Netflix Cleopatra is Worse Than I Thought. I watched it

this video is brought to you by you you are the best never once hello number ones and welcome to the first episode of my new YouTube series freedom of speech is a [ __ ] wait I said a swear word are they going to give me a yellow dollar sign for it hold on a second that would actually be an improvement for me expect excessive swearing okay so today I had the brilliant idea wasting some of my precious time to be specific 48 minutes and 17 seconds watching the first episode of this monstrosity of a documentary on Netflix about Cleopatra although one of the things that we will notice during this first review or the first episode this really isn't a documentary about Cleopatra is it well I've taken some notes and I'm going to share a few things with you so why don't we just jump on it today we're going to examine a lot of things when I look at the weapons and armor of the Romans which are absolutely some of the worst I've ever seen in my career as a YouTuber we will also be talking about some of the things that have been said and some of the actual factual incorrect historical information that has been pushed as real and also what this guy said yes I mean you thought the trailer was bad but the first thing I'd like to say very spontaneously out of my heart just uncensored raw Metatron the leather wristbands on the Romans the lead literally every Roman soldier Roman Statesman Roman general Roman Consular toilet cleaner every single human being who happens to be a Roman in this movie wears leather bands which we never find in iconography who is the costumist oh come on Metatron this is just a movie White's entertainment it's a documentary and I hate wristbands ancient Roman iconography no wristbands this movie wristbands everywhere we are told the very beginning of the documentary that Cleopatra so her Legend has been retold from Millennia but few know the real woman and her truth please remember this her truth because I don't think that it's a random phrasing of this statement because it will connect to what this guy said in a minute but as you can see as I thought as I was watching the trailer this is not a reimagining this is not an alternative universe or a speculative representation this is the real woman that many people don't know but now thanks to this Netflix documentary they will and there is also something else that you'll finally figure out thanks to this TV series you'll see then we are told that she's a leader of undeniable power that no one could afford to ignore and we are told that she's a woman who bows to no man statement that is then contradicted further on during the documentary when we are told that she's aligning herself with men who have considerable amounts of power although that's nothing much of the fuss around this situation was the fact that Cleopatra is represented with a black actress even though she was a ptolemaic Greek origin we know that that's one of the problems and you will find links to my previous videos of course but we can summarize and saying that that was pretty much the center of the criticism that this documentary has received but what I'm noticing as I'm watching this documentary is not that Cleopatra is not represented in a way that a ptolemaic Greek would have looked it's her entire family this is a dad these are her brothers this is her sister it's not the Cleopatra doesn't look Greek in the sense of Mediterranean Macedonian origin no one does or the one thing they did get right was the usage of blue makeup which is absolutely something the Egyptians did thumbs up on that sorry not enough you're not getting a thumbs up from me now do you remember the lady I criticized in the first episode of my series now that told us that Cleopatra was black no matter what Scholars or books or schools say because her grandmother told her so well here she tells us something very interesting she tells us quote ancient Egyptians would have had a variety of different complexions skin color ranged from black to pale Brown let me get this straight when I said it on my video I was racist when they say it it's okay and also strangely enough no mention of the actual light-skinned individuals aka the ruling elit at this time the ptolemaic of course that's not mentioned not to mention all the colonists of Greek Origins that were actually inhabiting in certain areas of Northern Egypt no mention of that once again when they say it is okay when I say it I'm racist as we continue we've got this latest statement and I also have a problem with where she says it seems very strange the wind system depicting her as a holy European given the Cleopatra represents itself as an Egyptian and I think this is a very dishonest statement because it's misleading many other times she in fact the majority of times we see representations of Cleopatra is wearing Greek or tole make clothing but regardless just because she was born in Egypt that doesn't mean that she would have looked like a native Egyptian very basic biology teaches us that she would have looked like her parents he tells us with this very nice toned music that is supposed to create the atmos atmosphere that what's beautiful about Cleopatra is the following that everyone can imagine her in their own way and then he tells us I imagine how to have curly hair like me and a similar skin color so what's beautiful about Cleopatra according to this man is the fact that we lack conclusive evidence that can tell us 100 that's what she looked like that's the beauty of it because this way everyone can have their own personal truth about her well here's the thing first I disagree because I think if we did find evidence that would be wonderful and in fact I think every archaeologist on the planet and historian would agree with me on that the more evidence we have the more we know about the past the better we can understand the past and possibly shape a better future second whenever we talk about history and I want to throw science in there too personal truth is trumped by factual truth why because personal truth isn't truth unless it aligns with factual truth but regardless of what we can learn about Cleopatra in Egypt we can learn a lot about ancient drone of course I'm being sarcastic we are told that at this time so when Cleopatra is alive ancient Rome is an emerging power ancient Rome was not an emerging power ancient Rome was a fully established Power by this time remember the Cleopatra is born in 69 BC which means that when it comes to the actual historical context of this Show's setting so all the things we see have happened after both Punic Wars had already ended the first Punic War which started in 264 BC and the Second Punic War which happened in 108 BC both of which roam won that's a fully established power not an emerging one Metatron semantics you're just nitpicking because you don't like the show oh yeah absolutely I don't like the show can I say that I don't like the show overlords I would also like to take a moment to say huge thank you to all of you subscribers who have been supporting my work either through direct donations or through becoming patrons in the last few days you have been amazing this has been Stellar support it's very humbling for me and I wear it as a badge of honor now let's continue when you look at the helmets they look brass which I suppose it's okay the Romans called brass Mountain copper which is kind of cool they had a word for it oricalkum which is yes the same weather they use in Skyrim for the orcish metal I thought it was really cool but would it have been brass or would it have been bronze which one of the two would have been more common but that could be a cool interesting topic for a dedicated video if you're interested let me know in the comments little nitpick they look like they've been mass produced Now by this time which is clearly after the very famous Marian reform so 107 BC the Army would have been standardized so Mast produced sort of off-the-shelf helmets would have been the norm with that being said what we are told by the source is that montefortino helmets as they started being mass produced for the troops lost quality before the Marian reforms only land owners and relatively wealthy individuals could have afforded to have a helmet made for them and so they were made really well and they would have looked really shaped but as we go after the Marian reforms and now you need to issue helmets to as many people as possible these helmets have to be put together very quickly and I think something that would have made it look a lot more realistic would have been to show helmets that don't look exactly the same in fact helmets that are being roughed together quickly we know that specifically in this video some would have had the knob at the center actually off center because they were put together very quickly most Legions are actually wearing a lorica hamata which is the Latin term once again not period because we think that the ancient Romans actually called it lorica galica because they got it from the goals as I say on my video dedicated to the Celts still little league is accurate in the sense that yes male armor that's what they were and if you see in these shots we can see that this is not just a male shirt but it also has double shoulders well those are called umerelia previous models wouldn't have had those but for this period umaralia are correct what's not correct is the way they're wearing them because clearly they don't know how they are supposed to be connected in the front also here's another thing that we are told on this documentary the Nile River hasn't flooded for a couple of years which has led to horrible crops and this wasn't Cleopatra's fault all right Noble ones if you forget everything about this documentary remember this if it doesn't rain for a year here in America it's not Biden's fault what would we do without Netflix also see several soldiers wearing the Gladius on the left and are generally speaking Roman legionists would have won the Gladius on the right but there is an exception when it comes to iconography and it's that of offices so officers did tend to wear the Gladius on the left instead the general legionaries would have worn the Gladius on the right because it makes it easier to draw it when you have the shield in front of you so drawing this sword is not a problem as you get ready for combat because you don't have to remove the shield from in front of you whereas if this sword is on the left and you have to draw you need to remove the shield and that could be problematic for regular soldiers but offices are kind of an exception to that now are these all offices maybe it's me and I don't know I tried to re-watch that scene those scenes several times to be like did they give a Gladius to the left to an actual officer or are they just giving it randomly to regular soldiers I don't know but I still thought it was a good idea to bring it up just as a fun fact to learn a thing or two maybe they got it wrong maybe not also those are the worst looking Roman scooter or Shields I've ever seen and my life those are really bad really bad looking Shields also they're wearing green note that green scarves and green tunics this is an interesting choice because green tunics were used by some forces in ancient Rome but generally speaking its Palace guards why because green even though it could be produced in ancient Rome as a caliph of dying clothes it was a more expensive one when compared to for example pale red or of course undyed tunics which were most likely the norm simply because a tunic in order to be dyed green needed to First be dyed yellow so it was a double process it would have made it expensive here I see a bit too many soldiers having green so I don't know if that's a specific choice because these are I don't know high level Palace guards doesn't seem like it so I think it's a little bit of an odd Choice from the costume designer but if I'm wrong and they have a reason more than happy to learn from them since they're not going to teach me much else on this documentary anyways one of the first shots that we see of Roman legion is and that's going to be actually a repeating recurring equipment if you will is that of Roman soldiers wearing leather would appear to be musculata armor but I'm already kind of weirded out by that choice also they look horrible they don't fit and they're clearly not being worn over a super malice which is the modern Latin word for what could have been called Imperial deatora Marcos which is a sort of padded garment that ancient Romans most likely wore underneath their armor secondly lorica musculata in both of its forms because existed in both a short version and a longer version most likely the longer one being used only by generals and very high level offices also because it kind of impeded movement whereas the short one we see used by soldiers including soldiers that are in the Roman Navy still as I say this was the most expensive type of armor that could be issued now hold on a minute Metatron how does this video even make sense I decided to speak about Cleopatra again and many people in the comments on my Twitter believe the possibly the reason why I lost the ability to monetize on this video in the first place was because of my original Cleopatra critique and if I'm just naive and everyone is Right including shot by the way thank you so much for your support brother if everyone is right and Cleopatra wasn't the reason why this whole platform got demonetized isn't this upload going to make it in fact much harder for me to regain monetization in the first place what is my public official articulated possibly long-winded response to this question yes foreign

Channel: Metatron

Views: 780,812

Keywords: cleopatra, netflix, documentary, horrible, incorrect, historically accurate, inaccurate, docuseries, black cleopatra, afrocentric, discussion, teach, teaching, jada pinkett smith, story, bad, professor, reacts, teacher, talk, freedom, free, lesson, lecture, fun, funny, armor, armour, ancient rome, classical period, talking heads, not, no, the, why, what is, Egypt, ancient Egypt, false

Id: ZkNMaKk54Zg

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Thu May 18 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Ora_00]

Such an awesome guy. Haven't watched this one yet, but the previous video about Netflix's cleopatra was pretty good.