Key Points
- British actor Adele James will play Queen Cleopatra in a new series.
- The casting choice has triggered outrage from many Egyptians, who say that Cleopatra had light skin.
- The show's director says the casting was a "political choice".
Egypt's antiquities ministry insisted on Thursday that Cleopatra had "white skin and Hellenistic characteristics" in an ongoing row over a Netflix drama-documentary that depicts the famed beauty of antiquity as black.
"Queen Cleopatra", produced by Jada Pinkett Smith and starring Adele James, is due for release on the streaming platform on May 10.
But even before its release, "Queen Cleopatra" has already caused a storm of controversy in the North African nation.
What have the show's creators said about Cleopatra?
"As Egypt's last pharaoh, Cleopatra fights to protect her throne, family and legacy in this docudrama featuring reenactments and expert interviews," the Netflix site says of its upcoming production.
In an article written for , director Tina Gharavi said it was a "political choice" to cast Adele James.
Actor Adele James (left) has told critics to not watch the show if they don't like it. Credit: Netflix
She said part of the reason online hate from Egyptians has been directed to her is because she has "asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that."
Ms James, a British actor who is of mixed race, told critics: "If you don't like the casting, don't watch the show," in a Twitter post featuring screengrabs of abusive comments that included racist slurs.
that the choice to cast Ms James as Cleopatra was "a nod to the centuries-long conversation about the ruler's race".
Jada Pinkett Smith, who is executive producer and narrator, was meanwhile quoted as 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!"
But when the trailer was released last week many Egyptians condemned the depiction of Cleopatra.
Why are Egyptians arguing over Cleopatra's skin colour?
An online petition accusing the production of rewriting history has already garnered more than 40,000 signatures.
And in a country where calls for Netflix to be banned for content deemed offensive to Egypt or "its family values" aren't entirely new, MP Saboura al-Sayyed has again urged parliament to ban the platform.
On Thursday, the country's antiquities ministry weighed into the dispute, publishing a lengthy statement that included statements from experts who it said all agree that Cleopatra had "white skin and Hellenistic characteristics".
"Bas reliefs and statues of Queen Cleopatra are the best proof," the statement said, embellishing the text with illustrations showing Cleopatra with European traits.
For Mostafa Waziri, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, depicting the famous queen as black is nothing less than "a falsification of Egyptian history".
He insists there is nothing racist in this view, which he says is motivated by "defending the history of Queen Cleopatra, an important part of the history of Egypt in antiquity".
Commentators in Egypt often decry campaigns among mostly African-American groups claiming the origins of Egyptian civilisation.
Zahi Hawass, a prominent Egyptologist and former antiquities minister, : "This is completely fake. Cleopatra was Greek, meaning that she was light-skinned, not black."
Mr Hawass said the only rulers of Egypt known to have been black were the Kushite kings of the 25th Dynasty (747-656 BC).
"Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilisation is black," he added.
Who was Cleopatra?
Cleopatra was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and became the last queen of a Greek-speaking dynasty founded by Alexander the Great's Macedonian general Ptolemy on the banks of the Nile.
She succeeded her father Ptolemy XII in 51 BC and ruled until her death in 30 BC. Afterwards, Egypt fell under Roman domination.
The identity of Cleopatra's mother is not known, and historians say it is possible that she, or any other female ancestor, was an indigenous Egyptian or from elsewhere in Africa.
While legend hails the queen as a great beauty, her precise appearance, including the colour of her skin, is still debated.
A BBC documentary in 2009 claimed that Cleopatra had African blood, an assertion that passed without incident.
