“I detest the Queen,” Cicero opined in around 44BC. The Roman statesman had, at least, held court with Cleopatra before he formed his unflattering opinion of her. Others were less scrupulous. Most surviving classical texts about the last queen of Egypt were written about a century or more after she died in 30BC; the historian Plutarch, Mark Antony’s biographer, fashioned the ruler as a power-hungry manipulator of men. Nor were these authors objective observers of history: Plutarch and his Roman contemporaries tarnished Cleopatra’s name to glorify the Romans who had defeated her.
As these dubious sources suggest, very little is known about the monarch. (Accounts of women in antiquity—even ruling ones—are scant). That has not stopped historians, poets and authors from trying to flesh out the historical record. The mystery may be part of the allure. Western writers latched on to Cleopatra’s tragic love affairs with Caesar and Mark Antony; medieval sources from the Maghreb praised the pharaoh’s military prowess and her “wisdom”. “As time goes on, different people have seen different things in the story,” says Jane Draycott of Glasgow University.
Producers at Netflix are the latest to reconstruct the ruler’s life in “Queen Cleopatra”, a new four-part documentary-drama released on Wednesday. It is part of the “African Queens” history series that Jada Pinkett Smith, an actor, has produced for the streamer. In many respects, Netflix’s pharaoh is not so different from the one depicted by Arabic writers; she is devoted to Egypt. But there is one matter on which these versions of history diverge: the colour of her skin.
Adele James, a mixed-race British actor, plays the lead role in Netflix’s production (pictured, above). This prompted outrage in Egypt: people took to social media to accuse the streaming giant of “blackwashing” Egyptian history. The country’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities released a statement declaring that Cleopatra was “light-skinned”. The spat is indicative of modern Egypt’s protectionist view towards its ancient civilisations. It also exemplifies how academic enquiry into the past is becoming enmeshed with modern identity politics.
Yet Netflix’s decision to depict Cleopatra in this way is not without justification. In the first episode, commentators acknowledge the uncertainty over the monarch’s racial heritage. Like their predecessors, the show’s experts were working from patchy historical material. To fill in gaps, they relied on the principle of “competitive plausibility”, explains Shelley Haley of Hamilton College in New York state, who appears in the documentary. In other words, the historians considered all the possible scenarios and surmised which was the most likely. This is not a novel or unorthodox approach. But a historian’s own identity influences how they interpret sources, points out Professor Haley. “We can’t be objective,” she argues.
Writing in Variety, Tina Gharavi, the director, explained that she wanted to highlight an often overlooked part of Cleopatra’s story. Hollywood, she argued, has a “stranglehold” over the ruler’s image—a reference to the light-skinned actors who have previously been cast to play her. It is possible that the queen of the Nile had darker skin. Records say she hailed from a Greek-Macedonian dynasty, but the identity of her grandmothers and mother are not known for certain. They could have been native Egyptians; some in this multi-ethnic group may have had darker skin. Not that the Egyptian queen would have been aware of any such racial categories; back then “you were either Egyptian or you were not,” summarises Monica Hanna, an archeologist from Egypt.
That Cleopatra’s ancestry is ambiguous does little to mollify Egyptians who maintain that Egypt has its own identity, distinct from the rest of Africa’s. Ms James’s portrayal of Cleopatra, they feel, ignores that. But the vitriol is tainted by racism; “anti-black” discrimination has long been a serious problem in the Arab country.
“Queen Cleopatra” touches another sore point for Egyptians, concerning who gets to study their ancient civilisations and tell these stories. Until recently, Westerners have dominated Egyptology, a discipline with colonial origins. A desire to reclaim their history from outsiders is perhaps why some Egyptian film-makers are offering up their own narrative—most likely as a response to Netflix’s production. An Egyptian media channel announced in April that it would make its own documentary about Cleopatra. They will strive, they say, for something akin to an objective recreation of history. That is a noble quest, but an impossible one. ■
“Queen Cleopatra” is streaming on Netflix now
This content was originally published here.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.