A few weeks ago, I noted that Netflix had created a furor with the “black-washing” of the upcoming “documentary focused on Cleopatra VII, the famous queen of Egypt.
The ire in Egypt over casting a black actress as historically accurate, when records and historians show she had Macedonian Greek lineage, was astonishing. One of the nation’s lawyers was planning to sue the streaming network and many Egyptians wanted to boot Netflix completely out of the country.
I said I would probably watch it. However, this weekend, I opted not to do so.
Despite my love of ancient Egypt, I was in no mood for a woke-umentary. Additionally, Cleopatra as “Xena, Warrior Princess” in ancient Egyptian attire is an insult to my intelligence and sensibilities.
It seems I made a good choice. Netflix’s “Cleopatra” has been an entertainment disaster. It has achieved a historically low number on Rotten Tomatoes.
…[T]he show has done something I didn’t think was even possible. It has not just the lowest audience score in Netflix history, it has essentially the lowest audience score possible on Rotten Tomatoes, a 1%. Not a 10%, a 1%. (Update: It just ticked up to 2%. Still an unprecedented low)There aren’t many critic reviews in, but those are low as well, with the show sitting at a 13%. But those audience scores? I’ve never seen anything like this. Not with bad shows. Not with politically controversial shows prone to review bombing. Never this bad, not in Netflix history. Honesty, I think not even in TV history, at least with this many reviews in (over a thousand).
The audience reviews are scathing.
This is a disaster on all levels in its failure to entertain, captivate, world-build (or re-create, I guess), and educate. Everything about it is or at least feels wrong, either through bad artistic direction or plain historic inaccuracy.I’ve never seen a show also fail so big globally, upsetting entire countries of people overnight; and on different continents, no less!This truly represents the end of culture, the art of film-making has been reduced to nothing more than copy-pasting Wikipedia and spewing unfiltered nonsense into a five-page paper the night before it’s due, with nothing else in mind but beating the turnitin.com limit.
How big a disaster is this? About the same level of failure as the Battle of Actium was for the Egyptians.
Clearly, people worldwide are pushing back against woke, racialist narratives. However, instead of considering the complaints might be valid, the progressive press asserts the criticisms are…..racist.
To be clear, the docu-drama isn’t, in fact, arguing that Cleopatra was a dark-skinned Black woman with no Macedonian-Greek heritage at all, although the media storm around it might make you assume otherwise. Rather, its creators, including scholar Shelley Haley, professor of classics and African studies at Hamilton College, have asked us to imagine her as a woman of mixed heritage, hence the casting of a biracial actress. “Her ethnicity is not the focus of Queen Cleopatra, but we did intentionally decide to depict her of mixed ethnicity to reflect theories about Cleopatra’s possible Egyptian ancestry and the multicultural nature of ancient Egypt,” a statement from Netflix reads.Unsurprisingly, past depictions of Cleopatra featuring white women have been critically and publicly acclaimed, with Vivien Leigh, Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor all appearing as the Egyptian queen over the course of the 20th century. Not one of these women is Macedonian, Greek or Egyptian, meaning their casting was no more “authentic” than James’s, and yet it never incited scandal. And while Israeli actor Gal Gadot’s decision to play Cleopatra in a forthcoming biopic raised a few eyebrows when it was announced in 2020, it wasn’t met with nearly the level of vitriol as James’s casting.
Actually, in the trailer, an “expert” asserts Cleopatra was black…which counters the above argument.
There is good news for me, at least. The Egyptians are creating their own documentary.
Egypt has announced its own high-budget documentary about Queen Cleopatra VII, challenging Netflix’s controversial documentary about the same subject. The documentary will be produced by newly-launched channel Al-Watha’eqeya (The Documentary), according to an announcement on the channel’s Facebook page on April 30.“Al-Watha’eqeya have started preparations for the production of a documentary film about Queen Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy XII, the last king of the Ptolemaic dynasty that ruled Egypt following the death of Alexander the Great,” explains the post, indicating the documentary’s intention to highlight Cleopatra’s Macedonian-Greek origins.The channel also highlighted its aim to provide a detailed and accurate view, primarily through sessions with specialists in archaeology, anthropology, and history.
I imagine this project will be much better in every regard.
Netflix may have averted this disaster if any of its producers or executives had differing cultural or societal views and could order modifications to the project. However, until changes to the entertainment industry are allowed to occur, Hollywood will continue to sink under the weight of its woke dogma, just like Cleopatra’s barges did at Actium.
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