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Issa goes on to explain that public perceptions of Cleopatra’s appearance and personality have varied drastically throughout the centuries, emphasizing that the Netflix series and resulting backlash are a product of their time and cultural context. Islam Issa, a professor of literature and history who appears in the series, offered his take on the controversy in a piece for Al Jazeera, noting that his was the only Egyptian voice that was consulted for the series, and clarified that the African Queens should be viewed as a “docudrama,” as opposed to a “fully-fledged documentary.” “Her ethnicity is not the focus of Queen Cleopatra, but we did intentionally decide to depict her of mixed ethnicity to reflect theories about Cleopatra’s possible Egyptian ancestry and the multicultural nature of ancient Egypt.”ĭirector of the series Tina Gharavi wrote an article for Variety in which she argued that her casting choice was far more accurate than Elizabeth Taylor, and described casting a Black woman as Cleopatra as “political act.”Īdele James took to Twitter to speak out against the abusive messages she had been subjected to, writing: “Just FYI, this kind of behaviour won’t be tolerated on my account – you will be blocked without hesitation.” Netflix released a statement in response to the controversy:
Government-owned Egyptian broadcaster, Al Wathaeqya, is even set to produce its own documentary about Cleopatra to rival the Netflix series.
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said that Cleopatra’s appearance in the show was a “falsification of Egyptian history and a blatant historical fallacy.”Įgyptian lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary even demanded that the authorities ban the show in the country, accusing Netflix of misrepresenting “Egyptian identity” to “promote Afrocentric thinking.”
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