Egypt Fires Back After Netflix Casts Cleopatra As Black, Makes Their Own Series With History Prioritized

After making Queen Cleopatra be played by a black actor in Netflix's 'Queen Cleopatra', Egyptians have come out in force by planning their own series that will represent the historical ruler with “the highest levels of research and scrutiny.”

The Egyptian state-backed Documentary Channel, Al Wathaeqya, announced its intent to make its series in tandem with a government-owned broadcaster, United Media Services. Many Egyptians have bashed Netflix’s moves to change the race of the Pharaonic ruler, calling the ignorant move “historical revisionism.”

In an official post on the company’s Facebook, they shared the message, “Starting as usual in all documentary production sector and documentary channel work, there are working sessions currently being held with a number of specialists in history, archaeology, and anthropology; to subject research related to the subject of the film and its image to the highest levels of research and scrutiny.”

Though the move from the Egyptian company has directly stated the action was due to Netflix’s production, the tone of the announcement can widely be seen as a slap at the failure to heed the historical accuracy of Netflix’s version. The ruler is known to have had a father that was Macedonian-Greek, but her mother’s heritage isn’t fully known. 

In an interview on MBC Network, former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs Zahi Hawass bashed the series for casting a black actor for the role. Hawass spoke of his time in the United States giving lectures on the subject of Cleopatra and having black protesters calling him a liar for his historically accurate statements. Hawass claimed that they had a “disorganized thinking” of Egypt and its history, which was the field of expertise in which Hawass was best versed. 

Hawass did note that Egypt had black rulers at one point, those being the Kushite kings of the 25th dynasty of Egypt. He also fought against African Americans who have attempted to push black ancestry upon the country, calling them “obsessed” with the colonization of Egypt throughout its history. 

The director, Tina Ghavari, attempted to defend the tone-deaf casting in an essay for Variety. In it, she aruged that the casting she made was more accurate than the casting made for the Oscar-winning 1963 film, ‘Cleopatra.’ In her essay, she even noted that it would be “a political act” to cast Cleopatra as black. 

Ghavari’s entire argument was that because 60's Hollywood, a pretty much entirely white group of actors and actresses, cast Cleopatra as white, it was justifiable to cast her Cleopatra as black. Ghavari attempts to place all of the dissents to her casting decision upon white supremacy, trying to claim that Egyptians were only upset because she “asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans.”

It is entirely bizarre that people in Hollywood are attempting to tell a group they’re in the wrong for being upset by a clearly flawed casting decision. Rather than a portrayal of Egyptian history that is accurate and can bring pride to the people of the country, they’re trying to shove African-American ideals down the throats of the people who's history they are telling. 

For Hollywood it is sacrasanct to cast a non-white character as white, but any character that is white or close to white is open to being portrayed by a person of color. Hollywood isn’t interested in portraying history as realistic because if they do they will quickly discover many aspects of Western history are white-centric, so instead they attempt to recreate history to modern diversity standards. In that attempt, they begin to pry away at actual diversity.