The row over a 'Black' Cleopatra: Why Egypt is fuming

Queen Cleopatra of Egypt was formidable and remains an iconic part of history. That is something everyone agrees on. She has been immortalised by Shakespeare and Hollywood on numerous occasions. However, Netflix’s recent attempt of jumping on the Cleopatra bandwagon has caused outrage in Egypt.

A new docudrama series by Netflix titled Queen Cleopatra, which released on 10 May, has stirred massive controversy, with not only the Egyptian government intervening, but also ordering its own version based on the iconic character.

What’s the row all about? Why are Egyptians unhappy with the Netflix serial?

Queen Cleopatra and the show

Queen Cleopatra was the seventh, but most well-known Egyptian ruler, to hold this name. She was the last member of the Ptolemy dynasty to rule Egypt after 5,000 years of Pharaonic rule; her reign lasted 21 years before she died by suicide in August 30 B.C.

Her story has been told in literature and by Hollywood for years, and while she’s often portrayed primarily as a temptress, historians note that she was also very likely a “consummate politician.” It is said that she maintained Egypt’s autonomy through astute diplomacy and personal charisma amidst the ever growing Roman Empire throughout her 21-year-long reign.

Seeing how significant she is, Jada Pinkett Smith decided to add her to her drama-docuseries hybrids, African Queens. Queen Cleopatra consists of four episodes and has been directed by Tina Gharavi. It stars biracial British actor Adele James as Queen Cleopatra and was released on the platform on 10 May.

When speaking on the series, Jada Pinkett Smith had said in a Netflix-sponsored article, “We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tonnes of them.”

The big row over Netflix’s Cleopatra

The decision to cast British actor Adele James, who is biracial, has stirred massive controversy in Egypt. Ever since the trailer dropped last month, local academics and others are claiming that Cleopatra, who was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and belonged to a Greek-speaking dynasty, was of European descent and not Black.

Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist and former antiquities minister, told the al-Masry al-Youm newspaper: “This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not Black.”

Hawass added that the only rulers of Egypt known to have been black were the Kushite kings of the 25th Dynasty (747-656 BC). “Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is black,” he was quoted as saying and called on Egyptians to take a stand against the streaming giant.

Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities also waded into the controversy, issuing a long statement on Twitter, stressing that “Queen Cleopatra had light skin and Hellenistic (Greek) features”.

The Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities stated that the appearance of a heroine of the documentary “Queen #Cleopatra“, which will be shown on the “Netflix” platform, with African features and dark skin, is considered a falsification of Egyptian history. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/d8Zwuho9Bx

— Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (@TourismandAntiq) April 30, 2023

An Egyptian lawyer has also sued Netflix for depicting Cleopatra as a black woman. Mahmoud al-Semary in his lawsuit said that portraying Cleopatra as a black African was an attempt to “erase the Egyptian identity.”

“We have known for thousands of years that Cleopatra is of Greek origin and was born in Egypt. This is a fact. Our main objection is the falsification of these facts. It is not about being Black or White or even yellow. Let’s say they wanted to portray Cleopatra as a man, we would also object to that,” he told CBS News in an interview.

The Black portrayal of Cleopatra also has prompted outrage from the youth of the country. They have launched a counter-campaign #EgyptforEgyptians. In the campaign, young Egyptians share their photos online with half of the picture including their face and the other half showing the face of kings, queens or historic figures from ancient Egypt. Through these photos, the campaign aims to show the similarities between Egyptians today and ancient Egyptians.

Want to know what #ancientEgyptians looked like? Look at the faces of their descendants, the people of #Egypt . Same faces and features throughout millennia.#Egyptians_are_not_black#stopblackwashingEgypt#afrocentrism_is_racism#EgyptforEgyptians pic.twitter.com/9Osg76FgHE

— Maat ماعت (@Maaet_Tawi) May 10, 2023

And on the day of the release of the series, a government-owned Egyptian broadcaster announced that it would be producing its own series on Queen Cleopatra. The Al Wathaeqya channel – which is a subsidiary of Egypt’s state-affiliated United Media Services – said that it would start production on a high-end documentary about the true story of Queen Cleopatra, which it claims in a statement is based on the “utmost levels” of research and accuracy.

Popular comedian Bassem Youssef in a recent TV interview with British journalist Piers Morgan also slammed the portrayal of Cleopatra in the Netflix show.

"Hollywood has been erasing my people."

Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef responds to Netflix's casting of black actress Adele James as Cleopatra.@Byoussef | @piersmorgan | @TalkTV | #PMU pic.twitter.com/0NHjgElkTZ

— Piers Morgan Uncensored (@PiersUncensored) April 24, 2023

While Netflix has remained mum on the issue, the director of the series, Tina Gharavi in an opinion piece in Variety wrote, “Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister? Why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?... 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.”

Also read: Is California going to pay Black people billions of dollars in reparations for slavery?

Black or White – the Egypt debate

This isn’t the first time that a debate has emerged on Cleopatra’s racial identity. Gaps in her family tree leave room for people to misinterpret indigenous Egyptian identity as Black.

While Cleopatra’s grandfather had two Macedonian-Greek wives, he also had a concubine of possibly Egyptian origin. Same is the case with Cleopatra’s father. Contemporary historical sources do not shed light on the identities of Cleopatra’s mother and grandmother but, as per Roller, “while it is quite possible that Cleopatra was pure Macedonian Greek… it is probable that she had some Egyptian blood, although the amount is uncertain.”

The issue, for some isn’t about the depiction of Cleopatra, but more about the ‘blackwashing’ of Egyptian history. Some Egyptians view the casting of James as an overreach by the Afrocentrism movement and a bid by non-Egyptians to claim Egyptian heritage as their own.

“I am against the film because it is pushing an Afrocentric agenda, regardless of the historical accuracy of whether Cleopatra was Black or White,” Egyptian archaeologist Dr Monica Hanna told CBS News. “They are imposing the identity politics of the 21st Century and appropriating the ancient Egyptian past, just as the Eurocentrists and the far-right in Europe are doing.”

In recent times, Egypt has been hitting back at claims made by many Afrocentrists, claiming the ancestors of the country were Black. They allege that the civilisation was started by black Africans who had their role in its establishment erased by invading Muslims in the latter half of the first millennium AD.

These claims have been refuted by many historians, with Zahi Hawass, a former antiquities minister and world-famous Egyptologist, saying in a 2021 interview that Afrocentric comments about ancient Egypt are baseless.

While this debate rages on and Egypt fumes at Netflix, Rebecca Futo Kennedy, an associate professor of Classics at Denison University, tells TIME magazine, “Asking if Cleopatra was Black, white, or another race is the wrong question because “it suggests that these are universal and not historically contingent categories.”

With inputs from agencies

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