(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Woke Netflix decided to create a “docudrama” about Cleopatra and cast a black woman as an Egyptian Queen.
Adele James, a black actress who plays Cleopatra in the upcoming series, doesn’t look like the Egyptian ruler at all. The real Cleopatra was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and, according to most scholars, her primary ancestry was Greek Macedonian.
The casting decision for African Queens: Queen Cleopatra caused fury among regular people all around the world, which resulted in the “Cancel Netflix’s ‘Queen Cleopatra’” petition that now has over 5,000 signatures, according to the Daily Wire
It came to the point when one Egyptian attorney went as far as filing a complaint against Netflix for sacrificing history on the altar of “blackwashing.”
Lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary filed a complaint with the public prosecutor against the company, saying “necessary legal measures” should be taken against Netflix services in the country.
“[Netflix is promoting] the Afrocentric thinking… which includes slogans and writings aimed at distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity.”
In February, Tudum, Netflix’s promotional website, addressed the casting controversy. The website quoted Jada Pinkett Smith, the show’s executive producer, who said that Cleopatra’s heritage has been debated and that the casting was “a nod to the centuries-long conversation about the ruler’s race.”
“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,” Pinkett Smith said.
However, Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist and former antiquities minister, stated otherwise.
“This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not black,” he said. “Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilization is black.”
