Netflix’s Cleopatra docuseries still stirring up drama as Egyptian broadcaster announces its own doc

“It’s not every day that academic discussion of ancient history makes the news,” Queen Cleopatra executive producer Jane Root recently pointed out (via Deadline). Indeed, the academic discussion of Cleopatra’s racial background has been going on for weeks now. The Jada Pinkett Smith-produced project’s decision to cast a Black actor (Adele James) in the role (and director Tina Gharavi’s dismissal of criticism) has inflamed an age-old debate and apparently enraged an entire nation.

After Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities released a statement stressing that “Queen Cleopatra had light skin and Hellenistic (Greek) features” and arguing that Netflix’s approach “should be based on historical and scientific facts, to ensure that history and civilizations are not falsified,” the Al Wathaeqya channel, a subsidiary of Egypt’s state-affiliated United Media Services, has announced its own Cleopatra documentary in which the ancient ruler will be depicted as light-skinned, per Variety. “Based on what is always usual in all the work of the Documentary Production Sector and Wathaeqya Channel, there are work sessions currently being held with a number of specialists in history, archeology, and anthropology. In order to subject research related to the subject of the film and its image to the utmost levels of research and study,” the channel said in a statement (via Egypt Independent).

It’s impossible to truly determine the skin color of the long-dead queen; “We have not discovered her tomb. We have not been left with any contemporary descriptions of her. We do not know who her mother was nor who her grandmother was,” Egyptian archaeologist Dr. Monica Hanna explained to CBS News. Many historians have accepted, based on what information is available, that Cleopatra was not dark-skinned. However, the adamance with which Egyptians have rejected the notion of a Black Cleopatra (going so far as to make their own documentary in response!) might feel to some to have undertones of general anti-Black sentiment.

Hanna rejected the notion, citing the fact that “Egyptians have a very fragile understanding of their past” because of previous lack of education as to why they’re so protective of their history today. “I am against the film because it is pushing an Afrocentric agenda, regardless of the historical accuracy of whether Cleopatra was Black or White,” Hanna said to CBS News. “They are imposing the identity politics of the 21st century and appropriating the ancient Egyptian past, just as the Eurocentrists and the far-right in Europe are doing.”

As for the Queen Cleopatra team, “We decided to depict Cleopatra of mixed heritage to reflect these theories and the multicultural nature of ancient Egypt. Race in her times was a long way from what it is now,” Root said in her statement. She apparently considers the situation a success, as Netflix “asked us to promote a conversation and that’s just what has happened.”

Would a Black actor portraying Cleopatra have stirred such a controversy if it did not occur in a context of claiming historical fact? Like Cleopatra’s race, we just don’t know, as the series’ star Adele James put it. “There are versions of Cleopatra that exist already with actresses in that role who are fairer skinned than I am, but I think I have every right to have a shot at humanizing this incredible woman. We all put our blood, sweat and tears into that show, and I think anybody else has as much of a right as anybody else to have a go at it because we just don’t know,” James said in an interview with Glamour. “But I guess my main thing is that there is no circumstance under which it is acceptable for anybody to treat me or anybody else the way that I and the cast and crew have been treated since the announcement. The death threats that I’ve received, the racist comments, it’s just the vitriol. It’s not necessary, and it’s very harmful. I feel very sad for people that they would do that to someone they don’t know or to someone they know.”