Since Netflix unveiled the movie trailer Queen Cleopatra (released on May 10), a controversy has invaded social networks and the Egyptian press. For critics of this docu-fiction, the queen from a Hellenistic dynasty was not black but white, which does not correspond to the skin color of actress Adele James who plays her role. According to them, Netflix would seek to discredit the true Egyptian story. Some have gone further: it would be a plot linked to the Afrocentrism movement which intends to highlight the particular identity and the contributions of the cultures of sub-Saharan Africa to world history.
The documentary film’s introductory text claims that Cleopatra’s legacy has always been “the subject of much scholarly controversy, which has often been ignored by Hollywood”. He points out that this new film will reassess his story. Right after the trailer aired, Egyptians posted an appeal on Change.org against the film, which garnered over 70,000 signatures within days. Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud El-Semari filed a complaint to obtain the closure of the Netflix platform in Egypt. In the text of this complaint, published in several Arab newspapers, we read: “The management of the platform will publish a documentary film on Queen Cleopatra who was of Macedonian origin, presenting her as black (…). In opposition to Egyptian history and civilization, in order to promote the Afrocentrist ideology widely present on social networks, they used slogans and writings aimed at distorting and destroying the Egyptian identity”.
For the Egyptian historian Youssef Zeidane, “it’s bullshit on the part of Netflix, Cleopatra was not African. That does not mean that we are against Africans, but this film is far from the truth. We we still have coins from the time of Cleopatra, where you can clearly see that she was not black.” Zahi Hawass, archaeologist and former Egyptian minister of antiquities, said in a statement to BBC Arabic that “the documentary film about the queen is a falsification of Egyptian history”. According to him, “it shows a dark-skinned queen, although she was of European descent. It is known that queens and princesses of these origins were blonde”. For her part, Somaya Khashab, a famous actress in Arab countries, wrote on Twitter: “I consider black Africans as very beautiful people. The problem for me is not the color of the skin, but it’s “is that Cleopatra has turned black, just like the other Egyptians in the film. This color has nothing to do with that of the Egyptians.”
Between 1912 and 2015, sixteen films were produced about the Queen of Egypt, in which Cleopatra was always a white woman. It is the image consecrated in the Arab memory of this queen who ruled Egypt, under the domination of the Roman Empire, with her brother Ptolemy XIII. As the two leaders did not agree on how to run the country, Cleopatra ended up taking refuge with Julius Caesar, whom she seduced with her beauty and her words. The latter helps him regain power after beating his brother, killed at the end of a battle. A few years later, in 40 BC, after the death of Caesar, Marc Antony shares the power of the empire with Octave and, very quickly, a civil war breaks out between the two. Marc, who has become Cleopatra’s lover, loses to Octave and commits suicide. Cleopatra ends her life as soon as she hears the news.
Egyptian journalist Loay Al Khateeb pointed to the alliance between Netflix and Afrocentrism. “What logic makes me believe, as a spectator, that Cleopatra, of Macedonian origin, resembled this woman?”. For influencer Nour Emad, “this film shows how dangerous Afrocentrism has become by changing history to its advantage”. These comments, like hundreds of others, do not speak in any way about the content of the film, but focus on the physical aspect of its main actress.
Historian Jane Draycott
In the trailer for the film, a historian says: “I remember my grandmother telling me: I don’t care what they tell you at school, Cleopatra was black”, without specifying the historical references of this theory. The film’s producer, American actress Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, said in an interview published on Netflix: “A lot of times you don’t see or hear stories about black queens. Making this movie was important. for me and for my daughter so that society knows their stories. There are many, Cleopatra is a queen known to many, but most people do not know her truth.”
We interviewed Jane Draycott, archaeologist specializing in Roman civilization, professor at the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom, and author of the book Cleopatra’s Daughter: From Roman Prisoner to African Queen (published in 2022 in English by Head of Zeus editions). “We don’t know and probably never will know Cleopatra’s skin color,” she says. “Unless archaeologists find his grave and his body is sufficiently preserved to allow forensic analysis. But today there is no definitive evidence, his appearance is not described in any ancient document. The only portraits specifying her color are on coins, but they are very crude and variable.We don’t know who her mother was or her father’s mother, so we can only make suggestions as to whether she was entirely of Macedonian or Egyptian descent”. Above all, racial categories are always ideological constructions of their time. “The ancients didn’t think of race like we do today, they didn’t think in terms of ‘white’ or ‘black.’ Cleopatra thought of herself as Macedonian and Egyptian, and she may also have been a Roman citizen . It presented itself in different ways depending on the audience.” Jane Draycott’s conclusion: “Anyone who says she was ‘definitely’ anything is either ignoring the story or is being deliberately dishonest”.
*Writer and poet born in Damascus, Omar Youssef Souleiman took part in the demonstrations against the regime of Bashar el-Assad, but, tracked down by the secret services, had to flee Syria in 2012. A refugee in France, he published with Flammarion The Little Terrorist, The Last Syrian And A House in Exile.