Now this is just silly. As I posted before, sometimes Hollywood makes some ethnically odd casting choices. And sometimes it makes vaguely accurate casting choices, and people go bonkers for the wrong reasons. Take, for example, the casting of Angelina Jolie as Egyptian queen Cleopatra. Someone just had to go nuts:
Race row erupts over casting of Angelina Jolie as Cleopatra
An Essence Magazine online story asks, ‘Another White Actress to Play Cleopatra?’
‘Honestly, I don’t care how full Angelina Jolie’s lips are, how many African children she adopts, or how bronzed her skin will become for the film, I firmly believe this role should have gone to a black woman.’
What, really?
Sigh.
OK, history lesson time. Cleopatra may have been queen of Egypt, but there are two good reasons why that does not automatically equate to “black woman:”
1) The Egyptians weren’t “black.” They were Egyptians. Here is how Egyptians of the time saw four distinct ethnic groups… Syrians, Nubians, Libyans and Egyptians:
Notice how the Egpytians are quite distinct from the blacks (and the “white” Libyans and Syrians)
2) Rather importantly… Cleopatra WASN’T EVEN EGYPTIAN. Ethnically, she was Macedonian Greek. She was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty, the hereditary descendants of the Greek (under Alexander) conquerers of Egypt. Can Jolie pass for Greek? Yeah, I imagine so.
Cleopatra apparently looked like this, based on a sculpture that was made during her lifetime:
And a coin minted in her lifetime:
Not the blackest woman I’ve ever seen.
So, if it’s not historically accurate for Cleopatra top be portrayed by a black woman, why are certain individuals so determined that she should be?
And here’s a link to the actual “Essense” commentary. While lip service is paid to the fact that Cleopatra was ethnically Greek (while at the same time doubting it), the primary arguement is that Cleopatra was “an African queen.” Like that means a damned thing.
What an African woman may look like:
11 Responses to “Angelina Jolie = Cleopatra: heads asplode”
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I don’t think you can really tell Cleopatra’s actual skin color from a stone statue or a 2000 year old coin. For starters, if there had ever been any paint on either, it’s long gone by now.
I do get your point though.
If “Essence” was of any consequence, it would not known as an ethnic magazine.
Must have raised a major stink at the Mail. There’s a note: “We are no longer accepting comments on this article.”
Eh, if Idris Elba can play Heimdall, then Angie can play Cleopatra.
> I don’t think you can really tell Cleopatra’s actual skin color from a stone statue or a 2000 year old coin
If you take the whitest man you’ve ever known and spray paint him black, he still won’t be a “black man.” There is more to ethnicity than mere skin color, or otherwise orange-brown Jersey Shore Guidoes would be their own distinct race. There are often notable structural differences. And Cleopatras nose, as shown on coin and sculpture, does not exactly scream “standard black person.”
> if Idris Elba can play Heimdall, then …
Ming-Na can play Cleopatra.
> orange-brown Jersey Shore Guidoes
Hey hey HEY let’s go easy on my ethnic brethren.
When JS premiered, my daughter called me up and said, “you HAVE to watch this”. I got through one episode and couldn’t believe it became the hit it is.
And just for the record, my father emigrated to the United States from Italy, and I have a lot of Italian-American relatives and nobody, I mean NO FREAKIN BODY in my family looks, talks, or acts like those people.
And it’s not orange brown, it’s sort of a coral.
“There are often notable structural differences.”
Ah, didn’t think of that. Fair enough.
Cause modern Egyptians are totally black, yep!
As for Cleos skin color. Given that her genetic background links her to the Greek, and that women of her status would usually avoid being in the sun too much, it’s very unlikely that she was of any darker shade (or even as black as people from even farther down south.)
There were black African queens, but they were very far south. The Romans encountered them once.
> HEY let’s go easy on my ethnic brethren.
The point was that if skin color defines ethnicity, then the Guidoes are damn near a whole new *species.*
You can claim these as “yours” if ya want, but hey, I ain’t gonna judge ya if you decide to disavow ’em. Let’s face it, this is a skin color that doesn’t exist in nature apart from on a limited selecton of lizards and amphibians.
You know, though, an otherwise serious biopic of Cleopatra where the Romans are all portrayed by Guidos and the Ptomemys by, say, blond blue-eyed Scandihoovians might be worth it just to hear the dulcet tones of heads popping.
I don’t know why anyone of any ethnicity would want to CLAIM Cleopatra as part of their lineage given her character. She was married off to brothers whom she allegedly “dispatched” and possibly “dispatched” her rival younger sister as well. She used her feminine wiles to seduce Julius Caesar and then Marc Antony to save herself and supposedly her people. Obviously, the busts and coins we have from her era do not indicate color, but the items do indicate what is generally described as European features. If it is, as many claim, that the ‘White race’ is a band of devils who attempt to connive, dominate and control others, there’s little doubt that Cleopatra’s proclivities, if true, firmly plant her in “Whitedevildom”.