A thinly-veiled guise for anti-Blackness has Egyptians enraged and wanting to clarify history. The African nation’s citizens are outraged over the “Blackwashing” of Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra. One Egyptian attorney has a lawsuit against the streaming giant.
According to the Egypt Independent, Mahmoud al-Semary filed a lawsuit against the streaming platform last week, demanding that the Northeast African nation ban the Jada Pinkett Smith-produced documentary because it would obliterate and distort Egyptian identity. The trailer for Queen Cleopatra depicts the Queen of Egypt as an unambiguously Black woman.
Although Adele James, the British actress portraying Cleopatra VII of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, is biracial, her complexion and features are just Black enough to cause an uproar among Egyptians.
Mahmoud isn’t alone in his outward disdain for Black skin, but he is the only person that frivolously filed a lawsuit. BBC News reported that former Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass called Adele’s casting and depiction “completely fake.”
He elaborated, saying, “Cleopatra was Greek, meaning she was light-skinned, not Black. Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilization is Black.”
His use of “light-skinned” as the antithesis of Black is rich because Greeks identify as white.
Zahi’s anti-Black rhetoric and the erasure of data that proves that Black Egyptians are a thing is a cause for pause. According to The Collector, many prominent Black Egyptians were depicted in art, and their mummies indicated they were very much phenotypically Black.
At the same time, there is evidence that Egyptians resembled modern-day white Syrians, Turks, Jordanians and Israelis.
Queen Cleopatra’s executive producer Pinkett Smith argued against the assertion that her version of the monarch couldn’t be Black, saying, “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 my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them.”
“The sad part is that we don’t have ready access to these historical women who were so powerful and were the backbones of African nations.”
The documentary’s lead, Adele, told haters on social media not to watch the series “if you don’t like the casting.”
Besides, Hollywood has had a longstanding reputation for using a creative license concerning its portrayal of Egypt’s most famous queen.
Egyptian dissent concerning fervently boycotting Netflix or getting the show removed has less to do with standing up for accurate representation (remember, Cleopatra was not ethnically Arab) and more to do with being anti-Black.
The not-so-African queen was ironically whitewashed further by two white Jewish women because she was of Macedonian-Greek origin. Elizabeth Taylor’s famous portrayal and Gal Gadot’s tabled version were criticized, but not to the extent that Pinkett Smith’s version was.
“Blackwashing,” the documentary’s protagonist, is complete foolishness because the concept doesn’t exist theoretically. It’s as asinine as the notion of reverse racism or colorism. In a nutshell, Black people don’t have the power or resources to be complicit in the erasure of history.
However, anti-Blackness is a global epidemic, especially in Egypt. In subtle and more visceral ways, the former being distinguishing themselves as North African first, leaning into their Arab affiliation and rarely mixing with fellow Africans with darker complexions, even when they share the same nationality and heritage. White Egyptians and other North Africans spew racist vitriol at their Black counterparts for sport.
Anti-Blackness also rears its ugly head in religion. North African Muslims associate more with their Arab brethren than Black fellow believers south of the Sahara.
The divide also extends to the United States, with ethnic and colorist segregation playing out in American mosques between those of Arab-descent and Black African Muslims and Black folks who descend from enslaved peoples that found Islam for themselves in the 20th century.
As the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan nears, it is unfortunate to see those who devoutly practice Islam not walk in its principles of tolerance and love for its people.
Egyptians’ weak battlecry to ensure that their most famous queen maintains the whiteness surrounding her image is a haunting reminder that their version of Cleopatra displayed their understanding of royalty, and Blackness is the opposite of that.
Imagine hating Black folks in the Blackest place on earth.
“Blackwashing” Cleopatra? Hardly. However, if Egypt does want to dismantle and draw attention to a problem regarding racial imagery being misrepresented in the media…
Try googling “Blackface” instead.
