Netflix Cleopatra & Race: A Historian's Perspective

recently Netflix released a docudrama produced and narrated by Jada Pinkett Smith in which the historical figure of Cleopatra is portrayed by the black British actress Adele James this has caused an uproar back in Egypt where the government has sharply criticized the show for portraying Cleopatra as black rather than light-skinned accusing the show of black-washing Egyptian history at the same time there has been heavy criticism of an upcoming American film in which Gal Gadot and Ashkenazi descended Israeli actress is cast as Cleopatra leading to accusations of whitewashing instead as a lecturer at New York University's history Department I thought I'd give a historian's perspective on this controversy and try to answer the question regarding Cleopatra's race what does the historical evidence say was she black white or brown and why does it matter I'd like to begin by categorically stating that she was not black nor was she white or brown we'll get to what skin tone and facial features she probably had but we should really Begin by acknowledging that ancient peoples did not think of collective identity along racial lines we in the modern West especially if you live in the United States have a very strong sense of racial identity and we categorize ourselves and each other according to what we consider as racial identifiers skin tone being one of them this is not to say that ancient peoples Were Somehow unaware of different skin tones or that they were colorblind so to speak in fact there is plenty of art from ancient Egypt which depicts the people of the Kingdom in a variety of skin tones however what historians argue is that these differences in skin tone were not markers and boundaries for Collective identities in the ancient world unlike how they are today in the world in which we live we I identify as black white East Asian and so on based on various physical features such as skin tone we understand ourselves to belong to different racial groups that have different genetic heritages and see the people of our race as being biologically descended from ancestors that we share in common thus people of the same race whether they're a king an aristocrat or just a mere farmer are seen as sharing a genetic commonality a genealogical bond however the ancient understanding of genealogy and ancestry is a very very different they had no notion of genetic connections tying together the ancestry of the ruling Elites and the subject peasants under them quite the contrary the ruling Elites almost always claimed to be from An ancestry that was completely separate from and even uncontaminated by the rest of society which was under their control the fact that the peasants may or may not have had a similar skin tone and facial features to these Royals was utterly irrelevant and of course the very fact that these Royals came from a supposedly Superior ancestry was part of the justification for why they had the right to rule over the low-born peasants in the first place so not only did these Kings and Emperors distinguish their lineage and ancestry from the rest of society but they usually went even further claiming that they were descended from gods or other Divine figures in contrast to the mere mortals over whom they ruled now Cleopatra's dynastic family the ptolemaic Dynasty is a perfect example of this this royal family was descended from one of Alexander the Great's main generals patonomy who was a Macedonian Greek and who positioned himself as the true successor to Alexander's Legacy and Empire just like Alexander the potomies also claimed to be divine figures because Alexander claimed to be the son of Zeus the king of the Gods in the Greek pantheon but after his conquest of Egypt Alexander also claimed to be the son of Amman the chief Egyptian deity with two horns in this coin you can see how Alexander himself is depicted with horns signifying his Divine ancestry Cleopatra's family carried on the Divine Cult of Alexander after his death claiming to be lesser Gods who were given custodianship to rule on Alexander's behalf the protonies then organ and led the worship of Alexander as a sort of divine priesthood and by extension they themselves were made Divine through building temples for worshiping him and overseeing public rituals in his honor the potomies were quote-unquote temple-sharing Gods signifying that they were deified in association with their original God King Alexander the Potomac queens were also considered gods just as their male counterparts were for example take Arizona the second who was given the title sibling goddess or Cleopatra III who carried the title of mother loving goddess as these titles suggest the potomies understood themselves to be a family of gods and accordingly they were aversed to contaminating their lineage and divine ancestry by marrying people from outside their family as the title of sibling goddess clearly indicates the potomies continued the Egyptian Royal tradition of inbreeding and sibling marriages to keep their bloodline pure so this is the family of Cleopatra the seventh which is the Cleopatra depicted in this docudrama and in films in general given this information I find it jarring if not outright embarrassing when people make claims such as Cleopatra was black don't let them deny our ancestry or Cleopatra was light-skinned like you and I don't let them Steal Our Heritage and history if any of these people could be placed into a time machine and transported back to Cleopatra's Court they would only embarrass themselves by claiming any sort of kinship with Cleopatra in fact they would probably get themselves executed imagine a non-royal a mere peasant shows up at the Royal Court and is somehow given an audience with the god Queen Cleopatra and has the temerity to say I don't know something like you're my black sister or you're my Egyptian or Greek ancestor whatever claim to racial kinship and ancestry common ancestry it really doesn't matter all of these would almost certainly be regarded as offensive or even Blasphemous Cleopatra and her family's entire ideology was based on being Divine rulers whose ancestry tied them to gods and here comes a mere mortal peasant and claims to share ancestry with the god Queen that is not only Blasphemous but the people in the course might interpret it as a challenge to Cleopatra's claim to the throne they would ask themselves if this crazy person claiming to be a quote-unquote sister is actually putting a claim forward to be a descendant of Ptolemy and thus a rival heir to Cleopatra needless to say it wouldn't end well but what did she look like this is probably a faithful depiction of Cleopatra it's a bust from the time of her visits to Rome in 46 to 44 BCE we don't know for sure whether the artists saw Cleopatra with his own eyes or was working from second-hand descriptions or even just his imagination it's impossible to tell with absolute certainty but given that Cleopatra's known ancestors hailed from macadon that they intermarried with Persian and levantine nobility and lastly also intermarried to some extent probably with local Egyptian Elites and former royalty we can guess that she probably looked something like a typical inhabitant of the Eastern Mediterranean region so if you're looking for a modern day country where a magically resurrected Cleopatra would be physically inconspicuous among the majority of the inhabitants there then your best bet is perhaps turkey Lebanon Egypt these would be good examples I have to emphasize that this is merely an informed guess and it's entirely possible that Cleopatra was darker skinned or lighter skinned than the average inhabitants of the Eastern Mediterranean littoral possible but I don't think that likely in any case I failed to see the significance of this as a historian discussions on race and skin color as the basis of identity really don't belong to the realm of ancient history however I think that each Society usually reinterprets the past according to its own preconceptions and its own values take for example these 18th and 19th century European paintings which depict Cleopatra as a distinctly West European looking woman or even the 1963 film Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor in the lead role I think in all of these cases we see a depiction of Cleopatra which is made for a West European and North American white audience who like to see themselves reflected in the art that they consume I think that the Netflix docudrama is not fundamentally different as African Americans gain a larger share of Film Production and form an increasingly viable consumer base for such Productions we see that they too want to be reflected in the Arts that they produce and consume both depictions of Cleopatra are of course anachronistic and out of line with historical evidence but as a historian I've come to understand that audiences do not go to the cinema or even watch documentaries to be shown a historically accurate picture they want to be entertained and just as importantly for themselves and their values to be reflected in what they watch if you watch this video and enjoyed it I suggest you watch another video in which I discuss why Mad Max is a historically authentic film and how its main villain has a number of striking parallels with some actual historical rulers from Islamic history if these are to your liking then subscribe and click the notification spell goodbye

Channel: Historian’s Perspective

Views: 75,000

Keywords: History, Netflix, Cleopatra, Race, Racism, Egypt, Black American, African American

Id: pQo6-T5dlHc

Length: 10min 48sec (648 seconds)

Published: Thu May 04 2023