Queen Cleopatra (Netflix) - Go woke, go broke!

[Neil]

Seems this woke black washing of history has gone down like a lead balloon. Having just found out Jada Pinkett Smith is involved with this bomb, that's all the better!

[JDP]

I'm surprised they did not portray her as a lesbian as well. Hey, if you go "Woke!", go all the way!

[MinionZombie]

It's astonishing anyone thought this "documentary" was a good idea. I hear that the nation of Egypt is suing Netflix.

[EvilNed]

People portray Jesus as white all the time, I don't see you guys get riled up about that.

[Neil]

People portray Jesus as white all the time, I don't see you guys get riled up about that. Huh? Jesus wasn't black? He was a Palestinian/Jew surely, so olive skinned? Caucasian? The blackwashing of Cleopatra is just needless wokery akin so many other antics we see going on across history as some sort of virtue signalling sactifice/pandering.

[beat_truck]

With any luck, they'll lose 5 or 6 BILLION dollars worth of sales like Bud Lite has.

[MinionZombie]

People portray Jesus as white all the time, I don't see you guys get riled up about that. A "whataboutism", surely? And it is also routinely mentioned that, considering his geographic location (assuming he really did exist, that is), him being white as a Scotsman in winter would be extraordinarily unlikely. Christians in Vietnam also pray to a Vietnamese version of Jesus, so ... also incorrect. If you made a "documentary" about Jesus and portrayed him as, say, Inuit or South American or, I don't know, an Autobot, then, well, it wouldn't go down very well either.

[shootemindehead]

In all likelihood, Cleo probably looked North African(ish) with some Greek features. So while she may not have looked like Will Smith's Mrs. she certainly looked nothing like any other portrayal of her either...Hello Liz Taylor! Cleopatra had a Ptolemaic bloodline. But after hundreds of years of that dynasty ruling Egypt their skin tone, more than likely, would have darkened considerably. She was also probably bald as a coot too and wore a variety of wigs. There are some contemporary writings from Romans who came into contact with her that said she wasn't anything special to look at. But had a great command of language and was a pretty smart fish. She also wasn't afraid to use her other...ahem..."talents" to get what she wanted either. She was wise enough to wrap Gaius Julius and Mark Antony around her finger in her pursuit to maintain power.

[EvilNed]

A "whataboutism", surely? I don't agree with that at all. You people are very upset when the pendulum swings one way, but never the other. There's a bigger picture at play here and if you're gonna be honest about these things I welcome you to the fold of: You know what? It's just artistic expression. So chill out and let people be portrayed in whichever way is fitting for the creator. - - - Updated - - - Huh? Jesus wasn't black? He was a Palestinian/Jew surely, so olive skinned? Caucasian? The blackwashing of Cleopatra is just needless wokery akin so many other antics we see going on across history as some sort of virtue signalling sactifice/pandering. Jesus was by all accounts middle eastern, but is usually portrayed as white. These things happen all the time, stop being so offended by it.

[MinionZombie]

I don't agree with that at all. You people are very upset when the pendulum swings one way, but never the other. There's a bigger picture at play here and if you're gonna be honest about these things I welcome you to the fold of: You know what? It's just artistic expression. So chill out and let people be portrayed in whichever way is fitting for the creator. - - - Updated - - - Jesus was by all accounts middle eastern, but is usually portrayed as white. These things happen all the time, stop being so offended by it. 1) You seem to think I'm hopping mad about this show, when in reality I'm just rolling my eyes with the silliness of it all - especially when it's being called a "documentary" - and it's far from a niche opinion to think this series is stupid. Now, Bridgerton is a load of silly fluff, but it's also not calling itself a documentary and is quite open that it's all fairytale guff - and, indeed, "artistic expression". This Cleopatra series, though, is labelled a "documentary" and smacks of rich wankers playing in the identity politics sandbox while smashed off their heads on overpriced wine that is promoted as smelling like someone's fanny or whatever else. It's all the Hollywood posturing that's the really gross thing ... and in the name of ESG credit lines, ultimately - because at the end of the day it's actually all about raking in enough cash to keep the boat afloat - and when "ticking boxes" literally equals bigger and better credit lines, well... 2) And, again, it is recognised quite widely as being inaccurate to depict Jesus as a blonde haired, blue-eyed white guy (if he even existed in the first place, that is). When I was involved in a little project a while back that depicted Jesus, we used someone on-screen who was much more 'in the ballpark' visually, because it made more sense.

[JDP]

One key thing that needs to be remembered here is that this is not just a movie made for entertainment purposes, but actually a "documentary". Therefore, portraying a historical (not fictional) character as being something he/she was not is perfectly "nitpickable". There's plenty of surviving depictions and descriptions of people from North Africa and the Near East, like Egyptians, Libyans, Mauretanians, Syrians, Anatolians, etc., from Pharaonic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Islamic times. It is very evident from them that a clear distinction was made between those peoples and sub-Saharan African peoples, like Nubians and Ethiopians. Not only was the skin color different, but the facial features were also portrayed differently; North Africans and Near Easterners were portrayed with the same facial features and hair textures as Europeans, even if the written descriptions of them often characterize them as having a "swarthy" appearance, not with the facial features and hair texture that people like Nubians are portrayed with. This is not something "mysterious" but well known to historians. So, even if one wants to posit that Cleopatra was not fully Greek and had some ancestry from those areas of the world, that would still not make her "black" (in our modern sense of the word) either. This is obviously "Afrocentrism" at work here trying to rewrite history.

[Neil]

I don't agree with that at all. You people are very upset when the pendulum swings one way, but never the other. There's a bigger picture at play here and if you're gonna be honest about these things I welcome you to the fold of: You know what? It's just artistic expression. So chill out and let people be portrayed in whichever way is fitting for the creator. Thing is, if it were simply a hand wave of "artistic impression" people wouldn't bat an eyelid. But it's actually yet more of a conscious agenda of silly box ticking hence my face palming of this continued wokery - Note: Which is far from me being "upset". It's the same face I pull when we have five adverts in a row on UK TV with mixed race couples. ie: The same wokery. And I wonder how "artistic impression" as a reason would fair with the news of Martin Luther King being played by Matt Damon? It would quite rightly be ridiculed and result in face palming no doubt? Especially if was just one more example in an agenda of such antics. But to reiterate - This program quite openly pushes the historical narrative that Cleopatra was black, seemingly because, "my grandmother said Cleopatra was black." Simply put, she wasn't black so why push an unnecessary falsehood? EDIT: Typo of "Luthor" corrected

[shootemindehead]

I don't agree with that at all. You people are very upset when the pendulum swings one way, but never the other. There's a bigger picture at play here and if you're gonna be honest about these things I welcome you to the fold of: You know what? It's just artistic expression. So chill out and let people be portrayed in whichever way is fitting for the creator. Problem is, would things be the same way if Brendan Gleeson played Cetshwayo? Or Jackie Chan played Malcolm X? I think not. There'd be the usual claptrap going on about "appropriation" and all that noise and 'artistic expression" wouldn't be accepted, even remotely, as an excuse. Not that I really give a toss about a subpar so called "documentary" that nobody will remember in two weeks time, but the race swapping of historical figures will tend to annoy me, especially if the show is purporting to be an historical document. If producers want to be right on and have all sorts in fictional TV shows and movies, go ahead. But it would be nice to, at least, try and leave actual historical figures out of all that right on bollocks. - - - Updated - - - This Cleopatra series, though, is labelled a "documentary" and smacks of rich wankers playing in the identity politics sandbox while smashed off their heads on overpriced wine that is promoted as smelling like someone's fanny or whatever else. Hmmmm, what's the name of that wine now?

[JDP]

And I wonder how "artistic impression" as a reason would fair with the news of Martin Luthor King being played by Matt Damon? https://www.fortressofsolitude.co.za...ck-lex-luthor/ All kidding aside: there goes my project for the action-packed Frederick Douglass: Werewolf Hunter movie, starring Dolph Lundgren in the titular role.

[Neil]

OK! Very naughty, but very funny...