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Notes -
Black Cleopatra Goes Mainstream or Netflix exploits the Toxoplasma of Rage?
So Netflix and Jada Pinkett-Smith worked on...a new version of the tale of Cleopatra that is deliberately designed to piss people off.
Action Girl Cleopatra.
Implying, of Caesar, that he was looking to rise to Cleopatra's level which is just...so wrong as to have either been deliberately malicious phrasing or born of only watching the 1963 Cleopatra film.
And, of course, Cleopatra and her courtiers being black - not SSA-black but at least ambiguously so, with the called out curly hair. They make sure to insist, for a good chunk of the trailer, on discussing this fringe Hotep bullshit.
I've always thought that the black American focus on Egypt showed a deep insecurity at best (since Egypt is the one "African" state that's broadly respected and known in the West) or outright spite at worst - an attempt to seize and twist a European icon in Morgoth-like fashion so you can have an "aha!" gotcha.
That's why it made sense for it to be a fringe hotep thing.
Now...apparently it's going mainstream. I kind of missed out on history documentaries after I lost History Channel so I can't remember if they were always this bad. I'm pretty sure not though. This also doesn't just seem stupid in the way Ancient Aliens is stupid - the point seems to be division. On a naive level you'd expect people to fight over more than one Egyptian queen being black, if they wanted "'representation". Yet it all seems to center on like the one person you'd think would be unambiguously "white" by our standards.
I suppose that's a comfort - I don't have to worry about Aurelian suddenly becoming Desi. Clearly some figures are preferred.
And yes, I checked Netflix and it is under "Docuseries" and "Historical Documentary".
I've never actually understood why people are so obsessed with claiming Cleopatra. She was a puppet queen completely at the mercy of another nation. In fact, the entire reason she's known is due to the civil wars of the nation, her most important contribution being fleeing the field at actium.
Hardly someone worth fighting over.
Actually similar to Boudica in a way, although it stands out that the majority of people who are interested in Cleopatra are not Egyptian.
Now that all historical men are unsafe to use as role models (because some SJW will inevitably find an example of their being slavers or sexists or homophobes or Did A Racism once, leading to Cancellation) the historical-revisionism battle to claim historical women for one's cause will only pick up pace.
No way.
The first new biopic which comes to mind is Oppenheimer. It’s getting a little flack on Twitter for being too white, and that’s it. Nothing about how the father of the atom bomb is Problematic. I find it unlikely that the race accusations will have any meaningful effect on cancelling Nolan, for that matter. Clearly there are still historical men available.
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