Few creative choices rock conversational hornets quite like a producer’s decision to cast a person of color in a role long associated with whiteness. Choosing multiracial actress Adele James to play Cleopatra VII, star of African Queens season two, shouldn’t have been one of them.
Cleopatra has inspired dozens of films about her life or related to her legend, as well as dozens of operas and ballets. Her image in a vaginal douche commercial did not diminish her reputation. Certainly the glamorous image of Egypt’s last pharaoh can stand worthy portrayal by a cast whose collective complexion happens to have more melanin than Elizabeth Taylor.
This underestimates how committed the supposed image keepers of Cleopatra are against Black Cleopatra. The release of the Queen Cleopatra trailer in mid-April sparked an uproar among the usual right-wing trolls, who suddenly took control of everything related to the African continent. But it also prompted an Egyptian lawyer to file a complaint that the hybrid documentaries violate the country’s media laws and “promote Afrocentric thinking,” and a historian to invoke the ridiculous term.[B]mangle washing.
To make all things equal, but not really, news that Gal Gadot plans to don the Pharaoh’s crown in an upcoming film sparked complaints of whitewashing.
With all the debates about skin tone, it might be worth asking if we need another biographical exploration of one of history’s biggest celebrities.
As executive producer and narrator of the series, Pinkett Smith has the opportunity to bring the sub-Saharan queens minimized or wiped out in western history with the same production values, solid scripts and skilled cast as African Queens: Njinga and Presenting African Queens: Njinga. Cleopatra.”
I have named Amina of Zaria before, but other rulers deserve dramatization. For example, Ethiopia’s Makeda, popularly known as the Queen of Sheba. Surely people would appreciate a look at their reigns. Kandake Amanirenas of Kush in modern-day Sudan successfully thwarted Rome’s southward expansion into the continent after the fall of Egypt.
Their connection to familiar stories gives them marketability. . . theoretically. The same can be said of other Egyptian queens who came before Cleopatra, including Hatshepsut and Nefertiti. The story of Nefertiti, like Cleopatra, is the subject of some debate. But she was not a Hellenistic ruler immortalized by Shakespeare, which would have removed her from the Graeco-Roman basis of classicism and thereby from the claims of whiteness.
Surely the glamorous image of Egypt’s last pharaoh can survive a cast that happens to have more melanin in their collective complexion than Elizabeth Taylor.
The critic in me generally prefers to examine the merits of a work of art for what it is rather than wishing it were something else entirely. But “Queen Cleopatra” deserves both approaches while showing the business reasons why we see a different interpretation of her story rather than a different profile of a great black woman.
“Queen Cleopatra” provides a good account of well-known facts about the ruler while emphasizing the qualities that have intrigued Western writers, artists, and eventually Hollywood. (Did she secretly gain an audience with Julius Caesar by curling up in a rug? Probably not. Did she die from pressing an adder to her cleavage? We’ll have to watch what the experts think!)
Queen Cleopatra (Courtesy of Netflix)
A welcome change from previous cinematic portrayals is screenwriters Peres Owino and NneNne Iwuji’s emphasis on Cleopatra’s cleverness as a political and military strategist, traits often inherited from her legend as a seductress. Understandable, given that she had children with Julius Caesar and Caesar’s lieutenant Mark Antony, whose death in her arms inspired future writers to romance their love story about one another. (Not for nothing, but in this Cleopatra, Mark Antony (Craig Russell) is a ghost compared to Julius. Antony ghosted her for three years after she gave birth to his children!)
The featured experts also provide dramatic context to scenes from Cleopatra’s life, humanizing the choices she makes to secure power. Nothing about her observations would change if she were played by anyone other than an actor with black parents.
The same experts also spend much energy explaining that the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt and a Hellenistic descendant could also be black. Since the identity of Cleopatra’s mother has never been established, no one can say with certainty that she was not a darker-skinned Egyptian.
Admittedly, this possibility means a lot of work.
This puzzle fits well with the marketing surrounding “Queen Charlotte” and the fictional depiction of an inclusive British nobility. Queen Charlotte creator Shonda Rhimes reminds viewers that her black queen’s story is fiction. “African Queens” breaks new ground by presenting a more straightforward historical dramatization. But just like “African Queens: Njinga” emerged just in time to capture the viewership boosted by the arrival of “The Woman King” on the streamer, “Cleopatra” could tie in with the “Queen Charlotte” bump.
Still, at a time when opportunities to shine a bright light on untold stories are becoming rarer and scarcer, it’s disheartening to consider that half of a two-season commission for “African Queens” has been shattered by the confrontation with such a well – known figure was devoured .
Before watching Cleopatra season I would have ended my discussion here. And now? While I still wouldn’t call it exceptional from a production point of view, it’s worth digesting in a way that people easily angered by its blackness would never condone.
Queen Cleopatra shows what is possible when we question the perspective of those who typically present these stories and the reasons why those people choose to tell them a certain way.
Queen Cleopatra (Courtesy of Netflix)
Cleopatra’s secret allows for all sorts of assumptions, including about her appearance. Early and mid-century Egyptomania triggered recurring trends in the makeup and fashion industries, two industries that tend to exclude people of color. That alone sheds some light on why so many who would otherwise ignore this casting choice are suddenly outraged to see her name associated with a black woman. In the mind of the dominant culture, Cleopatra is an epitome of attractiveness, and the same culture debases black beauty while appropriating its signifiers.
This African Queens episode also invites us to delve deeper with the help of the featured experts. However, according to Pinkett Smith’s intent, only historians appear here who either subscribe to, or at least embrace, the theory that Cleopatra was black. But if anyone wants, they could see the work of the featured scientists, including Dr. Shelley Haley, look it up.
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Haley is Queen Cleopatra’s true breakthrough, as she animates scenes from Cleopatra’s life with the vividness of a professional storyteller. She knows how to connect the audience to this story on a human level, instilling a sense of joy at Cleopatra’s triumphs and anger on her part at the disrespect of Rome.
“Queen Cleopatra” shows what is possible when we question the perspective of who usually presents these stories.
Haley is also a classic, looking at the field from a black feminist and anti-racial perspective. As she explains in her 1993 essay Black Feminist Thought and Classics: Re-membering, Re-claiming, Re-empowering, the fundamental texts of the field are based on translations by white men whose blind faith in their interpretation of history impoverishes other perspectives and the way we are taught to see ourselves.
The professor, who is fluent in Latin, shows what she means in her essay by presenting a white male scholar’s disparaging translation of the description of a black woman from the original Latin text. Then she translates the same passage, resulting in a simpler meaning: “stomach a bit pinched” becomes “stomach flat and firm”, for example.
To restate Cleopatra, in her view, requires a re-evaluation of earlier accounts that have been accepted as established fact. This also takes another cultural meaning into account:
In black oral tradition, Cleopatra becomes a symbolic construct expressing our black African heritage, so long suppressed by racism and miscegenation ideology. When we say in general that the ancient Egyptians were black, and in particular that Cleopatra was black, we are referring to them as part of a culture and history that knew oppression and triumph, exploitation and survival. Cleopatra responded to the phenomena of oppression and exploitation like a black woman. So we embrace her as a sister; She is black.
It’s doubtful that even those who love James as Cleopatra would look at these episodes that closely. But at a time when so-called “classical education” that emphasizes the history and cultural achievements of white Western civilization is being promoted in schools across the country, this show reminds us that history is enriched by multiple perspectives and interpretations .
Again, Queen Cleopatra is not an altruistic work by Netflix. The controversy comes with curiosity, which translates into potentially hour-long viewership. This is one of many reasons why television is a poor substitute for research and study conducted with healthy skepticism.
Queen Cleopatra (Courtesy of Netflix)
However, I know the names of these other queens because Anheuser-Busch’s “Great Kings and Queens of Africa” was one of the most comprehensive sources on African history before the 20th century in the 1970s and 1980s series. In fact, an article in one issue of Jet Magazine from 1983 introduces this year’s new additions to the collection: portraits of Queen Nzingha (an alternative spelling of Njinga) and Cleopatra VII.
These were intricate original works of art created by black historians consulted for the project. But the driving motive behind Budweiser’s parent company commissioning this series was to increase brand awareness among school-age children. These illustrations didn’t make me a beer drinker. Instead, they introduced me to rulers who were never mentioned in my elementary school books.
If “Queen Cleopatra” pulls off something similar, no one reading this story in good faith should find fault with it. Or maybe they’re asking for more stories about royal women they’ve never met before, in the shoes of a famous person.
Queen Cleopatra is currently streaming on Netflix.
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