary") and the producer's comments.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

What do you think about this case?

I'm fine with a black Cleopatra. I can't imagine being offended by casting as long as the acting is adequate. I'd watch that show, but probably not if they casted Carrot Top or Pauly Shore in the lead role.

I haven't had Netflix in years, not since they dropped The Rockford Files from their lineup

An old favorite of mine. Angel was excellent as the sleazy guy, rivaled only by Lost In Space's Dr. Smith. One line I never forgot had Jimmy (as Angel called him) working for a mindless, hippy-dippy chick, who told Rockford that she was expanding her consciousness, to which he scoffed that she was barely conscious as it is. I guess the line was unforgettably funny to me.

John Wayne once played the role of Genghis Khan.

One of the unintentionally funniest roles for him (or anybody else), the Roman centurion being another miscast part for him. He was only convincing as a cowboy and maybe a soldier (jump to 00:24)

There was also a now-removed petition on Change.org to cancel the movie, which apparently reached 85,000 signatures within just two days

Those can backfire.

"The Streisand effect is the way in which attempts to hide, remove, or censor information can lead to the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information. It is named after American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project's photograph of her cliff-top residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003."

 

[Debater Slayer]

If a Liz Taylor played the role today they might have very similar reactions against that woman for being too white.

That would probably be my reaction as well, or at least I would be generally critical of such a casting choice. I also feel broadly similarly about the depictions of Jesus as a blue-eyed white man.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

If a Liz Taylor played the role today they might have very similar reactions against that woman for being too white.

Greeks are white. Alexander the Great was a blond, and he was also Macedonian Greek. Cleopatra's kingdom was part of his empire.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Greeks are white. Alexander the Great was a blond, and he was also Macedonian Greek. Cleopatra's kingdom was part of his empire.

"White" is not all one color when ti comes to people. At one point in the US Arabic people were "white". And US African Americans often have a fair amount of European blood in them. I knew at least one black man with blue eyes. Those eyes tell us that he had white ancestors ffrom both his mother and father's line. Jada is not all that dark, And Cleopatra likely had some Arabic blood in her. She probably was lighter than the average Arabic Egyptian, but she would have been far darker than Liz Taylor. Meanwhile Jada is not all that dark as African Americans go. In fact she is close in skin tone to the Egyptians that I have known. So color-wise she would have been somewhere in between the two. Cleo would have been darker than Liz and lighter than Jada.

Cleopatra’s true racial background (and does it really matter?)

Racial profiling and manipulation have existed for a long time. It has become an issue in modern politics, and over 2500 years ago the Greek historian Herodotos wrote that ethnicity was often turned to political ends. Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt, is often a victim of racial profiling.

blog.oup.com

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

"White" is not all one color when ti comes to people. At one point in the US Arabic people were "white". And US African Americans often have a fair amount of European blood in them. I knew at least one black man with blue eyes. Those eyes tell us that he had white ancestors ffrom both his mother and father's line. Jada is not all that dark, And Cleopatra likely had some Arabic blood in her. She probably was lighter than the average Arabic Egyptian, but she would have been far darker than Liz Taylor. Meanwhile Jada is not all that dark as African Americans go. In fact she is close in skin tone to the Egyptians that I have known. So color-wise she would have been somewhere in between the two. Cleo would have been darker than Liz and lighter than Jada.

Cleopatra’s true racial background (and does it really matter?)

Racial profiling and manipulation have existed for a long time. It has become an issue in modern politics, and over 2500 years ago the Greek historian Herodotos wrote that ethnicity was often turned to political ends. Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt, is often a victim of racial profiling.

blog.oup.com

Okay, then no one is white or black. I meant "white" as in European descent. You don't have to have really pale skin, light hair and eyes to be white. I don't know why Arabs call themselves "white", either. Probably because it's conflated with "Caucasian". I knew a guy from Lebanon who said he was white, and that was just confusing. Jada is just a light skinned black woman.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Okay, then no one is white or black. I meant "white" as in European descent. You don't have to have really pale skin, light hair and eyes to be white. I don't know why Arabs call themselves "white", either. Probably because it's conflated with "Caucasian". I knew a guy from Lebanon who said he was white, and that was just confusing. Jada is just a light skinned black woman.

Differences in people do not respect any man made boundaries. So any labeling is going to be inaccurate. I am mostly northern European by heritage, but still on the darker side for that. When I tan from being outside I am often asked if I am Native. I can understand the objections of the Egyptians because they see this as an attempt to portray all Africans as sub-Saharan Africans when there is a huge range of traits of African people. And a huge range of climates for Africa itself. In the US many African Americans ignore their white heritage. Quite often because for all practical purposes it arose from what amounts to rape when white owners would have their way with their female slaves. They then not only rejected those offspring as being theirs, but enslaved them to boot. That can cause some long lasting racial tension.

At any rate, if someone wants to identify as a particular race it is no skin off of my nose. If a person of mixed race wants to claim that they are white, go ahead. If they want to identify as African American, that is up to them. Since "race" is pretty much a matter of culture what difference does it make?

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Differences in people do not respect any man made boundaries. So any labeling is going to be inaccurate. I am mostly northern European by heritage, but still on the darker side for that. When I tan from being outside I am often asked if I am Native. I can understand the objections of the Egyptians because they see this as an attempt to portray all Africans as sub-Saharan Africans when there is a huge range of traits of African people. And a huge range of climates for Africa itself. In the US many African Americans ignore their white heritage. Quite often because for all practical purposes it arose from what amounts to rape when white owners would have their way with their female slaves. They then not only rejected those offspring as being theirs, but enslaved them to boot. That can cause some long lasting racial tension.

At any rate, if someone wants to identify as a particular race it is no skin off of my nose. If a person of mixed race wants to claim that they are white, go ahead. If they want to identify as African American, that is up to them. Since "race" is pretty much a matter of culture what difference does it make?

Right. But my only point is that Greeks are white, too, if white means European, and some of them have and had light features. That's all.

 

[Augustus]

e note, this does mean that Jesus was "white" At one point he did qualify as white in the US since Arabic people were classified as white.

Jesus wasn't Arabic though.

There is a big crescent from modern day Italy, through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Israel/Palestine that are of pretty similar genetic lineage.

Peninsular Arabs are from a lineage that shares more in common with East Africa, and prior to the Arab conquests, all Arabs were from Arabia.

Due to Arab and Ottoman imperialism, many from the former group are now considered "Arabs" or "Turks", yet are still of the Eastern Med lineage. So you get "white Europeans", and "brown Turks and Arabs" who are basically of the same genetic lineage but happened to be born on different sides of political boundaries.

This was after the time of Jesus though, and back then Levantines weren't "Arabs".

And Cleopatra likely had some Arabic blood in her. She probably was lighter than the average Arabic Egyptian, but she would have been far darker than Liz Taylor.

Egyptians weren't "Arabs" then either, and it is highly unlikely she had Arab blood given their peripheral status at that point.

 

[Debater Slayer]

Those can backfire.

"The Streisand effect is the way in which attempts to hide, remove, or censor information can lead to the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information. It is named after American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project's photograph of her cliff-top residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003."

Yeah, it can definitely be complicated to find the balance between sufficiently addressing something problematic that will inevitably have a large audience and also not giving it too much publicity.

 

[Debater Slayer]

If a Liz Taylor played the role today they might have very similar reactions against that woman for being too white.

That would probably be my reaction as well, or at least I would be generally critical of such a casting choice. I also feel broadly similarly about the depictions of Jesus as a blue-eyed white man.

Something else occurs to me here: considering the historical evidence about Cleopatra's lineage, I think portraying her as light-skinned would be broadly acceptable, but it would still be a problem to make her into a blue-eyed, blonde European. An example more analogous to what this show is doing would be portraying a fully Egyptian/North African queen as white or a Nubian one as tan. It would be a similar level of inaccuracy and erasure as this show's depiction contains.

I definitely think the reactions to the two hypotheticals I gave would be similar to the reactions to this show, but I doubt that depicting Cleopatra in specific as white would induce the same level of controversy even if it also wouldn't get the warmest welcome. I suspect what could make the reactions to that less strong would be 1) her Macedonian Greek ancestry, and 2) an element of desensitization to portrayals of Cleopatra as white due to previous depictions as well as said ancestry.

And of course, there are some people who wish to be seen as white or have an inferiority complex and look down on Africans in addition to denying their African roots because of that, sometimes under the false assumption that being African is synonymous with being black (something they would hate to be, due to their racist worldview). You'll find people who say "We're Arabs, not Africans!" or "We're neither Arab nor African! We're Egyptian!" as if all of those were mutually exclusive categories. I definitely think some of that is due to attitudes influenced by white supremacism and Eurocentric thinking. A lot of people still retain such attitudes despite not even being white or European themselves.

I'm mostly tired of hearing about this series, though, so I'm going to stick to horror movies either way.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Jesus wasn't Arabic though.

There is a big crescent from modern day Italy, through the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Israel/Palestine that are of pretty similar genetic lineage.

Peninsular Arabs are from a lineage that shares more in common with East Africa, and prior to the Arab conquests, all Arabs were from Arabia.

Due to Arab and Ottoman imperialism, many from the former group are now considered "Arabs" or "Turks", yet are still of the Eastern Med lineage. So you get "white Europeans", and "brown Turks and Arabs" who are basically of the same genetic lineage but happened to be born on different sides of political boundaries.

This was after the time of Jesus though, and back then Levantines weren't "Arabs".



Egyptians weren't "Arabs" then either, and it is highly unlikely she had Arab blood given their peripheral status at that point.

Where do you get that claim from? As far as Jesus goes he was probably more like a modern day Iraqi than anything else. There is no consensus on what he looked like. From what I have seen that belief comes from some passages in Revelation. But Revelation was almost certainly not written by an eyewitness. It is dated from 81CE to 96CE. I do not see that as a reliable source. It would probably be best to go to the earliest of Gospels.

 

[Augustus]

Where do you get that claim from?

Genetic studies of the current populations, which, unless there are good reasons to believe otherwise, are usually about the best we can do.

Haplogroup J-M172 - Wikipedia

As far as Jesus goes he was probably more like a modern day Iraqi than anything else. There is no consensus on what he looked like.

Some Iraqis perhaps, they are quite diverse.

My personal 'best estimate' would be Eastern Med (Greek/Levantine/Anatolian) as Nazareth was not that far from the coast, and these populations were a bit different from the much more inland ones.

Our concept of the Middle East has been changed radically by Arab and Ottoman imperialism (and also by the end of these empires) and so modern political borders don't really reflect genetically different populations.

 

[Estro Felino]

In fact she is close in skin tone to the Egyptians that I have known. So color-wise she would have been somewhere in between the two. Cleo would have been darker than Liz and lighter than Jada.

Cleopatra’s true racial background (and does it really matter?)

Racial profiling and manipulation have existed for a long time. It has become an issue in modern politics, and over 2500 years ago the Greek historian Herodotos wrote that ethnicity was often turned to political ends. Cleopatra VII, the last queen of Egypt, is often a victim of racial profiling.

blog.oup.com

It's absolutely sure Cleopatra was Mediterranean. As her prominent nose suggests.
As you can see in this video, we have an Egyptian with a distinctive nose...and and African-American with practically no nasal bones.
So it has nothing to do with skin color.
Ethnography is not about colors.

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's absolutely sure Cleopatra was Mediterranean. As her prominent nose suggests.
As you can see in this video, we have an Egyptian with a distinctive nose...and and African-American with practically no nasal bones.
So it has nothing to do with skin color.
Ethnography is not about colors.

Interesting. And the Egyptian man has blue eyes.

 

[Heyo]

I am mostly northern European by heritage

Heritage is just a question of how far you go back. In the end we are all of African descent.

 

[Heyo]

Interesting. And the Egyptian man has blue eyes.

Maybe he has some Vandals in his heritage.

 

[Estro Felino]

Maybe he has some Vandals in his heritage.

There are green-eyed and blue-eyed Arabs.

 

[Augustus]

Maybe he has some Vandals in his heritage.

That’s not uncommon in Berbers.

could also be Circassian (or Slavic etc. )

Elite Ottoman classes often had blond/blue “white” ancestry, and imported many Slavic and Caucasian slaves.

Mamluks were of Eurasian lineage.

Etc.

Quite a lot of ways an “Arab” can have blue eyes and light skin.