After backlash to Netflix’s black ‘Queen Cleopatra,’ Egypt plans counterprogramming
Netflix, last week, finally released its polarizing African Queens docuseries Queen Cleopatra, which depicts the Egyptian ruler as black. But Egypt has already launched counterprogramming plans to tell its own version of the Pharaonic ruler’s story using the highest levels of research and scrutiny.
Al Wathaeqya, the Egyptian state-backed Documentary Channel, recently announced plans to produce a documentary with the government-owned broadcaster United Media Services – an apparent response to what some Egyptian critics called historical revisionism in Queen Cleopatra by Netflix and others.
“Starting as usual in all documentary production sector and documentary channel work, there are working sessions currently being held with a number of specialists in history, archaeology and anthropology to subject research related to the subject of the film and its image to the highest levels of research and scrutiny,” the channel said, according to a translation of its Facebook post.
Independent filmmaker and Egyptologist Curtis Ryan Woodside also posted a 90-minute English-language documentary about Cleopatra VII on his YouTube channel Wednesday, rejecting biased opinions and misinformed modern and American iterations of the queen. The film discusses Egypt’s multiracial society and features commentary from Kathleen Martinez, a Dominican archaeologist searching for Cleopatra, and Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of state for antiquities affairs who has vehemently opposed Netflix’s portrayal of the ancient ruler.
Hawass also railed, on Wednesday, against Netflix’s documentary series African Queens is produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, during an Arabic-language interview on Egypt’s MBC network. He said that when he gives lectures in the United States, he has been confronted by black demonstrators calling him a liar. But he said he believes they have disorganized thinking when it comes to ancient Egypt, which is his field of expertise.
He also reiterated in the interview that the only Egyptian rulers known to have been black were the Kushite kings of the 25th dynasty (747-656 BCE), and he pushed back against black Americans who have claimed that the Egyptian civilization has black origins and are “obsessed” with the colonization of Egypt throughout its history. He also hoped Netflix would also stream the documentaries about Cleopatra that he has worked on. The Al Wathaeqya channel also recently acquired Hawass’ Roots of Ancient Egypt, scheduled to air in May.
CLEOPATRA WAS born in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria in 69 BCE and succeeded her father in 51 BCE to rule until her death in 30 BCE, amid the expansion of the Roman Empire. Egyptologists have confirmed that she was Macedonian-Greek on the side of her father, Ptolemy XII, but her maternal heritage is less clear; little is known about her birth mother’s ethnic origin. Historians have said it’s possible that she, or any other female ancestor, was an Indigenous Egyptian or from elsewhere in Africa.
Queen Cleopatra splices dramatic
reenactments of the ruler’s stories with expert interviews. It sparked a backlash in the North African nation for casting mixed-race British actor Adele James as the Pharaonic ruler – the last queen of the Greek-speaking dynasty founded by Alexander the Great’s Macedonian general Ptolemy.
The casting decision, and James’ appearance in the trailer last month, further ignited the long-debated discourse about Cleopatra’s maternal heritage, with many people taking issue with her potential black heritage being presented in the documentary series as a factual record rather than a theory.
Last month, Egyptian lawyer
Mahmoud al-Semary filed a complaint with Egypt’s public prosecutor to request that Netflix be blocked in the North African nation due to the promotion of Afrocentric thinking, including slogans and writings aimed at distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity.
On April 30, the same day Al Wathaeqya announced its plans for the documentary, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities stated that showing Cleopatra with African features and dark skin in the Netflix docuseries “is considered a falsification of Egyptian history.”
“Statues of Queen Cleopatra confirm that she had Hellenistic
(Greek) features, distinguished by light skin, a drawnout nose and thin lips,” the council said, tweeting photos of busts and coins depicting the queen.
And comedian Bassem Youssef, the exiled political commentator once regarded as “Egypt’s Jon Stewart” who appeared in Netflix’s Mo, criticized Hollywood’s misrepresentations of Egyptians during an appearance on Piers Morgan Uncensored, during which he accused filmmakers of appropriation and trying to “take over our Egyptian culture.”
Queen Cleopatra director Tina Gharavi defended the series’ casting decision, last month, in an essay for Variety, arguing that the queen looked more like James than Elizabeth Taylor, the actor who famously played the ruler in Hollywood’s Oscar-winning 1963 epic Cleopatra.
“Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter,” the Persian director wrote, adding, “Perhaps, it’s not just that I’ve directed a series that portrays Cleopatra as black, but that I have asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that. I am okay with this.”
James, who was trolled on social media about her casting and told people not to watch the series if they don’t like it, dismissed the backlash Wednesday while promoting the arrival of Queen Cleopatra on Netflix. (The series landed on the platform just days after the drama Queen Charlotte, the Bridgerton prequel that depicts the queen of England as black.)
“l am so, so, so excited for you to take a deeper dive into this incredible woman’s life – all 4 epis are available to stream right away. Feeling like the luckiest lady in the land today #QueenCleopatra #Cleopatra #CominAtcha,” she tweeted.
She also appeared on The Wayne Ayers podcast, calling the Egyptian litigation in response to the series quite funny.
“The level of threat that you must feel, just on my skin tone, to file a lawsuit against an entire streaming service, that to me is really extreme... and it’s 100% fundamentally rooted in racism. Which is a very modern ideology,” she said. “The ancient Egyptians, they don’t think about race the way we do. Because race has only really been contextualized as we understand it since the transatlantic slave trade. That’s just not how people thought back then. It’s really bizarre, but to me, again, I just find it very sad.”