Netflix's Cleopatra

[Laser101]

So, I don't know if documentaries go here or the VV, but Netflix recently released this trailer:



Apparently, Netflix has decided that they should start their documentary series on 'African queens' with Cleopatra VII, who they for some reason claim was black (as in sub-Saharan black). Note that this is not just casting a black actress as Cleopatra in a fictional drama, which would be fine (if perhaps hypocritical); they are explicitly claiming in a documentary that Cleopatra was actually black.

Needless to say, Netflix have caught quite a bit of flak for this (the trailer has comments disabled; I wonder why). The harshest reactions have come from Egypt itself; the project was denounced by a former antiquities minister, and one Egyptian lawyer is outright suing Netflix.

Also, is it just me or does it really look like Netflix is going for a stereotypical 'Mummy Returns' depiction of Egypt rather than the proper Hellenistic society of this period?

[Dismounted Feudal Knight]

Considering this takes incredible creative liberties from the start it's probably a matter for The Arts. If you could call this art. I couldn't.

[Infidel144]

So, I don't know if documentaries go here or the VV, but Netflix recently released this trailer:



Apparently, Netflix has decided that they should start their documentary series on 'African queens' with Cleopatra VII,

This is the second in the series. The first was Njinga (or Nzinga)( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga...go_and_Matamba ). It seems to have been a somewhat more accurate representation, though whitewashing her much more active participation in the slave trade.

While I have seen the usually American afrocentrist claims that Cleopatra was black (some deny it because she was a 'colonizer'), I don't recall ever seeing any claims that Cleopatra was a warrior.

[Laser101]

This is the second in the series. The first was Njinga (or Nzinga)( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga...go_and_Matamba ). It seems to have been a somewhat more accurate representation, though whitewashing her much more active participation in the slave trade.

While I have seen the usually American afrocentrist claims that Cleopatra was black (some deny it because she was a 'colonizer'), I don't recall ever seeing any claims that Cleopatra was a warrior.

Well, Nzinga is at least somewhat relevant to the heritage of African-Americans and Afro-Caribbeans, both because of context and because she's from a culture somewhat related to their heritage (African slaves being overwhelmingly from Niger-Congo language* speaking peoples, as Nzinga was). Cleopatra is not relevant in either way.

*I know that the Niger-Congo family is debated.

[Kyriakos]

Oh no, not this trash again ^^
Ptolemaic Egypt was heavily segregated. To claim Cleopatra was sub-saharan is as serious as to claim Achilles was black. End of story

[conon394]

Seems like a bad choice. So umm they missed the bits where she looks Greek in all classical representations and was the end product of more than constant inbreeding since Ptolemy's day? And they are calling this a documentary with a straight face. Was Martin Bernal's Ghost their technical advisor? Cleopatra head at Berlin should bury this ideal. To bad its probably been cleaned and the original pigment on it lost - if any.

Why is she dueling?

Also fairly sure Cleo would have disliked to be called an African Queen. Her linage was back to Ptolemy and thence Alexanders Empire. I know she learned Egyptian and did a bit more ritual cos play than earlier rulers but that was how weak the dynasty had become not a point of pride.

[conon394]

Oh no, not this trash again ^^
Ptolemaic Egypt was heavily segregated. To claim Cleopatra was sub-saharan is as serious as to claim Achilles was black. End of story

Come on black as coal Achilles that is I got proof/s

[Kyriakos]

Yes, that type of argument leads to the conclusion that Minoans were blue

[conon394]

Can't rep you for that but funny.

[Laser101]

I just noticed that I misspelled the thread title and can't fix it. Oops.

[conon394]

I just noticed that I misspelled the thread title and can't fix it. Oops.

Ask the mods?

[Pinarius]

[alhoon]

I would have actually watched the First season of this series, about Nzinga, but it has got low ratings and the criticisms are that it is lifeless and stale. As for Black Cleopatra...

[Kyriakos]

We wuz Greeks

Anyway, by installing an add-on you can see the like/dislike ratio:

[Laser101]

One particularly amusing element of this is that Netflix's director appears to have forgotten how a motte-and-bailey argument is supposed to work; usually, when Afrocentrists make claims about the ancient Egyptians being black Africans (which is rubbish but that's beside the point), they usually at least try to add the disclaimer that of course they know Cleopatra wasn't black, since she was not a native Egyptian anyway. Netflix have just outright bulldozed straight past this point.

Ask the mods?

Not sure how exactly.

[conon394]

Not sure how exactly.

Just PM one of them they are listed at the bottom of the Arts page (and every forum page but are not all the same)

Abdülmecid I, chriscase, Dismounted Feudal Knight

-------------

In any case again what is with the dueling sequence. I admit I am fairly disinterested in Cleopatra. But of the top of my head I can't recall she had any martial training.

Edit:

Also no Rome w/o Egypt - ha haha. For what 120 years no Ptolemais w/o Rome propping them up.

[Roma_Victrix]

Yes, that type of argument leads to the conclusion that Minoans were blue

That's blue people erasure, Kyriakos! Blue pride worldwide! You Greeks sure have a lot of nerve! The original Minoans were blue people, something that the Blue Man Group has tried to spread awareness about now for decades, you bluephobe. The Blue Fugates of 19th century West Virginia - with their so-called blood disorder leading to their blue pigmentation - are clearly some of the last surviving descendants of the true original indigenous peoples of Crete and Santorini. Kind of like how the Mormons are right that the Native Americans are red because they were the Israelites damned by God, and how the Black Israelites are the true Jews of Israel (putting aside actual black Jews from Ethiopia and Eritrea known as Beta Israel).

Oh no, not this trash again ^^
Ptolemaic Egypt was heavily segregated. To claim Cleopatra was sub-saharan is as serious as to claim Achilles was black. End of story

Cleopatra was literally the first and only Ptolemy who even bothered to learn the Egyptian language, and only because she was a polyglot multilingual genius who knew a dozen other languages including Hebrew and Parthian Iranian, Latin of the Romans, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopian (Kushitic language or pre-Aksumite Ge'ez?), and of course her native language Koine Greek that all Macedonians spoke by the 1st century BC. They also regularly practiced incest, whether it was brother-sister sibling marriage or cousins and even uncles and nieces, due to inheriting the Osiris Myth from pharaonic practice and legitimizing it by comparing it to the marriage of god Zeus with goddess Hera. People are fooling themselves if they think Ptolemy XII Auletes did not just bang another one of his relatives to produce Cleopatra VII if her mother was not Cleopatra VI Tryphaena, the mother of Berenice IV (Cleo VII's elder sister).

Alexandria did have segregated neighborhoods for Greeks and Egyptians (as well as its large Hebrew population), but unlike the antebellum US South (with segregated drinking fountains/bathrooms/busses) everyone mingled together in the common marketplace agora. Greeks and Egyptians were also forbidden by law to marry each other within the city limits per the municipal laws of the polis, unless of course the Egyptian person renounced their Egyptian lifestyle and religion while trying to obtain polis citizenship. Greeks and Egyptians could marry each other outside the city and in native cities, but the other Greek poleis (Naukratis and Ptolemais Hermiou) had marriage laws that were similar to Alexandria.

Anyway, black Nubians in Egypt are even featured in the old 1963 Cleopatra movie with Elizabeth Taylor, so it's not like they or the native Egyptians are being erased. If anything the Celtic Galatians of the early Ptolemaic period and Germanic Gabiniani of later Roman intervention in Ptolemaic Egypt are ignored or never represented in film. Fiery ginger haired Celts living in Egypt literally had a prominent place in the military as landholder pensioners, the kleruchoi, and the Roman auxiliary Gabiniani were notorious mercenaries who harassed local women and married them, settling down after the Romans helped Ptolemy XII Auletes back onto the throne of Egypt. Alexandria was also home to the biggest Jewish community outside of Israel itself.

If anything, Hollywood and other film industries have an obsessive focus on Cleopatra VII Philopator at the expense of literally every other Egyptian queen, the natives including Hatshepsut and Nefertiti, or the Nubian ones married to the 25th dynasty pharaohs, or even just other Ptolemaic Greek ones like Berenice I, Berenice II, Arsinoe I and Arsinoe II. Augustan propaganda is to blame for it, that and Shakespeare's play on Antony and Cleopatra. It's bizarre that someone with such huge name recognition could be so poorly understood by the general populace.

Just PM one of them they are listed at the bottom of the Arts page (and every forum page but are not all the same)

Abdülmecid I, chriscase, Dismounted Feudal Knight

-------------

You can also just easily edit your own title by clicking on it in the list of sub-forum threads. I'm not sure if you have to have a certain amount of rep to do that, or you have to be a citizen or something? But Laser101 has been around since 2009. I don't see why he can't edit his own titles.

In any case again what is with the dueling sequence. I admit I am fairly disinterested in Cleopatra. But of the top of my head I can't recall she had any martial training.

Edit:

Also no ROme w/o Egypt - ha haha. For what 1020 years no Ptolemais w/o Rome propping them up.

Cleopatra was not a warrior queen. LOL. To her credit she did lead her faction against her brother Ptolemy XIII in a civil war that lasted years, but she infamously fled the Battle of Actium against Octavian's commander Agrippa long before the fight was over, basically ditching her husband Marcus Antonius.

Ironically Jada Pinkett Smith - wife of Will Smith who created/produced this nonsense - decided to ignore the actual black Nubian warrior queen who lived at the same time: Queen Amanirenas of Kush, who invaded Roman Egypt not long after Cleopatra's death and actually fought the Romans to a standstill after they counter-invaded and campaigned in ancient Sudan (sacking Napata but never reaching Meroe). Amanirenas and Octavian signed a peace treaty after a few years of conflict and Rome and Kush never fought another war (Kush was finally toppled when Axumite Ethiopian King Ezana invaded in the 4th century, coincidentally also the first African monarch to convert to Christianity).

Also yes, the Roman Republic propped Ptolemaic Egypt up financially and militarily whenever it had problems, especially with the Seleucids or internal dissent, but it did so while desperately needing Egypt's grain shipments to Rome. Roman Egypt also proved to be Rome's most lucrative province, not just from gold mining and agriculture but because of the maritime trade into the Red Sea to Arabia that led to the greater Indian Ocean routes bringing spices and silks to the Roman world (which largely exported silver and glass wares in exchange).

LOL. I hate to agree with Hitler, but yeah, he's right, she was a Macedonian Greek and it is silly to depict her as a Nubian (Sudanese) queen while saying that's how (brown) North African native Egyptians look even after they have intermarried with Balkan Europeans like the Ptolemies.

We wuz Greeks

Anyway, by installing an add-on you can see the like/dislike ratio:

Yeah, you can see it in Chrome by getting the Youtube dislike extension for your browser. That is truly a crushing ratio, and the brutal ratio on Twitter is also fairly bad, with more than twice as many comments than likes, and not many likes at all for a Tweet announcement that has tens of millions of views. LOL.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

She could also have made a documentation about the Kandake or Queens of the Kushite Kingdom at Meroe for example Shanadhakete:

The following queens are listed by László Török:^[31]

• Shanakdakhete (177 BC–155 BC) (earliest known ruling queen)
• Amanirenas (40 BC–10 BC)
• Amanishakheto (c. 10 BC–1 AD)
• Nawidemak (either early in the 1st century BC or 1st century AD)
• Amanitore (1–20 AD)
• Amanikhatashan (62–85 AD)
• Patrapeamani [de] (early 4th century)
• Amanipilade (mid-4th century)
  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kandake

Bas-reliefs dated to about 170 B.C. reveal the kentake Shanakdakheto, dressed in armor and wielding a spear in battle. She did not rule as queen regent or queen mother, but as a fully independent ruler. Her husband was her consort. In bas-reliefs found in the ruins of building projects she commissioned, Shanakdakheto is portrayed both alone as well as with her husband and son, who would inherit the throne by her death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanakdakhete

That would have been better candidates of powerfull african queens.

But i guess Cleopatra is more interesting as figure of pop culture.

Ironically her husband Will Smith had once a movie project about Taharqa, who defended as Pharao of the kushite 25th Dynasty Egypt for a long time against the Assyrian Empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty...nasty_of_Egypt

[Roma_Victrix]

I remember when Will Smith was slated to make that film on Taharqa! It just never materialized? Also yes, it is strange that her husband would be emphasizing the blackness of the Nubian 25th dynasty of Egypt (and Sudan), while Jada would make the oddball move of transforming the Ptolemaic Greek colonizers into indigenous African warrior women heroes. LOL. That would be like making a movie about Queen Victoria being a patriotic Hindu Empress of India, making kings of France into Champa Vietnamese rulers, or making George Washington into a Cherokee Native American freedom fighter.

[Laser101]

I remember when Will Smith was slated to make that film on Taharqa! It just never materialized? Also yes, it is strange that her husband would be emphasizing the blackness of the Nubian 25th dynasty of Egypt (and Sudan), while Jada would make the oddball move of transforming the Ptolemaic Greek colonizers into indigenous African warrior women heroes. LOL. That would be like making a movie about Queen Victoria being a patriotic Hindu Empress of India, making kings of France into Champa Vietnamese rulers, or making George Washington into a Cherokee Native American freedom fighter.

Nitpick; Champa and the Vietnamese are different, and the latter conquered the former before the French even showed up.


So the director decided to put out an article in Variety regarding the controversy around her project, and to be blunt it is basically an embodiment of the phrase "digging yourself deeper". To comment on some of the 'highlights':

• I would agree Cleopatra probably wasn't as white as Elizabeth Taylor, but that's because Elizabeth Taylor is British-American, and most people from northern or north-western Europe are much paler than Mediterranean peoples like the Greeks or Egyptians. However, she's still closer than a West African (which is the origin of most African-Americans). On the other hand, Gal Gadot, an olive-toned Israeli, is much closer in appearance to a Greek in Egypt (although the Egyptians would probably not like her either, but that's for... different reasons).
• As probably literally anyone on this site could tell you, the Seleucids were a Hellenistic dynasty like the Ptolemies. However, unlike the Ptolemies, they did have partial native ancestry; specifically, Antiochus I Soter was half-Iranian on his mother's side. Incidentally, Seleucus was the only groom from the Susa weddings who did not divorce his Persian wife after Alexander's death (except Hephaestion, but he was a bit too dead to divorce anyone), which says a lot about the attitude of Macedonian nobility towards foreigners (Alexander himself had issues because his mother was an Epirote, and they're at least Hellenic).
• I do not think any serious historian would ever suggest that "it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele than Elizabeth Taylor ever did" (which seems awkwardly worded; 'Cleopatra' and 'Adele' should switch places in this phrase).
• The Arab invasions did not completely replace (or even mostly replace) the Egyptian population, so the assertion that the Arab invasion had not happened by Cleopatra's time is kind of irrelevant. Actually, the largest Sub-Saharan component in modern Egyptian ancestry post-dates the Arab conquest (I think?)
• Who uses the term 'melanated sister'? It just sounds really weird.

The most ridiculous part about this is that the director is Iranian; she really should know better what MENA people generally look like (although the producer is black American, unsurprisingly).

Regarding the sword-fighting scene; first, what is the man wearing? That is not Hellenistic soldier attire. It looks more some kind of Arab clothing, but I'm not really knowledgeable about the matter. Second, what are the swords? They might be kopises (which would be correct), but it also looks like they might be scimitars, which AFAIK were not used in the Middle East until their introduction by the Turks about a thousand years after this point. Unless of course they're meant to be a ridiculously anachronistic khopesh (like GoT's silly depiction of the Dothraki arakh).

In general, good depictions of the Hellenistic period (or depictions of the period in general) seem to be rare in popular culture (to my admittedly limited knowledge). For an example, Bret Devereaux's blog featured this post last year regarding a game set in the 1st century BC featuring Classical-style hoplites and RTW1-esque "Mummy Returns Egyptians". This seems odd to me, since one would think that the successor wars (specifically the 50 or so years after Alexander's death) are practically begging for a big-budget drama series.