(Netflix) Black Cleopatra, again ^_^

Kyriakos

Kyriakos

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Mostly AA are commenting there, and the large majority of them seems to be against this and request more shows about real black people.
I did comment there too, and 3 people liked my comment, which means I was right :yup: 3 people - that is almost 1/10 of all regular posters in the OT!

Anyway, I am always impressed by how those big corporations (this time Netflix) are willing to throw loads of money behind projects which aren't well-thought through.

Info on the show's plans re Cleopatra: https://deadline.com/2021/08/africa...tt-smith-netflix-cleopatra-njinga-1234822021/
 
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Last I checked Egypt was still in Africa.
 
Snowygerry said:
Isn't this cultural appropriation then ? Much like painted Irishmen playing American Indians back in the day :D
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You'll have to ask the Americans that.

Although, the show did mention that they are dealing with African queens. What remains to be seen is what they mean by "African" is it a geographic or ethnic adjective?
 
Kyriakos said:
And with good reason. Pay no attention to Gelion :D
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Thats a good advice to remain sane, but the pic you provided didn't explain what "African" means to creators of this show.

( ;) )
 
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(from https://deadline.com/2021/08/africa...tt-smith-netflix-cleopatra-njinga-1234822021/)

The new show is examining Cleopatra as being partly black, due to some crackpot theory, is all :)

It would be very far-fetched to even expect Cleopatra's mother to be partly egyptian, let alone actually black; the Ptolemies were incestuous and the high-class in Ptolemaic Egypt was Greek. It's also why there is some backlash to the show by black people on twitter - they too are fed up with it :dunno:
Anyway, all historical depictions of Cleopatra present a person who is clearly not black, and back in the day the people had to know what their monarch looked like (face on coins, etc).
 
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Kyriakos said:
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(from https://deadline.com/2021/08/africa...tt-smith-netflix-cleopatra-njinga-1234822021/)

The new show is examining Cleopatra as being partly black, due to some crackpot theory, is all :)

It would be very far-fetched to even expect Cleopatra's mother to be partly egyptian, let alone actually black; the Ptolemies were incestuous and the high-class in Ptolemaic Egypt was Greek. It's also why there is some backlash to the show by black people on twitter - they too are fed up with it :dunno:
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Yeah, yeah, trying to cover your lack of primary sources OP :p
 
Kyriakos said:
all historical depictions of Cleopatra present a person who is clearly not black
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My primary point is that these distinctions of "race" were so different back in the day, and artistic impressions of people were really not for the purpose of accurately describing how people looked that to use them to determine the modern idea of ethnicity is meaningless. Your point about Ptolemaic incestousness is quite right though.

[EDIT]To be clear, this is "Cleopatra as a Goddess; 1st century BC" from here
 
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That looks like a sarcophagus - but anyway, you can be certain that she'd look close to what the coins show, otherwise there'd be no reason to have her face on coins for the subjects to vaguely be familiar with her form :)

Probably not a bad approximation, likely she got a tan from bathing with the tourists.

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A lot of Americans think that anything with "African" in it automatically means black. There is also a game they like to play where they miscast characters in order to antagonize racists, even if it means that the casting choice doesn't make much sense.

Having said that, I will wait until this comes out before I decide how I feel about it. For all we know Cleopatra will be depicted in a historically accurate fashion here, or hey maybe they will be using some sort of whiteface to get closer to that ideal historical look. And it's not like there aren't plenty of black American actresses who have a mixed ethnicity to a degree. Compare somebody like Whoopi Goldberg to somebody like Halle Berry. Maybe I'm out to lunch but it seems to me that a younger Halle Berry could easily pass for Cleopatra. It's not perfect but it'd be a lot better than somebody like Whoopi playing the role. With enough makeup and props it might work very well, IMO
 
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