THE GUARDIAN 10 MAY 2023 - QUEEN CLEOPATRA REVIEW - THE IDEA THAT YOU NEED A WHITE ACTOR IS UTTERLY INSIDIOUS
Adele James, who stars in this curious Netflix's docudrama
about ancient Egypt’s most famous queen is the best thing about it – despite the furore around her race.
There’s often a debate about whether real-life subjects are better suited for drama or documentary treatment, the core (but admittedly oversimplified) belief being that documentaries serve primarily to educate while drama serves to entertain. Netflix’s docudrama Queen
Cleopatra tries to have its cake and eat it too: it has all the campy fun of
Cleopatra the soap opera in dramatic re-enactments, but intersperses them with straight-faced expertise from academic talking heads. Despite these historians’ impressive credentials, the drama outshines the testimony at every turn. Executive producer
Jada Pinkett Smith delivers the narration with such sombre self-righteousness that it sucks the joy out of the atmosphere. It’s a deliciously fun drama weighed down by the self-serious need to
educate.
The biggest buzz about Netflix’s latest comes from casting a Cleopatra with light brown skin and curly hair – it met with uproar from those who insisted that she couldn’t possibly be Black. This insistence on her whiteness is curious, as much of her lineage (including her mother’s race) is unknown. Her
Macedonian roots had spent eight generations in Egypt at the time of her birth, and many of the specifics of her family tree have been lost to the annals of time. But while that uncertainty opens her up to being played by any number of actors, it is notable that some see blue-eyed
Elizabeth Taylor and Israeli
Wonder Woman
Gal Gadot as more accurate.
Cleopatra’s precise skin and hair texture are up for speculation, but to default to whiteness is insidious and ridiculous. Cultural acceptance of an image of a beautiful white woman with a straight jet-black bob does not make it a fact, as her portraits of the era are limited to the sides of coins, and tales of her stunning looks were written hundreds of years after her death.
In this docudrama, she is played by Adele James, a mixed-race actor with a glorious crown of dark curls who brings a fierce intelligence to her portrayal of
Cleopatra. James folds the Queen’s inner turmoil into every step of her journey, from a naive princess poring over text in the
Alexandria libraries to a formidable queen who would rather die than succumb to a life in bondage. It’s hard not to feel that she is the programme’s greatest strength.
The series puts little stock in the particular skin colour of its lead, given the uncertainty of her appearance. In fact, it suggests that people tend to view
Cleopatra as their proxy. The African American academic Prof Shelley P Haley says that, like her grandmother, she pictures her as Black. Dr Islam Issa says he imagines her as having the same pale brown skin and curly hair as he does. Identifying her as one thing or another amounts to little more than guesswork and presumes that race is, or ever was, a fixed concept.
Yet despite their solid credentials and insight into her origins, the talking heads regularly feel more like fans than historians. Some of their insights resemble fan fiction, particularly when they speculate as to how great a lover
Cleopatra must have been. Given the two millennia that have passed, describing her and
Caesar’s trysts seem overly salacious, but to their credit, the actors perform it with steamy aplomb. It illustrates how successful this could have been as a campy drama where dramatic licence could have gone full sexy soap opera. It’s clear that they want to have a little fun with the documentary elements, but using terms like “ghosting” when describing
Marc Antony’s three-year absence feels incongruous. James’s characterisation of
Cleopatra as a female badass feels plucked from contemporary
graphic
novels, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A nonfiction sexing up of one of the most powerful women who ever lived, espousing knowledge of her prowess in the bedroom, however, is a more uneasy proposition.
Despite having to vacillate between descriptions of her subject as a politician, a seductress and a warrior, James manages to excel in each. She brings intelligence and nuance to a performance that is strikingly better than what surrounds her – which seems apt, given that
Cleopatra was undeniably such an exceptional force of nature. Even when faced with hordes of angry citizens or soldiers that clearly amount to little more than a few dozen extras, James maintains an air of a leader commanding thousands. Her portrayal keeps the programme’s energy alive and interesting for those familiar with the history, even though it’s aimed at those with only cursory knowledge of it. It conveys why
Cleopatra is still a household name in 2023, and how complex and extraordinary her life was. Sadly, those who can only see this story in black and white have missed the point.
Leila Latif
BLACKWASHING IN OTHER FILMS AND SHOWS
James Bond (2022) - Talk of casting Idris Elba (proposed) as the British secret service spy.
Anne Boleyn (2021) - Black English actress Jodie Turner-Smith played the Queen of England in a British TV series. Anne Boleyn was white and the second wife of
King Henry
VIII.
Saint Joan (2020) - Black New Yorker Condola Rashad played the French heroine Joan of Arc in a stage production of the tale set in the 15th century. In the play, Rashad is a gender non-confirming Joan.
Troy: Fall of a City (2018) - In the TV drama, Achilles, the Greek hero of the Trojan War is played by black English actor David Gyasi.
The Hollow Crown (2012 - 2016) - Sophie Okonedo, a Nigerian-British actress, played Queen Margaret of Anjou in the Shakespearean TV adaptation. Margaret, of French descent, was Queen of England and married to King Henry VI from 1445 to 1461.
Once Upon a Time (2011 - 2018) - The ABC series about fairytales features a black actor Sinqua Walls as
Sir
Lancelot. Lancelot is a British character who features as one of King
Arthur's close companions and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. Arthur was a legendary king of Britain and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition.
Robin Hood (2006 - 2009) - The BBC series featured black English actor David Harewood as Friar Tuck. Friar Tuck is one of the legendary Merry Men, the band of heroic outlaws in the folklore of Robin Hood which was set in England's Sherwood Forest in the 15th century.
MEDIA
INDEX
BBC
NEWS - NETFLIX CLEOPATRA DOCUDRAMA 10 MAY 2023
BRISBANE
TIMES - RADAR REVEALS POSSIBLE LOCATION CLEOPATRA'S TOMB 2009
BRITISH
MUSEUM - CLEOPATRA,
17 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER OF CANDACE, THEBES
CBC
- CLEOPATRA OUTSMARTED EVERYONE, FEBRUARY 2021
CBS
- WHY
SOME EGYPTIANS ARE FUMING OVER NETFLIX'S BLACK CLEOPATRA
DAILY
MAIL - ADELE JAMES BREAK SILENCE AS TO BLACKWASHING CLAIMS MAY 2023
DISCOVERY
MAGAZINE - JUNE
7 2023, WILL WE EVER FIND THE TOMB OF CLEOPATRA?
GREEK
CITY TIMES - ARCHAEOLOGIST CLAIMS TO BE CLOSE TO DISCOVERY OF CLEOPATRA
2021
LIVESCIENCE
- WHERE IS CLEOPATRA'S TOMB/PALACE JULY 2020
NATURE
- STUDY
90 MUMMIES REVEALS ANCESTRY ANCIENT EGYPTIANS: MIDDLE EASTERN JUNE
2017
ROTTEN
TOMATOES - CLEOPATRA
CRITICS, SERIES 1 REVIEWS MAY 2023
SKY
HISTORY - THE
HIDDEN TOMB OF CLEOPATRA MARCH 2023
SKYE
NEVILLE - PLASTIC FREE COMICS, WAITROSE BANS
SPECTATOR
- THE
TROUBLE WITH NETFLIX'S QUEEN CLEOPATRA 29 MAY 2023
THE
CONVERSATION - WHY
THE DISCOVERY OF CLEOPATRA'S TOMB COULD REWRITE HISTORY 2022
THE
GUARDIAN - NETFLIX, NO NEED FOR WHITE ACTOR 10 MAY 2023
THE
SUN - QUEEN CLEOPATRA'S TOMB, TAPOSIRIS MAGNA 2020
THE
SUN - THE REICH STUFF: GLOBAL HUNT FOR HITLER'S LOST £20 BILLION NAZI GOLD HORDE APRIL 2021
TWITTER
- ON CLEOPATRA SERIES BY NETFLIX MAY 2023
UNDERWATER
PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE - CLEOPATRA'S SUNKEN PALACE
USA
TODAY - MUSTAFA
WAZIRI, ALEXANDRIA, EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGISTS 2018
YOUTUBERS
- MAKEUP,
CLEOPATRA'S FACE & EYE COSMETICS, MUMMY MASK
YOUTUBERS
- NETFLIX VIDEO COMMENTS MAY 2023
ZAHI
HAWASS - DOCUMENTARY: CLEOPATRA VII PHILOPATOR
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/10/queen-cleopatra-review-a-fun-drama-weighed-down-by-the-self-serious-need-to-educate
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-65574733
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12065875/Adele-James-breaks-silence-Queen-Cleopatra-blackwashing-claims.html
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/queen-cleopatra-actress-adele-james-says-claims-of-blackwashing-are-fundamentally-racist/ar-AA1b4dq6
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/may/10/queen-cleopatra-review-a-fun-drama-weighed-down-by-the-self-serious-need-to-educate
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-africa-65574733
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12065875/Adele-James-breaks-silence-Queen-Cleopatra-blackwashing-claims.html
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/entertainment/news/queen-cleopatra-actress-adele-james-says-claims-of-blackwashing-are-fundamentally-racist/ar-AA1b4dq6
CLONED
REPLICANT - Using the latest technology in computer genome mapping and
digital DNA splicing, an occult sect of scientists, reincarnate Cleopatra
VII, who died in 30BC, having located and plundered her sarcophagus from
its watery grave. The resurrected Pharaoh has to mesh with the modern
world she's been reborn into, where the Fourth Reich harbour evil plans
for her. We
are looking to build a team of artists for a series of John
Storm graphic novels. Students and professionals, all
welcome - if you like this style of illustration - and stories to amaze.
DOCUDRAMA?
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