2023-05-14 21:50:11
Contemporary representations of historical figures condition our idea of what that person of past times could have been like. One example is that of Elizabeth Taylor, star of the 1963 Oscar-winning film “Cleopatra”, who marked the image of the Egyptian pharaoh. However, no one knows what Cleopatra looked like in reality. On her father’s side, Ptolemy XII, the sovereign was of Macedonian-Greek descent, but the ethnic origin of her mother is unclear.
A Netflix series now delivers a new image of the Egyptian queen. The documentary series “Queen Cleopatra”, released this Wednesday (05.10.2023), has caused a stir weeks before. Because? British Adele James, a black actress, has taken over the starring role.
The identity of Egypt, “erased”?
The series has triggered numerous protests in Egypt. So much so that Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary filed a complaint against Netflix with the prosecution: the streaming service should be blocked, he said, because the cast of Cleopatra with a black woman “distorts and erases Egypt’s identity.”
Also some historians, such as the respected Egyptologist and former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass, stated: “Cleopatra was Greek, which means she had light skin, not black.”
The Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities also got involved in the controversy, publishing a lengthy statement citing experts who agreed that Cleopatra had “white skin and Hellenistic features.” For Mostafa Waziri, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, the portrayal of the famous queen as black is nothing less than “a falsification of Egyptian history.” It’s not racist, he says, it’s just “upholding the story of Queen Cleopatra, which is an important part of ancient Egyptian history.”
What is it really about?
There is pictorial evidence of Cleopatra VII, born in 69 BC She is represented on coins from Alexandria from 51 BC and from the Palestinian city of Ascalon from 49 BC The Collection of Classical Antiquities in Berlin has a head sculpture made between 50 and 26 BC The historical legacies do not provide any information about the color of the skin.
Cleopatra is more likely to resemble Adele James than Elizabeth Taylor, “Queen Cleopatra” director Tina Gharavi wrote in an article for “Variety” magazine. She added that white skin color seems to give a character special value, “and for some Egyptians that seems to be really important.”
“Creative decision”
Gharavi notes that Cleopatra’s family had been living in Egypt for 300 years at the time of her birth. “So, was Cleopatra black? We don’t know for sure, but we can be sure she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor.” The director calls for a conversation about the “internalized white supremacy that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with.”
Netflix described the casting of Adele James in the lead role as a “creative decision” that should be understood as a “nod to the secular debate over the ruler’s ethnicity” as well as Egypt’s multicultural population at the time.
The black community at the “beginning of civilization”
The distribution of the American production “Queen Cleopatra” is not the result of an artistic whim, but responds to nothing less than the black heritage of humanity.
In the United States, black people have been portrayed in history primarily as objects, first of slavery and then of liberation, writes Gesine Krüger, that is, “as part of a white history of emancipation and progress.” Through the reference to Cleopatra and African Egypt, the black community “not only has something to contribute to American history, but in a certain sense is at its civilizational beginning.”
The current debate is also puzzling considering that issues of skin color and “race” played no role in antiquity. Meanwhile, lead actress Adele James reacted relatively calmly to the criticism, writing on Twitter: “If you don’t like the cast, don’t watch the show.”
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