Queen Cleopatra - The Most Hated Show Of All Time?

we live in a divided World dear viewer it seems like even the most innocuous subjects or the most fundamental aspects of reality are now subject to constant debate and contention and nowhere is that division more obvious than in the world of media where every new movie and TV show becomes a Battleground between war and factions each determined to prove that they're in the rights but sometimes just sometimes a project comes along that so monumentally epically and comprehensively terrible that it manages to unite the entire world in absolute contempt it happened before with Santa Inc a theoretical comedy made by two talentless mean-spirited hacks posing as comedians who haven't actually produced anything remotely funny in more than a decade which tried to use feminism and identity politics to attack the literal personification of Good Will and generosity at Christmas time no less it's a bold strategy cotton let's see if it pays off for them and it seems to be happening again with the release of Queen Cleopatra a Netflix documentary series produced by one of the least popular actresses in Hollywood's and that's saying something believe me centered around female African rulers throughout history I mean calling it a documentary is a bit like Colin and glorious bastards a historically accurate depiction of World War II but don't worry we'll get back to that soon enough believe that anyway the show kicked up a firestorm of controversy and backlash earned itself the lowest rating that I've ever personally seen on Rotten Tomatoes and even managed to get itself sued on behalf of the entire country of Egypt damn man this thing's about as popular as the salad bar at lizzo's birthday party so why are people so [ __ ] mad about this thing anyway well the main criticism centers around the recasting of Cleopatra sorry reimagining because I guess that's what we call it now when we blatantly try to rewrite verified historical facts to suit our own 21st century narrative and Gaslight anyone who calls a sight on our [ __ ] is hateful bigots kind of like how the woman king tried to reimagine a brutal expansionist military dictatorship who massacred entire communities and happily sold their own people into slavery as a progressive and enlightened Society to be cherished and protected and a unit of female warriors who once lost more than 500 troops to kill a grand total of six French soldiers as an elite fighting force that would make the Avengers [ __ ] themselves in absolute Terror oh yeah I think I can smell shite you know it's always funny watching Hollywood activists come in the pages of history in search of some hidden truth though finally validate all their long-standing biases and personal Hang-Ups and when they inevitably come up short just kind of throwing up their hands and saying [ __ ] it we'll just make it up insteads sorry reimagine it the thing is works of historical fiction like the woman king or Braveheart or 300 generally get caught a bit of slack because well the Clue's in the name the works of fiction yeah fiction based on real events very Loosely in some cases but fiction all the same I'm not a huge fan of it myself because I know how many people can be misled by stuff like this but hey I also wasn't born yesterday Real History is often muddy and complex and doesn't deliver the big satisfying emotional payoffs that people expect from movies telling compelling stories that people want to see sometimes means bending and embellishing the truth documentaries are a very different Beast though because the whole point is to give the audience an accurate and unbiased insight into real events backed up by facts and evidence from eyewitnesses and experts in the relevant Fields their very purpose is to separate fact from fiction and delve deeper into the actual reality behind the myths and commonly held beliefs and that's where Cleopatra runs into a spot of trouble because the whole motivation of this show seems to be the exact opposite it's there to bend and distort reality to turn her into something she absolutely wasn't in order to fit The Narrative of the showrunners see the stated goal of the African queen series is to shed light on important black female rulers throughout history unknown and overlooked people who actually had a big impact on the worlds as producer Jada Pinkett Smith said we don't often get to see or hear stories about black queens and that was really important for me as well as for my daughter and just for the community to be able to know those stories because there's tons of them fair play Jada I can totally get behind that one after all there's plenty of historical people and events that haven't had the mainstream attention that they deserve the problem I suspect they ran into with this one is that female rulers have organized nation-states in sub-Saharan Africa that had a major and lasting impact on World History are probably a bit thin on the grounds and rather than dig deeper to find more obscure figures that might not have mainstream appeal they just decided [ __ ] it we'll just take Cleopatra and make her ours now [ __ ] because everyone knows about Cleopatra right she's the kind of name that will bring your series a lot of attention and if you can somehow convince enough people that she was actually black all along then you learn yourself a lot of Praise from your big friends in Hollywood's because after all how do we really know what Cleopatra looked like it's not like her Macedonian Greek Heritage was a well-documented matter of verified historical record or that we have countless portraits statues busts freezies and even coins with her face on them all depicting her with classical Greek facial features oh wait but hey maybe they've got some awesome new evidence that's just come to light or compelling testimony from respected figures in their fields I imagine her to have curly hair like me and a similar skin color I remember my grandmother saying to me I don't care what they tell you in school Cleopatra was black well if your senile old Grand reckons that a ptolemaic ruler born thousands of years before her lifetime was black then I'm convinced yes I can definitely smell shite but it really gives you an insight into the mindset of the showrunners on this one the childly simplistic idea that if you choose to believe in something then it just magically becomes the truth even if all the evidence at your disposal says the exact opposites it's the same reason that I'm not actually 200 feet tall and made out of solid Golds [ __ ] man even the Egyptians have gone to war against this thing the head of the Supreme Council for Antiquities Mustafa waziri said that calling Cleopatra black would be a falsification of Egyptian history and the Netflix is trying to stir up confusion to spread false information that the origin of Egyptian civilization is black see that's the problem with trying to appropriate an actual documented historical figure and pass off your [ __ ] wish fulfillment fantasy as a legit unbiased documentary you really have to provide receipts to back it up and if the best you can come up with is my grant told me to believe a comforting lie to make me feel better about myself then funnily enough people are gonna push back against it so how do you think the shoe Runners reacted to this backlash did they take this criticism on the chin acknowledge the complaints and apologize for any offense caused are you serious well not really no why shouldn't Cleopatra be a melanated sister series director Tina garavi asks and why do some people need Cleopatra to be white her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter no kidding Tina I suspect it does matter that you're trying to rewrite their own history for them and project 21st century American ideals onto something that you've got little or no understanding of it's not just that I've directed A series that portrays Cleopatra as black and that I've asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans and they're furious at me for that I'm okay with this well as long as you're okay with it then I guess that's just fine never mind that you've insulted the cultural heritage of more than a hundred million Egyptians and turn pretty much the entire internet against you and your shitty projects the only thing that truly matters is what you want what makes you happy the truth that you choose to believe you know I'm trying to think of a phrase that best sums up this kind of mindset shh [ __ ] humorous no I've got nothing so was Cleopatra black we don't know for sure but we can be certain that she wasn't white like Elizabeth Taylor we need to have a conversation with ourselves about our colorism and the internal wise white supremacy that Hollywood is indoctrinated us with oh come on see I can tell what you're trying to do here you're trying to equate two very different things in order to deflect the entire question away from yourself so what if my supposed documentary that claims to be based on hard scientific facts is actually wildly inaccurate nonsense with no basis in reality this fictional movie that I saw from half a century ago was also wrong so that makes it totally okay no it doesn't John Wayne playing Genghis Khan in the Conqueror was also ridiculous Hollywood nonsense from a different era of filmmaking but if you try to make a factual documentary now claiming that Genghis Khan was actually a black man because we don't know for sure what he actually looked like then you'd rightfully piss off the whole of Mongolia in the process the point I'm making here is that nobody's buying the [ __ ] you're desperately trying to sell them and you don't just get to use racism as a magical Shield to deflect any criticism that comes your way the fact is you made something that you knew was a lie that you tried to pass off as the truth because you exist in the kind of bubble where everyone's fantasy become comes their own Unique Reality and nobody questions it and so you just assume that the rest of the world thinks the same way and when you got the hard reality check that you absolutely deserved you fell back on the same tired excuses that get rolled out anytime a lazy race swapped Hollywood production comes Under Fire it didn't work back then and it's certainly not gonna work for you now but hey maybe Cleopatra can serve as a lesson for future generations of documentary makers that what we want to be true is often very different from what's actually true and if you can't deal with that then maybe you shouldn't be making them in the first place anyway that's all I've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 3,830,655

Keywords: review, critical drinker, jada pinkett smith, funny, best, feminism, feminist

Id: nie_LASiZJ0

Length: 10min 21sec (621 seconds)

Published: Mon May 15 2023