(Netflix) Black Cleopatra, again ^_^

[Zkribbler]

how many Canadian civil wars do Americans know about?

Canadian civil war:
'Excuse me. After you.'"
"No. After you."
"No. After you."
"No. After you."
"No. After you."

 

[Valka D'Ur]

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

Some people here may remember Roots - the miniseries based on Alex Haley's novel. I watched the entire thing in its first run, and somebody gave my grandfather the book (I eventually read it; there are some differences with the miniseries, but nothing major).

That whole thing was about tracing Haley's father's side of the family, from his ancestor Kunta Kinte (played by Levar Burton) to present-day (that being the late 1970s, when the show miniseries originally aired).

There was a later miniseries, not so grand in scope and much shorter, but it was about one of Alex Haley's ancestors on his mother's side. The miniseries was called Queen, and the title role was played by Halle Berry. The idea was that Queen was biracial - black mother, white slaveowner father, and she was in her late teens (I think) when the slaves were emancipated. She had a difficult life at times, because she was too dark to be accepted as white and too light to be accepted as black. Neither society wanted her, and in the chaos of that time, she needed to find somewhere to live and work, just to survive. It wasn't easy for her.

It seems that you have to draw the line somewhere though. Imagine if Jackie Chan was hired to portray Cleopatra. That seems to be "right out", so clearly there is a line somewhere.

If Jackie Chan had played Cleopatra, the Battle of Actium would probably have had a different outcome.

I mean, personally my eyebrows would also go up a bit if let's say.. Arnold was hired to play Malcolm X.

(okay, maybe a lot)

I suppose in this example the ethnic background of the character is a rather central part of the story, so that's not a perfect example. And Arnold is not known for being a great actor either

He doesn't have to be great. He just has to be entertaining, and I've enjoyed most of his movies that I've seen.

Is it really that complex, though? Cleopatra was Greek and we more or less know what she looked like. It seems obvious that somebody like Halle Barry (if she were younger) would be able to play this role no problem.. but other African-American actresses would look out of place (if we are trying to be historically accurate at all)

The only complex part of this seems to be "What did Cleopatra really look like?" and I admit on this point I am not an expert (but it seems we sort of do know what she probably looked like?)

I believe there's a thread in the History forum about this. It's years old, though, so maybe it's not active anymore.

I've read in places that she really wasn't the raving beauty she's portrayed as on TV and in movies. What attracted men to her was her charisma. And you know what Frank Herbert taught about charismatic leaders: Beware of them, because even with the most noble of intentions, they will eventually make that one mistake that leads to their downfall.

Cleopatra's mistake, at least as far as I see it, was that she trusted Mark Antony, who was an idiot.

What is historically acceptable, however, is that her father was a Ptolemy and her mother likely was a close relative of his (as was the Ptolemaic custom).

Yep. Either full sibling or step-sibling marriages to consolidate the power in one family. The step-sibling's mother was usually one of the other wives, or maybe a favored concubine.

Cleopatra wasn't Egypt's first female ruler, though. Look up Hatshepsut sometime. She declared herself Pharaoh.

A snarky remark I read (must have also been on the Twitter post) was that "Cleopatra was as much a 'queen of Africa' as Victoria was a 'queen of India'".

Did Cleopatra ever claim to be Queen of anywhere but Egypt? And we should recall that much of Africa was terra incognita to the Romans. They hadn't explored the entire continent yet.

If they get this one historical fact so blatantly wrong, then it seems like just one more reason to not watch this.. since.. what else are they going to get wrong along the way as well?

But like I said, we might as well wait until they actually announce the cast before casting judgement.

My perspective on this is basically one of immersion. If I'm watching Vikings and all the Vikings are black, then it's going to lead me to assume that the show is not going to be very historically accurate or takes place in some sort of alternate reality. Which is fine, but one of the draws of Vikings for me was that it's based on historical fact to some degree. It makes some adjustments for the sake of telling an entertaining story, but nothing visually jumps out at you that signals that it's NOT supposed to be more or less a look at human history.. unless you are a historian I suppose, in which you will probably find plenty of accuracies to complain about wrt the clothing and what not.

This whole Cleopatra "issue" is the same for me. If things don't make sense visually, I'll just start to wonder how much of the show is based around reality and how much of it is just completely made up. A part of a draw to a show like this for me at least is the historical component, so even if they make some modifications here and there for the benefit of the story, I like watching such shows while pretending that I am actually witnessing human history. I sort of get a nerd boner from all that, y'know?

I would also probably enjoy watching a show about black Vikings, but I would enjoy it for completely different reasons (assuming the writing and story were good, etc.) Same with Cleopatra I suppose, but I am not really drawn to an alternate timeline Cleopatra sort of tale (unless there are time travelling marines involved), while a more historically accurate one is sort of interesting to me.

But like I also said, there are probably plenty of African American actresses who can pass for Cleopatra, so this might very well not be an issue at all. I used Halle Berry as an example because I'm just not familiar with that many modern actors, etc.

I get what you mean by wanting things to be accurate so it seems like we're watching real history. That's why it's doubly disappointing when accuracy is thrown out the window.

This whole immersion and accuracy thing is why there are a lot of movies and TV shows that just really annoy me.

I can't enjoy Gladiator. I just can't, even though Derek Jacobi has a small part in it. I'd listen to that man read the phone book, but I didn't like this movie. The only parts of it that were historically accurate were that there really was an Emperor named Marcus Aurelius, and there really was an Emperor named Commodus. Rome existed. Gladiators existed. The rest is crap.

But I do remember thinking that Joachim Phoenix, as he appeared in this movie, was the very epitome of how I'd always imagined the character of Jud Elliot in Robert Silverberg's time travel novel Up the Line, if it were ever adapted to a movie.

Well, Silverberg told us in his email group some time ago (last year, I think) that this novel had been optioned. I don't know if it will ever happen; there's a lot of things in the novel that would have to be tweaked for a 2020s, politically-correct audience, but that wouldn't have a significant impact on the story itself, just some of the dialogue and general attitude of a few of the characters. Alas, Joachim Phoenix is now too old to play Jud. Maybe one of the Byzantine nobles with whom Jud interacts, back in the year 1105.


I found some of Rome hard to tolerate, as well. No, Caesarion was not fathered by a soldier named Pullo. No, Octavian's first wife was not Livia. It's so ridiculous that the showrunners said they had been thinking of doing a third season, when they cut out exactly the one historical figure critical to the show going beyond the reign of Tiberius.

They cut out Scribonia, Octavian's first wife. She was the mother of Octavian's daughter, Julia, whose second husband was Marcus Agrippa. They had five children, one of whom was Agrippina the Elder. She married Germanicus (Livia's grandson), and they had six children, one of whom was Agrippinilla (aka Agrippina the Younger) and another of whom was Caligula. Agrippina the Younger was the mother of Nero, and Nero's suicide kicked off the Year of the Four Emperors, and when the dust settled, Vespasian became Emperor and each of his sons (Titus and Domitian) were emperor in their turn (the Flavian dynasty).

Remove Scribonia, and none of that happens. The show can't go beyond 39 AD/CE without changing history. That's the year that Caligula became Emperor.

Is it possible Cleopatra self-identified as the Queen of Africa? I have no idea, but I could see a royal w/ another ethnicity embracing the ethnicity of her subjects.

It's true that some monarchs either embraced the ethnicity of the people their people had conquered, or their dynasty gradually got assimilated.

Oh no. I don't think the American outlook of "close enough" for historical fiction is due to lack of education!.

That's funny though.

What is it due to, then?

It's interesting to note that this article seems to be right about something similar. i.e. Hollywood getting it wrong and casting an all white cast to play Egyptians. I don't remember anybody ever complaining about this when these movies came out, actually. Maybe they should have..

The black characters I remember in The Ten Commandments were the Ethiopians, when Moses returns from having conquered them. The King and his sister are presented to Pharaoh:

Most of the Egyptian characters look pretty white to me, at least the royals. Yul Brynner's skin was a bit darker, but barely enough to matter.

Of course this movie is based on the Book of Exodus, so historical accuracy isn't expected (though there's a brief line of dialogue in which King Priam of Troy is mentioned).

Are you saying that Hollywood knows that Americans aren't very good with world history, so they won't know any better if Cleopatra is presented as a black queen (if she is) ?

Hey, there might be something to that. No offense to Americans either, I could say the same thing about a lot of Canadians. It's just that Hollywood's main market seems to be America

edit: I tried to find more information on this movie and this "controversy", but couldn't find anything at all. It still seems to me that it's very possible that they'll cast somebody who can easily pass for Cleopatra

I did find this though, an interesting write-up on the ethnic makeup and look of historical figures like Cleopatra and Alexander the Great

The whole "Who cares? The audience won't know the difference" is a common attitude among studio suits when it comes to historical things.

One early version of Star Trek: The Motion Picture wanted to bring in some nonsense about the Aztecs or Mayans, and when told that the timeline would be all wrong, that was the reply - nobody would know the difference.

Ditto one of the early stories in the Peter Davison era of Doctor Who, btw. There was one story that took place in the 20th century, there were Mayan characters, and some nonsense about their civilization being "from South America, 8000 years ago."

GMAB.

I hate it when showrunners assume the audience is stupid.


One of the things some of us did in the SCA was go to movies and plays as a group. I remember when we saw Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and Mel Gibson's Hamlet. After the movie, we gathered in a huddle in the theatre parking lot, discussing our impressions of the movie and how historically accurate or anachronistic it had been.

And two of them raked me over the coals one meeting after they saw a performance of the Camelot production I worked on in 1987. They didn't like the heraldry; it was all wrong. I told them that I knew it was wrong, but I wasn't on either the properties or set dressing crew, so it wasn't my call and they wouldn't have changed anything on my say-so (I was on the costume crew that time, as a dresser for the actors who had such quick costume changes that there was no time to do it in the dressing room; we had to do it in the wings, thisfast).

Then they carped about the armor; it wasn't accurate. I told them that just because SCA heavy fighters are expected to be able to dance while wearing metal armor, you can't expect a bunch of untrained actors to do that. Therefore, the armor used was light, made of some sort of plastic, and held together in a way that would never have gotten anywhere close to passing inspection for the lists, or even fighters' practice.

Good thing, too. When some of it came apart onstage, it was my job to fix it (it being part of Lancelot's costume and me being Lancelot's dresser). Plastic breastplates, I could fix. Metal ones? I couldn't possibly have fixed that.

If she is a Greek then it would be more proper to be played by a Greek. I really annoyed when an Asian character is play by a Caucasian, but the opposite would also annoyed me equally, like when I watch the adaptation of Pramoedya's work, The Earth Of Mankind, one of the main character Annelies suppose to be an Indo with heavy Caucasian appearance, but instead she is tackled by an Indonesian actor that doesn't reflect the character depiction on the novel. I just stop watching after that, I mean, it just ruins the immersion.

I'm reminded of the whole argument over Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan in the second NuTrek movie. I hated that movie, and this egregious miscasting is a major part of why.

Well, you got me there. But to be fair even American movies have made fun of people getting those two wars mixed up when you're not really thinking about it. Or at least I remember something like that and to be fair, how many Canadian civil wars do Americans know about?

Don't we just work those out on paper, or have a conference to decide how it all ends?

The closest we could have come was in the 1995 Quebec referendum (the one that the No side won by a very tiny slip of a percentage). I read some time back that Chretien and some of the cabinet had made contingency plans in case the Yes side won, which included calling in the army if necessary (anticipating riots). Of course I haven't read anything that confirms this as true, so it remains hearsay.

I remember that Pierre Trudeau, who had consistently refused to speak publicly about the referendum (former PMs rarely speak on political matters after stepping down/being booted from office), finally changed his mind and made a very impassioned speech in favor of the No side. I think that might have swayed some votes.

Canadian civil war:
'Excuse me. After you.'"
"No. After you."
"No. After you."
"No. After you."
"No. After you."

Things are not that civil these days. I will be so glad when these elections are over. It's insane, having two going on at the same time.

 

[Kyriakos]

The continent wasn't even called "Africa" by the greeks. It was "Libya".
And anything below Egypt was "Aethiopia", iirc.

 

[H4run]

I'm reminded of the whole argument over Benedict Cumberbatch playing Khan in the second NuTrek movie. I hated that movie, and this egregious miscasting is a major part of why.

Yes, the problem is that, there are lot, I mean a lot of Indo (mix West and Indonesian) in Indonesia that speak native Bahasa, they can also get adapted speaking with broken accent with no problem, and sprinkle with some Dutch vocabs so it can immerse with the colonial reality, I want to be suck in to the movie, I don't want any visual stuttering that makes me aware that it's a play.

And no, there are no discrimination in Indonesia toward Indo, perhaps the reason she got the role is due to connection, aside of that I didn't see anything that makes her qualified for the role. I mean you should give an equal measure and treatment for every side, and never let any issue beside the art expression itself to hindered the quality of the representation.

I have no problem with the show of racism and inequality within the movie/work, if at the historical context the society were like that, and as long as it doesn't have any implication beside representing a story, and it didn't contain any agenda except visualizing the text into a moving picture.

 

[Sofista]

Are you saying that Hollywood knows that Americans aren't very good with world history, so they won't know any better if Cleopatra is presented as a black queen (if she is) ?

Hey, there might be something to that. No offense to Americans either, I could say the same thing about a lot of Canadians. It's just that Hollywood's main market seems to be America

I was not calling out Americans specifically, neither the audience nor the creators.
The movie industry is concerned mostly with the bottom line, no matter if it's Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong, Europe, anywhere. As for audiences, I haven't traveled the world, but from what I can see I don't think moviegoers here are in any way more history-savvy than anywhere else.

And this is presented as a documentary, not a movie.
But apparently enough black americans know that Cleopatra wasn't black, which is why there is some backlash.

A documentary (well, the article linked in your OP says 'hybrid docuseries') about Cleopatra, already being questioned for how it portrays its main character. The producer has openly stated a hagiographic POV.
It's not a great start.

 

[Snowygerry]

If this is drama and not documentary - then the point could be made that a good actor can play anything, one does not have to be a Scot to play Macbeth after all

 

[Kyriakos]

If this is drama and not documentary - then the point could be made that a good actor can play anything, one does not have to be a Scot to play Macbeth after all

Double double troll and trouble ^_^

 

[GinandTonic]

OK, so the largest group involved in the American Civil war were of British decent. I want to see North and South recast with figures from the north and south of the uk. Sean Bean plays Lincoln, supported by Wallace and Gromit. Hugh Grant to play Lee with Vinnie Jones as Custer with Ray Winston as his NCO.

 

[uppi]

OK, so the largest group involved in the American Civil war were of British decent. I want to see North and South recast with figures from the north and south of the uk. Sean Bean plays Lincoln, supported by Wallace and Gromit. Hugh Grant to play Lee with Vinnie Jones as Custer with Ray Winston as his NCO.

The only reasonable option is to have actors from North and South Korea.

 

[warpus]

The movie industry is concerned mostly with the bottom line, no matter if it's Hollywood, Bollywood, Hong Kong, Europe, anywhere.

That's true, but are profits driving this casting decision? I find that hard to believe, since it seems to me that your average movie goer who doesn't know anything about Cleopatra will probably not care too much who is playing the lead character, as long as we're equating actors of a similar stature. Black or white or even central Asian, this part of the target market would probably be fine with whatever, as long as the story is good and the visual effects grab them or whatever. If it was Beyonce playing Cleopatra I could see more people flocking to see it, since she's a huge name, but if we're talking any average actor, then it seems it would not impact the bottom line much whether they hire somebody white, black, or whatever.

Those who know a bit of history, an admittedly much smaller part of the target market, will probably notice this a casting abomination and decide what to do with that information accordingly. So if anything miscasting the lead here might lead to slightly lower profits instead of higher ones.

I suppose it's true that controversy can easily lead to more viewers, so maybe that's the master plan after all.

 

[Farm Boy]

Either of those would increase my chance of watching it.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

If this is drama and not documentary - then the point could be made that a good actor can play anything, one does not have to be a Scot to play Macbeth after all

No, but one should be a white male.


When the theatre company I worked with did a production of The King and I, we were short of Thai actors. Not one person in that cast was from Thailand (formerly Siam).

We had plenty of Korean and Chinese actors, and it was a man from India who played the King (no, he did not shave his head in homage to Yul Brynner). His daughter, whose mother is white, played one of the wives. The rest of the cast were white, but heavily made up (with the exception of the characters who are supposed to be white). I guess a purist would be aghast these days, but the alternative would have been to choose a different play.

It's a good thing that the play made a point about the connection between Siam and Scotland. One of the actresses playing a slave had a very strong Scottish accent. One of the props I had to come up with was a Scottish doll for one of the children to carry. I cajoled my grandmother into making the costume and we used a strawberry-blonde doll from one of her collection. I braided her hair, found an old-fashioned pair of shoes, added the dress, and voila, doll prop and the director was pleased - so pleased that when the play was advertised on a local talk show, the doll was brought along to show as an example of one of the props. My grandmother was over the moon that something she had made had been featured on TV.

That's true, but are profits driving this casting decision? I find that hard to believe, since it seems to me that your average movie goer who doesn't know anything about Cleopatra will probably not care too much who is playing the lead character, as long as we're equating actors of a similar stature. Black or white or even central Asian, this part of the target market would probably be fine with whatever, as long as the story is good and the visual effects grab them or whatever. If it was Beyonce playing Cleopatra I could see more people flocking to see it, since she's a huge name, but if we're talking any average actor, then it seems it would not impact the bottom line much whether they hire somebody white, black, or whatever.

Those who know a bit of history, an admittedly much smaller part of the target market, will probably notice this a casting abomination and decide what to do with that information accordingly. So if anything miscasting the lead here might lead to slightly lower profits instead of higher ones.

I suppose it's true that controversy can easily lead to more viewers, so maybe that's the master plan after all.

One of the reasons for casting Benedict Cumberbatch in the second NuTrek movie was that he was supposedly popular. I could have lived with it if they'd left his character at being one of Khan's followers. The story could have been retconned that they'd missed one of them; they hadn't all gone on the Botany Bay and eventually died in Wrath of Khan.

But nooOOOooo, they figured nobody would care. So we got the miscasting, and the rest of the crap in the movie.

Popular actors/singers... on last night's episode of Big Brother, one of the competition rewards was an advance screening of a new movie that's a musical. The houseguests who got to see it were carrying on about how good it was, and how wonderful a singer this actor was who I've never heard of, but is supposedly immensely popular... his voice was average at best. Actually, the bit of the movie they did show on TV left me wondering what they were so excited about.

 

[Sofista]

That's true, but are profits driving this casting decision? I find that hard to believe, since it seems to me that your average movie goer who doesn't know anything about Cleopatra will probably not care too much who is playing the lead character, as long as we're equating actors of a similar stature. Black or white or even central Asian, this part of the target market would probably be fine with whatever, as long as the story is good and the visual effects grab them or whatever. If it was Beyonce playing Cleopatra I could see more people flocking to see it, since she's a huge name, but if we're talking any average actor, then it seems it would not impact the bottom line much whether they hire somebody white, black, or whatever.

Those who know a bit of history, an admittedly much smaller part of the target market, will probably notice this a casting abomination and decide what to do with that information accordingly. So if anything miscasting the lead here might lead to slightly lower profits instead of higher ones.

I suppose it's true that controversy can easily lead to more viewers, so maybe that's the master plan after all.

Oh yes, it could well be that Pinkett Smith is a canny operator who believes in the old axiom that there's no such thing as bad publicity. Hate-watchers are viewers as much as fans, after all.
And it wouldn't be difficult to simply cast someone who looks "Mediterranean" (we're still talking about a series that's barely into the 'announced' stage, thus far). Or just find an Egyptian. In 1972 Roberto Rossellini made a biopic of St. Augustine (born in Thagaste, in present-day Algeria), and he did the simple thing - he gave an Algerian the leading role.

Again, it's a casting decision that has not yet been revealed, possibly not even been made. So far it's a non-fact. What is tangible is that it was the producer who decided to make it clear that her priorities are ideological.

 

[Kyriakos]

OK, so the largest group involved in the American Civil war were of British decent.

Good english stoke.

 

[warpus]

IMO This could just be a case of "Rich people are out of touch". I mean, have you ever heard anything this lady's son has said? He's so out of touch with reality he might as well live on the moon. If his upbringing has lead to his current state of mind, then perhaps his parents aren't that far behind (in terms of being out of touch)

 

[amadeus]

Will Cleoblackra use Jada’s E-meter or is that just reserved for use off-camera?

 

[Berzerker]

Sophia Loren in her prime would have been a good Cleopatra

I'm surprised at the short life spans of people in Zkrib's link to modernizing faces

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Sophia Loren in her prime would have been a good Cleopatra

I'm surprised at the short life spans of people in Zkrib's link to modernizing faces

Sophia Loren in her prime would have been a good anything.

 

[Joij21]

Eh, I don't really like Cleopatra as a queen personally. She was slutting it up to every powerful Roman she came across, not the kind of person who feels secure about their power. And to top it all off her empire got conquered and annexed because her sexcapades led her to being condemned as an evil slut witch by Octavian.

Hatshepsut IMHO is a far FAR better queen who you know, wasn't actually responsible for causing Egypt to forever remain under foreign rule until I guess the Mamluks.

 

[Snowygerry]

Eh, I don't really like Cleopatra as a queen personally. She was slutting it up to every powerful Roman she came across, not the kind of person who feels secure about their power. And to top it all off her empire got conquered and annexed because her sexcapades led her to being condemned as an evil slut witch by Octavian.

Hatshepsut IMHO is a far FAR better queen who you know, wasn't actually responsible for causing Egypt to forever remain under foreign rule until I guess the Mamluks.

She wasn't secure in her power iirc - wasn't she involved in a power struggle with her brother ?