Egyptian Broadcaster Making Queen Cleopatra Film With Light-Skinned Actress
The people of Egypt are not here for the Black actress Netflix cast in their docudrama about Queen Cleopatra and will be making their own version that highlights the “light skin” they claim the real queen had.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that the Al Wathaeqya channel — a government-owned Egyptian broadcaster with the country’s United Media Services —will start production on a high-end docudrama about Queen Cleopatra that will be based on the “utmost levels” of research and accuracy, NBC News reports.
The new Egyptian-made film comes in response to the backlash Netflix received for casting a Black actress to play Cleopatra in the Jada Pinkett Smith-produced docudrama series “African Queens.” Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities was among the vocal opponents of the Netflix docudrama with the government entity in charge of heritage claiming the mixed-race British actress Adele James who was cast to play Queen Cleopatra, does not represent the real queen who they say belonged to a Greek-speaking dynasty and of European descent.
“Statues of Queen Cleopatra confirm that she had Hellenistic (Greek) features, distinguished by light skin, a drawn-out nose and thin lips.” the Council tweeted.
News of Egypt’s Queen Cleopatra film comes the same day Egyptian lawyer Amr Abdel Salam filed an urgent lawsuit with the Administrative Court demanding Egyptian authorities force Netflix to suspend its “Queen Cleopatra” documentary, the Egypt Independent reports.
Egyptian comedian and journalist Bassem Youssef also slammed Netflix’s docudrama as a falsification of history that was “stealing my culture.”
“We are not supposed to be angry for [depicting] Cleopatra as white, black, Greek, or African. We should take the dialogue to an area where people can respect you and support you, without alienating them,” he said.
Outrage over the “African Queens” documentary comes after Kevin Hart canceled a show in Egypt after upsetting the country by calling them Black.
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