Netflix Cleopatra Documentary Sued For Blackwashing
An Egyptian lawyer is suing Netflix over casting a Black woman as the titular figure in the docu-series Queen Cleopatra.
Netflix might be the King of Streaming, but a new lawsuit suggests a better moniker for the platform would be Queen of Denial. According to the Greek City Times, an Egyptian lawyer is suing Netflix in an effort to shut down their new Queen Cleopatra documentary over a Black Cleopatra. In addition to the documentary, the lawyer is asking for the complete shutdown of Netflix in Egypt.
The crux of Lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary’s complaint seems to be that Netflix cast a Black woman to play Cleopatra when the real-life Egyptian queen was of Greek descent. This alleged “blackwashing” appears to be the inverse of a trend that has haunted Hollywood since its inception; the casting of white actors to portray people of color or whitewashing.
Mahmoud al-Semary is calling for all legal measures available to be taken against Netflix and all those responsible for the Cleopatra documentary that he describes as a “crime.” The official complaint submitted by al-Semary cites that most of what Netflix has revealed about Queen Cleopatra so far “contradicts Islamic and societal values and principles, especially Egyptian ones.”
The lawsuit claims that Netlix’s version of Cleopatra promotes Afrocentrism and runs parallel to a social media trend where posts try to distort and obliterate the Egyptian identity. The lawsuit goes even further, calling for an end to all broadcasts that seek to destroy Egyptian identity and falsify Egyptian history.
There has long been a debate in academia over the complexion of the ancient Egyptians. Some assume, given Egypt’s location on the continent of Africa, that Egyptians, pharaohs included, would have had dark skin. Others say that ancient Egypt was most likely home to several ethnicities of all shades ranging from white to black.
One could argue that Netflix casting a black woman to play Cleopatra is the same thing as the cast of Hamilton, most of which are people of color, playing America’s white founding fathers. The difference, however, is that no one watching Hamilton actually believes that George Washington was black. Cleopatra, on the other hand, is considered to be a woman of color by many people already.
Netflix claiming their Queen Cleopatra is a documentary only further muddies the water when it comes to the Egyptian queen’s real identity.
When it comes to movies and TV shows portraying characters of the wrong ethnicity, the trend tends to run in the opposite direction. Most of the time, it’s like the 2007 movie A Mighty Heart, where Angelina Jolie played a woman of color, Marianne Pearl. Or Aloha, where Emma Stone plays a character of Chinese and Hawaiian descent.
Blackwashing real-life subjects, like Netflix’s Cleopatra, is a much rarer beast. Race swapping in favor of POC is usually only a common occurrence with fictional characters. Even then, it can still cause an uproar like the one over Disney‘s casting of a Black Ariel for their Little Mermaid live-action remake.
Meanwhile, shows like The Boys still get away with whitewashing characters (The Deep is a black man in the comic) with little or no fanfare whatsoever, proving that when it comes to race-swapping, some races face less backlash than others.
Whether Netflix will actually face any repercussions from the lawsuit remains to be seen.
