Netflix, Apr 12, 2023
**** PANCOCOJAMS EDITOR'S NOTE For the record, I'm an African American who isn't a fan of Netflix's Queen Cleopatra docudrama in part because I believe that docudrama should have had some Egyptian cast members and some Egyptian advisors. I also didn't like the fact that this Netflix show was purportedly a documentary of a docudrama. I believe that if Jada Pinkett Smith, the producer of this Netflix series on African queens wanted to showcase an Egyptian queen, she should have selected someone like Nefertiti or
"Who knew that Cleopatra could still inspire fierce debates two millennia after her death? Netflix has come under criticism from the Egyptian government for casting a Black actress, Adele James, to play the ancient monarch in its new docudrama series African Queens.
That casting is inaccurate, Egyptian officials said after the trailer was released, according to The New York Times. "Statues of Queen Cleopatra confirm that she had Hellenistic (Greek) features, distinguished by light skin, a drawn-out nose and thin lips," Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities tweeted in April. But the backlash has produced a backlash. "It is more likely that Cleopatra looked like our actor than Elizabeth Taylor ever did," director Tina Gharavi wrote at Variety. How did a new Netflix show become embroiled in racial controversy?
[...]
What has been the response?
It has occasionally gotten ugly. After the show's trailer was released on YouTube, the Times reports, "Netflix was forced to disable comments as they turned into a hostile, and occasionally racist, pile on."
Then the Egyptian government weighed in, asserting that Cleopatra simply wasn't
Black. One minister called the series a "falsification of Egyptian history," NBC News reports. CBS News adds: "Some Egyptians complained that the feature was appropriating their culture and rewriting their history." And the conversation spilled out into international arenas, with segments on The Daily Show and Piers Morgan's Talk TV show in the United Kingdom.
How did the filmmakers respond?
They pushed back. Deadline reports that Jane Root, the show's executive producer, put out a statement noting that Cleopatra's race is still a debate among scholars. "We decided to depict Cleopatra of mixed heritage to reflect these theories and the multicultural nature of ancient
Egypt," she said. "Race in her times was a long way from what it is now." Gharavi, meanwhile pointed out that actresses like Monica Bellucci, Angelina Jolie, and Gal Gadot had either been cast or considered to play Cleopatra in previous productions of her story. "Why shouldn't Cleopatra be a melanated sister?" she wrote. "And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?"
The debate misapplies modern categories to the ancient world, Islam Issa writes at Al Jazeera. Issa says his is the only voice in the African Queens series. "The largely binary racial terms being used today are anachronistic and can hardly be applied to Cleopatra's context." And it's also true that depictions of Cleopatra have varied widely over the years: "During the Middle Ages, she was represented as blonde; during the neoclassical craze, stereotypically Hellenic." It's no surprise that a new depiction has emerged "when systemic racism is being called out like never before."....
Discussion Thread #1 From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwIQwk1fblc "Egyptian Man Educates Ignorant People About The Skin Color Of Ancient Egypt" posted by African Diaspora News Channel, Podcast, June 28,2023
Wongel Zelalem reports on Egyptian man
educating people about ancient Egypt.
1.@Kimberlyncovington
" @21kHzBANK21kHZ The black only people who ever ruled Egypt
were the Nubians from current Sudan. They were part of the 25th dynasty and
ruled for about a hundred years. Currently there is a Nubian tribe living in
southern Egypt. They live separate from the other Egyptians in their own
village and speak their own distinct language. The same way native Americans
live on reservations in the United States. Indigenous people still live in
North America and they never went anywhere. They still speak their native
language and continue to carry out their traditions. If blacks lived in North
Africa then where did they go?"
**
Reply
2. @biggcnile1
"@Kimberlyncovington your chronology is shot! I mean
there's tons of info on the subject, yet here you are trying to pass off
misinformation? Wow"
**
Reply
3. @21kHzBANK21kHZ
" @Kimberlyncovington What do you mean where did they go? What kind
of question is that? Let me ask you this: Cleopatra was Greek right? If Greeks
lived in North Africa, then where did
they go? The question of the race of ancient Egyptians has already been
answered: for much of their history they were a melting pot, and originally yes
they were black. There has already been DNA analysis among other scientific
evidence that proves this."
**
Reply
4. @papa6bell
"There are plenty of Europeans and white Americans, who still
believe in a non-Black origin of ancient Kemetic/Egyptian civilization"
**
Reply
5. @Kimberlyncovington
"@barringtonbrown7152 Sub Saharan refer to people who live below
the Sahara Dessert. It separates North
Africa from everybody else. Impossible to travel through on foot or camel. The
heat will kill you. Blacks live south of this desert. Sudan is partially
covered by it. They walked along the Nile River to trade with Egypt during
ancient times. Egyptians depicted the Dinka tribe in their artwork."
**
Reply
6. @aphrodite4473
"Let the Arabians have that name they gave themselves with
the help of the Greeks and Roman’s Egyptians are the new colonized Arabians
that’s not even the real name of where they colonized when they came to Africa
anyways it’s Kemet or another African
name not Egypt"
**
Reply
7.@lisaaloune
" @Kimberlyncovington
The Assyrian, Phoenician, Greeks, Persian and Arab invaders
/ immigrants have nothing to do with the real indigenous people of North
Africa. The 30,000 years old Egyptian history has no connection with the
invaders. The real Native Egyptian are still exists in Egypt, Ethiopia "
**
Reply
8.@eq2092
"People forget that Egypt was invaded.and colonized by the
Arabs, the Romans, The Vandals (they were from Scandinavian), the Greeks, and
the Persians. And that's off the top of my head."
**
Reply
9. @ytamember5104
"@eq2092 Started with the Hyksos some 3500 years ago,
followed by the Assyrians, followed by the Persians, followed by the Greeks,
followed by the Romans, followed by the Arabs, followed by the Turks.
The modern Egyptian is an amalgamation of all these non-African group.
The ancient kemite is a Nilote.
**
Reply
10. @sibusisombatha1846
"@eq2092 yes, over time, but it did begin with black
people. By the time Cleopatra vii ruled Egypt, the Greeks and Persians had
already set up shop and interracial relations were already the order of the day"
**
Reply
11. @kwasiahenkora6583
"@calmwithchrist They technically are. Modern day Egypt and
Sudan where one country (Khemit) in ancient times. It was the British
colonizers that “drew” the line between them and made them two separate
countries. There are still Black Nubians and Egyptians living in Egypt today.
Ancient Greeks even described the Egyptians as being “dark
skinned and wooly haired”"
**
Reply
12. @calmwithchrist
"@kwasiahenkora6583
When peaople say Sudan and Egypt were one country which is
true you leave out invasion that the Nubians did to rule Egypt in the 25th
Dynasty Egypt was conquered by Nubia partially after 750 B.C., fully after 712
B.C. that's basically why it was called "Kemit" you also forget that
in 1820 The Egyptian conquest of
Sudan with the help of the British.
having dark skin and
wooly hair doesn't necessarily mean the people would be what we consider
now to be "black" a lot of other groups can have dark skin and wooly
hair. But you're right there are Nubians that still live in Egypt mostly in
South Egypt but they make up a very small population"
**
13. @TheDbduece
"Former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, a dark complexioned
man, had said many, many times that he was the last "true" Egyptian
ruler...."
**
14. @B-3483
"@glamourboy06 Nubians ruled Egypt during the 25th Dynasty
(747–656 BC). Greeks arrived to settle in Egypt during the reign of
Psammetichus I in 664 BC, When Greeks came to Egypt, Egypt was ruled by
Kushites and Nubians., They ruled Egypt for about 100 years before they were
thrown out by the real Egyptians. The ancient Egyptians carried Y-DNA and have
the haplogroup E-Z830, a slightly upwind variant of E-M123 E1b1b. West Africa
has E1b1a haplogroup. If you look at Cushite and Nubians they have very high E1b1b,
higher than E1b1a."
**
15. @geechristopher6076
"There are more pyramids in neighboring Sudan than all of
Egypt. There were Nubian Kushite Pharaohs from Sudan that ruled Egypt
throughout history as well. The 25th Dynasty is called "The Kushite
Dynasty." They have literally found artifacts of Afro picks in tombs
throughout Egypt, lol."
**
16. @so9487
"For those who are unfamiliar with the various foreign
invasions of Egypt, here is the timeline.
669 BCE – Assyrians from Mesopotamia conquer and rule Egypt.
525 BCE – Persian conquest.
332 BCE – Alexander the Great, of ancient Macedonia,
conquers Egypt, and founds Alexandria. A Macedonian dynasty rules until 31 BC.
31 BCE – Egypt comes under Roman rule; Queen Cleopatra
commits suicide after Octavian’s army defeats her forces.
33 CE – Christianity comes to Egypt, and by the 4th century
has largely displaced Egyptian religion.
642 – Arab conquest of Egypt.
969 – Cairo was established as the capital.
1250 – 1517 – Mameluke (slave soldier) rule, characterized
by great prosperity and well-ordered civic institutions.
1517 – Egypt absorbed into the Turkish Ottoman Empire.
1798 – Napoleon Bonaparte’s forces invade but are repelled
by the British and the Turks in 1801.
1805 – Ottoman Albanian commander Muhammad Ali establishes a
dynasty that goes on to reign until 1953, although nominally part of the
Ottoman Empire.
That is why modern Egypt is filled with a pale-skin population today".
****
Discussion Thread #2 From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeV26tPTfAA&t=303s"Ethiopian Outrage Black Cleopatra" by NYTN, April 20, 2023
I understand wanting to make her sub-Saharan African in appearance. Representation is important. Seeing yourself in media is important. Lying about it is not helpful though because in the end it is not true. Just like the people that want her to be an "African queen" want to be seen, the Egyptians want to be seen too though. Egyptians still exist. They have changed over time, but you probably see the same faces there as you saw thousands of years ago. Cheating them out of their own history by changing her appearance, to please a group of American activists in Hollywood is wrong. There are numerous historical images of Egyptians from her time. They look a lot like Egyptians do today. In all fairness, I’d default to that. It may not be perfect, but it will be closer to the truth. All that said, she’s an actress playing a role. Unless they are pushing the sub-Saharan part, why is it any different than Elizabeth Taylor, a white woman, playing the part? ** 2. @danielmalinen6337 "Cleopatra's ethnicity is not the real problem, the real problem is that people roughly divide people into two dualistic extremes, blacks and whites, which is actually childish and absurd because in reality there are more than two tones in the spectrum. And because this spectrum of hues is vast and diverse, people don't agree on what they mean and who they count as "black" and "white." " ** 3. @jenc8953 "I think the issue is that in the documentary it’s being said that cleopatra was a black woman when she was not, she was Macedonian Greek. By the looks of her profile on her coins and the statues of her, she looks Mediterranean. Her family married and procreated within the family, even half siblings procreating with each other to continue the blood line. I know it’s hard for Americans to understand that just because you are born on the continent of Africa, it doesn’t mean you are black. Elon musk and Charlize Theron are an example, so is the Blade Runner. Africa is a very diverse place. Also, not all Africans look like west Africans. I’ve seen Africans with straight hair, blonde hair, colored eyes, light skin. It’s just depends on the region you are from. ** 4.@ The_Truth- "@MrMuttly55 We don’t know what Cleopatra looked like. She had a high probability to be of mixed heritage. They don’t even know here maternal dna makeup." ** 5. @zack6192 "The issue is over if the movie should be called a documentary. I am fine with someones view that Cleopatra could be black. Just don't call the movie a documentary. It doesn't match with history or her family from Macedonia hence Greek. Another big issue is movies like to refer to Cleopatra as a queen. She was a pharaoh not a queen. It's a mistake many make. Especially, by folks making fictional types of movies of historical figures." ** 6. @croesusdelta231 "I have always thought of Cleopatra as a reddish brown, Egyptian woman of color with Black hair. The Blond Greek concept is completely new to me, never heard of it before. The Europeans depicted Cleopatra as a very pale skin woman with Red hair and say that her looks can be verified by some coins that exist which of course could be a depiction of anyone and the idea that the Ptolomy family tree was completely and entirely derived from incestuous relationships. This again is something that is questionable to say the least. Certainly there may have been a great deal of incest in the family, but entirely? No one had relations with any person outside of the family for 300 years? Really? What is intriguing to me also is the fact that they take great pains to state that the Greeks and the Romans kept meticulous records of the Ptolomy dynasty family tree, except for Cleopatra's grandmother, who they say might have been a concubine and her mother, which for some reason no one has any knowledge of. Given this information, logically, there is a possibility that she could have been Black or at least have Black blood, which according to the "one drop" rule, would in the eyes of America, make her a Black woman.
There is also the point that while some Egyptians seek to deny their Black African lineage, Southern Egypt was populated by indigenous Black Sudanese, called even today, Nubians. So again, there is the possibility that her Grandmother was a Nubian and her mother was an Egyptian or even Nubian herself. It is no surprise that Dr. Zahi Hawass is claiming that Cleopatra was Greek and had Blond hair, even though she was born in Africa and her mother's ethnicity is unknown. He is completely indoctrinated with a Eurocentric view and has many times previously been found to make inaccurate statements to support the European narrative when it comes to the Black African lineage of Egyptians, even when confronted with the facts. No Egyptian depiction of Cleopatra shows her as a pale skin or yt person. It is my contention that if anyone is trying to conceal facts or promote a false narrative, it is the Europeans since they cave compiled such a detailed back story of her, yet conveniently have no real knowledge of her Grandmother and mother. This tells me that at some point they lost track of what was going on with the family tree or they are hiding the truth because it is inconvenient. Fun fact, (" in 2009 the BBC reported that scientists were surprised to learn that Cleopatra’s blood sister, Arsinoe, had an African mother. ")
Is there a chance she is pure Macedonia or only a little mixed with some Persian as they try to say? Sure but it's damn near next to impossible."...
** Reply 8. @kerryholifieldjr6395 "@darrellm9915 white was only for white English women.
Greeks Italians and everything in between wasn't white u til the 1960's" ** Reply 9. @darrellm9915 " @kerryholifieldjr6395 "Lol no, they were only considered "non-white" in America for political reasons, while most other Europeans still considered them white. And it was people of British-Anglo descent, not England exclusively that were accepted into that title.
Italians & Greeks are white by modern standards though.
We don't live in the past anymore where the same people who arbitrarily claimed that Italians weren't white, also said the Irish weren't white. And you would be laughed at today if you went around claiming this. Southern Europeans are not the only people in Europe who look Mediterranean either. Look at British & Irish celebs like Henry Cavill, Russell Brand, David Gandy, Colin Farrell, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Rowan Atkinson, Victoria Beckham, Kit Harington, Aidan Turner, Kate Beckinsale, among others. They all have traits similar to many Italians & Greeks. "White" doesn't mean you have blonde hair and blue yes with strictly Anglo origins. It simply means European descent. Nothing more, nothing less.
That debunks the myth that Greeks & Italians are another "race" when they can look phenotypically similar to Northwestern Europeans, even in terms of sharing similar haplogroups." -snip- I reformatted this comment to increase the readability. ** 10. @BillsGrandson "The truly ironic thing is that Cleopatra was "THE OPPRESSOR" The Ptolemies were a foreign Macedonian Greek dynasty that ruled over the native Egyptians for 300 years. It's telling that in all that time, only one Ptolemy, the last one, Cleopatra herself, even bothered to learn the Egyptian language. Cleopatra's Egypt was not the Egypt of the pharoahs and the pyramids, it was Greek Egypt. An Egypt dominated by a Greek ruling class."
**
Reply
11. @suprmekai5
" @sherifhanna it’s not about if it’s fiction or non fiction
it’s the fact that it’s an all white cast in those movies and the ignorance of Modern day Egypt not doing anything about it but make it an all black cast even if it’s fiction you will see Modern day Egypt bitching about it like they are doing now about a damn Greek Queen who isn’t Egyptian like they say." ** 12. @chrisspeed639 "I like the video and the thoughtful exploration. I am not sure about the race or skin color of Cleopatra. I think the problem with trying to figure out what someone was in ancient times( race wise) is a challenge because it is not a thing then. I also think people sometimes conflate the beginning of the Egyptian dynasties to the end. The first dynasties were closely tied to Kush and they both were indigenous to Africa. So by today's classifications, those Egyptians would be consider to be black. Those two civilizations traded together, married, fought etc.
Later people from SW Asia came and integrated with Egyptians. Later people from Persia and Assyria came and conquered Egypt. Certainly, there was integration after the Pharaohs regained power so you have a cultural mix. I feel like Egypt is an example of a place that people of many cultures and skin tones influenced not just one group." ** 13. @Firefle "If this is a subject of exploration that you're genuinely interested in and looking to further understand, then I'd adamantly recommend a book by Senegalese anthropologist and physicist, Cheikh Anta-Diop: 'The African Origin of Civilization, Fact or Fiction?' (1974). Its a great foot into the door of the debate and makes clear why the subject is such a point of contention, especially in 2023 and moving forwards.
Unfortunately the debate has been skewed somewhat by its presentation via Cleopatra, who was of the Ptolemaic's, a Macedonian Greek, colonising class at the twilight of Ancient Egyptian civilization, whereas the debate itself is more interested in earlier Pre-Dynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle and New Kingdom dynasties, when Egypt/Kemet's majority population will have been indigenous to the land. After all, Egypt/Kemetic history is incredibly extensive, Cleopatra 7th living closer to the construction of the first 'Pizza Hut', than she ever did to the construction of The Pyramids. "
[Pancocojams Editor's Note: This video is a travel vlog that shows the African American woman vlogeer interacting with dark skinned Egyptians.]
1. @ChariotManGaming85
"Now. This is what I want to see. I feel they're the original
Egyptians. Without a doubt. Great video!!"
**
2. @empirefoundation6328
"We get different narratives about ancient
Kemet/Tamera/Al-Fustat, but if you do your due diligence, you will find out
that the lighter tone 'Egyptians' today were a product of the pale European
slave trade during the Byzantine Empire era (as well as others in North Africa,
'Middle East' and Europe). Our people were fighting each other and became
self-conquered from that period to the 1800s (Reconstruction Era) ...When I was
in school, I knew who the ancient people there were before it was renamed
'Egypt'. Since my school years, we have been going through another
Reconstruction (of ancient truth) Period... Helpful sources: The Story of the
Moors in Spain (Andalasia/Al Andulus) by Stanley Lane-Poole... Ancient Egypt:
Light of the World Vol. 1 & 2 by Gerald Massey...The Byzantine Empire by
Charles Chadwick Oman... The History of the Moorish Empire in Europe by S.P.
Scott... Rome and Carthage: The Punic Wars by R. Bosworth Smith"
**
3. @Mawiyah7
"Just imagine this is the people Jesus hid amongst and the
apostle Paul was accused of being one of them. So now we know why the world wants to act like Egyptians are
white, becaue it makes Jesus Black. 🎉"
**
4. @radley3519
"Black for sure/ during Bible times for sure.. you could
easily be what the beautiful queens we hear about looked like—Just a beautiful
video"
****
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