Can a black woman play the role of Queen Cleopatra? You are not dreaming: this is the latest controversy of the moment about the upcoming release of a Netflix docu-fiction on the famous queen of Egypt. 20 minutes explains the ins and outs of a case with racist overtones.
What is this series?
Queen Cleopatra is a docu-drama produced by Jada Pinkett Smith and billed as “based on re-enactment and expert testimony,” which will premiere May 10 on the Netflix video-on-demand platform. The teaser ensures that this docu-fiction retraces the life of the last pharaoh of Egypt, “in struggle to defend his throne, his family and his work”. This series does not only have the ambition to tell the life of Cleopatra because each season should be interested in a different queen of Africa. Detail: the main role of this season is played by Adela James, a black actress. Until then, in pop culture, it was mainly white actresses who had played the mythical queen, the most famous of them being Elizabeth Taylor, in a film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, released in 1963.
What the critics say
For some Internet users, notably spotted by BFMTV, the choice of Adela James is nothing less than an “attempt to rewrite history”. And a new episode of the “cancel culture”, a theory not scientifically proven, mainly used on the right and the far right, to criticize the questioning of certain sexist, racist, homophobic dogmas, etc. from history. A petition was even posted on the Change.org site and collected more than 18,000 signatures before being withdrawn. It is in Egypt that the controversy is the strongest: “Stop the documentary on Cleopatra on Netflix for historical falsification”, collected more than 40,000 signatures. In the country, voices regularly demand the banning of Netflix for content deemed offensive to Egypt or “its family values”.
What Egypt says
On Thursday, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities issued a lengthy statement citing numerous experts, all of whom were adamant: Cleopatra had “white skin and Hellenistic features”, they all conclude. “The bas-reliefs and statues of Queen Cleopatra are the best proof of this”, continues the ministry in its text embellished with tetradrachms, Greek coins, and marble statues representing Cleopatra with European features. But this call to order is above all motivated by “the defense of the history of Queen Cleopatra, which is an important part of the history of ancient Egypt, regardless of any racial consideration”, he wishes to specify. .
What the director says
“What bothers you so much about a black Cleopatra?” It is more likely that Cleopatra looked like our actress than Elizabeth Taylor,” writes Tina Gharavi, the editor, in the magazine. variety, to defend. “The known facts are that her Macedonian Greek family – the Ptolemaic line – intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty of West Africa and they had been in Egypt for three hundred years,” she continues. Cleopatra was eight generations away from her Ptolemaic ancestors, making it unlikely that she was white. After 300 years, we can definitely say that Cleopatra was Egyptian. She was no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston. Both come from a Greek generation. »
Is it so serious?
Let’s say it right away: no. If the legend says that the queen born around 69 BC was of great beauty, her appearance and her skin color remain largely subject to interpretation. Subject also addressed in the documentary, the director recognizing the uncertainty. But, even beyond the question of historical accuracy, which we clearly understood was subject to debate on this point, how does the fact that the actress who embodies Cleopatra is black changes anything in the quality from the program ?
Let’s bet that fiction or documentary will produce many other Cleopatras in the future, light, dark or otherwise. “We have to discuss our relationship to skin color, this internalized racism that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with,” says Tina Ghavari. We must understand that the story of Cleopatra is less about her than about us. The fact that a black actress plays this role this time creates a controversy says more about the discomfort in our society to see a black character in majesty than about Cleopatra herself. Moreover, in 2009, a BBC documentary claimed that she had African blood, without arousing passions.