Im surprised Jada didnt force Will to play Cleopatra.

Lads, I am so glad you’re talking about this. I am Greek and sick and tired of the entertainment industry blackwashing my culture. BBC did it to Achilles and now this nonsense. Cleopatra VII was the product of 300 years of inbreeding by the Ptolemy dynasty, who were, as you stated, Macedonian Greek. The very name “Cleopatra” was held by Alexander the Great’s sister, aunt and step-mother. This hijacking of a figure who is so important to Egyptians, Greeks and Macedonians is repulsive.

Sad part of this, is that Cleopatra was an incredible person, with an amazing story. But they’re gonna gloss over that, to tell a “girl-boss” tired stereotype, that no one is going to enjoy.

They should’ve cast Dylan Mulvaney as Cleopatra just to troll everyone.

Egyptians being "African" is as accurate as Russians being "Asian". Same continent doesn't lug all cultures into the same race.

This is the type of show that angers everyone, just like Velma

I finally saw the advertisement for this. As a historian, I was completely floored by Netflix advertising this as a documentary. Cleopatra with a sword? WHAT???? And they were flat out saying that Cleopatra was black, and that is nowhere close to reality. Not even close. If they would have just made a movie with the actress playing the part like Elizabeth Taylor did, I could go with it, and possibly enjoy it. But they are pushing this as an actual documentary. It's nothing but a blatant lie.

Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, the last of the Greek/Macedonian rulers of Egypt. She was Greek, she looked Greek. We know a lot about her from Roman sources, and there is not a single reference to her being black, and the Romans were aware of racial differences and were interested in them. In the context of the narrative pushed by the Rome-based Octavian (who would become Caesar Augustus), which cast the Roman civil war (Rome-centred Octavian vs Egypt-based Mark Anthony) and pre-war divisions as between traditional Roman simplicity and Eastern decadence, is it likely that we would have no reference to Cleopatra as being dark-skinned? No, to emphasise the difference, polemicists would have mentioned it as an example of difference, as evidence of the strangeness of Mark Anthony's alliance and romantic entanglement with Cleopatra. There are hundreds of contemporaneous sources, and no such evidence is shown.

As an Englishman who's already seen this history thieving BS with Anne Boleyn I support the Egyptians in this matter!!

The sad thing is that Cleopatra is one of the most fascinating and extraordinary woman of any time. She enthralled two of the greatest men of her age and was hated and feared by the third. She had a son by Julius Caesar and two children with Marc Anthony. Her alliance with Anthony against Augustus almost succeeded and if it had, the two would have probably made Julius Caesar's son the Emperor of Rome and ruled through him. She was brilliant, but also ruthless. She married her half-brother and had her sister assassinated. There was a great story here, but instead of telling it, Netflix gives us political pandering. It's like Will Smith stood up and slapped history in the face.

The director of Cocaine Bear was going to use a lion because they felt that lions were under represented in stoned killer apex predator movies. Thankfully they changed their mind.

My favorite inaccuracy in Braveheart is that Sophia Marceau's character was 3 years old at the time of the events of the movie and still living in France.

I am so fucking sick of this. If you're this insecure about your own past you need to steal others, it says more about you than your "haters".

Ryan Gosling as Martin Luther King, make it happened Hollyweird!

Wiser people than me have said it: "Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it."

In a nutshell, "We are revising history to justify revising YOU!"

As if The Woman King wasn't a loud enough warning...

A black Ann Boleyn. A black AND female Viking jarl. Black and Asian Regency Era English gentry. Victorian England as multiracial. The 16th century royal courts of England and Scotland being both racially diverse and with open homosexuality. Within the last few years, "modern" film/TV show creators have gone on a tear of rewriting the past as they wished it was. Sort of surprised that it was race-swapping Cleopatra that finally triggered a significant blowback.

Speaking of both Egyptians and Genghis Khan, here in Britain I watched a Genghis Khan movie on Talking Pictures TV a couple of weeks ago, starring the Egyptian Omar Sharif as Khan. That guy must have appeared as more ethnicities in his career than just about any other actor.

It really is quite worrying how this is being labelled as a documentary, when you see that word you rely on that information being empirical so for those who aren’t educated on the topic it’s really dangerous. We’re getting closer and closer to book burning levels of discarding history…

I'm outraged that Justin Trudeau wasn't cast as Cleopatra. He already proved his acting range dressing up as Aladdin. 🙃

Hey, I'm black and even I know Cleopatra was not black. It is well documented.

Monica Belluci played Cleopatra (in Astérix: Mission Cléopatre) and i do believe real Cleopatra looked really close to her in term of complexion. Leonor Valera and Gal Gadot also probably are the right type.

I actually had somebody on Quora ask me "Why cant people just accept that Cleopatra was the first African-American queen?" How do you answer that level of stupidity and ignorance?

They ask why you have a problem with a black Cleopatra but the reality is that they have a problem with a Greek Cleopatra

The Asterix comics are more accurate than a documentary on Netflix

In Egypt, there are laws about preserving and representing the nations history. Remember that back in the early days of British and other nations intrusion into Egypt, Mummies were cast into steam engines coal fires for fuel supplementation because mummies were everywhere and cheaper than coal to them. They used to have soldiers stealing their artifacts as kitsch and things to sell out of the country. For a long time, many nations trampled on the history and artifacts of Egypt, I'm not shocked to see them mad at Americans for doing this.

Egyptian here and loving your take on this. What's even more insane is how they insist on "empowering" women by giving them male powers like being sword masters or stronger than men or whatever shit they think up these days

Former 8th grade social studies teacher here. Folks will ABSOLUTELY believe what the movies tell them is history. I cant tell you the number of historical errors ive had to fix that came from movies. And it's only getting worse!!

"Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute."

Sixty years ago Hollywood sold the cast, not the story. John and Liz were big names and they got the top roles. With very few exceptions, like Zorba The Greek, there were not many, marketable, ethnic actors. So like good business people, the studios went with the actors that the public wanted to see.

They also call this a documentary. It’s different than if it’s just a movie- there’s an increased obligation to get the history right, What’s funny to me is that Cleopatra had some Persian ancestry and likely resembled the director more than the lead actress. As far as Cleopatra’s beauty - Egypt was the biggest grain supplier to Rome, so control of Egypt meant control of the price of bread in Rome. So yeah she had some attraction.

Do you expect Jada Pinket Smith, who was unfaithful in her marriage, to be faithful to historical truth? If a person can lie in one important arena, it is no surprise that they do it in another.

They got Cleopatra Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt confused with Foxxy Cleopatra from Austin Powers in Goldmember. Easy mistake to make if you've never read a history book.

Theres a YT video where they recreate what she likely looked like based on actual historical artifacts and descriptions. Its worth watching.

I have always said/believed that the whole representation thing was nothing more than a "first step" to rewrite history itself in a way that benefits the people in charge, aka the state/ruling class that control the schools that propagates this ideas. It goes like this: First: They start by doing something like giving the mantel/title of fictional characters of a specific gender/ethnicity to another character of another gender/ethnicity. Think turning the Falcon into the "new" captain america or having not Pete Parker as the "new Spider Man. Second: They now start changing the ethnicity of fictional characters, think not-shaggy in the velma show and King Grayskull from He-man as an example. Third: Now they begin changing the ethnicity/gender of historical characters in historical fiction, while making little to no changes to the story itself. Think of shows like the Vicking show, the one with the british queen and the poc Cesar, and now this Cleopatra stuff. Fourth: They change the history itself, whether is the events or the description of the people themselves, in fictional history shows. Examples being the Woman King movie and probably this Cleopatra show. And then fifth: they change history itself by changing the books or the documentaries that talk and are supposed to teach real world history itself.

Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra wasn't pretending she was in a documentary. The comparison is both dishonest and ludicrous.

Let's ignore copious amounts of archaeological evidence, period accounts, and serious scholarship regarding Cleopatra, and believe what a bunch of American grandmas say about who she was. 😂

When Marc Antony slapped Brutus and told him to keep Cleopatra’s name out his mouth was dope. Morbius was amazing too

3:35 That comment about Cocaine Bear being more accurate than Cleopatra made me laugh so hard! xD

The amount of historical figures that they are trying to claim are black has gotten completely outrageous. St. Augustine (Roman) Cleopatra (greek), Euclid (Greek), The ancient Egyptians (Coptic, and we can literally see from the mummies that they wern't), the list goes on and on. And that's just the ancient people, I have seen them claim that figures as well documented and recent as Ludwig Beethoven were actually black. It's absolute insanity and people need to not tolerate it.

I, personally, have met at least five people who think ‘Inglorious Basterds’ is real. Like, they actually think that’s how Hitler died.

I’m so looking forward to seeing a remake of the crown staring queen latifah

Despite the whole skin color shit, I have another problem with that. This whole "We'regonna make them black, so young girls learn they can become anything they want" is total bullshit. Cleopatra was born into royalty. It's not like she grew up a dirt poor slave girl, worked hard, raised an army and conquered Egypt. She was simply born into the right family and just happened to be next in line for the throne. What kind of lesson is that? "Hey, kids. You can do anyhing you set your mind to, no matteryour skin color. Just be born into the royal family. That's all."

From what I read, Cleopatra was basically just a mildly attractive woman. What made men fall at her feet was that she was extremely well educated, knowledgeable, intelligent, opinionated and, most importantly, she was ruthless. All qualities that weren't normally associated with worldly women, at the time.

Two Things That Jada Doesn't Know How They Look: 1. Cleopatra. 2. Alopecia.

Yeah.. I once saw a clip from HBO's _ROME_ (Great show btw) with an old friend of mine. When the show presented the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, he immediately claimed whitewashing.. As a history buff, I quickly corrected him. The Ptolemy were of course white/mediterranean. He and I stopped being friends after the release of The Last Jedi.

That's it, you guys are brilliant! Love these panels and I'm subscribed!

At this level, it's just revisionism of our history

I can't wait for the remake of Roots starring Tom Holland. Oh, that would never happen? Odd. Seems like "colorblind casting" only ever works one way in Hollywood...

Pleased that The Last Kingdom ended without going full-on woke. Maybe not the best ending ever, but, overall, a very respectable end to a great series.

👍 To Az just for the "That's more people than are going to watch the show..." Such softly spoken words never have I heard so needle point sharp.

What bothers me the most as a mixed raced person is that there is genuinely so many male and female black people throughout history that are genuinely incredible and interesting and most people have never ever heard of. These people genuinely push the agenda that black americans dont have any history and need to be included in other ethnicities history to make them feel better about being who they are. We can tell real interesting stories and refuse to acknowledge it at all. It seems to be by design.

And the big difference here is that this show is being advertised as a documentary. The movie in which Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra VII was designed purely for entertainment.

People often defend the race-swapping of real historical figures by arguing that it doesn't matter, because race should be irrelevant... it's just about the ability of the actor... it's more appealing to modern audiences... etc. In that case, how would one react to a black actor playing Queen Elizabeth II in the The Crown, for example? I imagine that the vast majority of people would find it both ridiculous and disrespectful.... and that's exactly why it's a problem when it's done elsewhere.

Boss Level. We need more movies like this. One lead actor, who’s pretty much a C lister. All other actors are extras. A fun cameo/ indie legends like Michelle Yeo. And it was a fun action movie, somewhat cynical in the beginning, but with a bit of an uplifting tone about fatherhood and family. It didn’t take itself too seriously, but it wasn’t the tired old self aware marvel humor either. Frank Grillo was Kinda charming it it too. And I bet the budget wasn’t that high. I wish hollywood made more low budget movies like this. I wish every movie wasn’t a bloated 200 million dollar movie where a failure is huge. Imagine how many ‘Boss Level’ type movies could have been made in exchange for Quantumania or Thor love and thunder. Why can’t Hollywood take risks on low budget movies? The risk is low, and the payoff is so much more.

I found this documentary stunning and brave, especially the scene where Cleopatra came in riding on top of her T-Rex leading the Autobots into the Battle of Caprica against Thanos and the Umbrella Corporation. The scene where she raised Mjolnir above her head and screamed her pronouns alongside her love, Harry Potter.....so brave! 😊

I'm actually surprised Lizzo wasn't cast as Cleopatra.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

"Braveheart was 100 per cent accurate!" I was once in Scotland and was shouted at because the English killed Wallaces' wife. A wife, who the film can't even be bothered to give the correct name to, and might not even have existed. And also, I wasn't there at the time.

The man who wrote Jaws said he regrets it because he never meant to make basically the whole world afraid of sharks.

This isn’t a movie, it’s a historical documentary . So they’re trying to rewrite history

The most Egyptian character since Sean Connery in Highlander!

I think in the comics black falcoln was darker than anthony mackie, and thus I never thought the mcu was able to accurately depict Black Falcoln’s look accurately

The Conqueror was so famously panned even during the time it came out that legend has it John Wayne would physically cringe anytime someone mentioned the film in conversation.

I think the actress that played her in the TV show "Rome", came as close as it gets to how Cleopatra VII looked like.

Is this a podcast? I want to hear more but I can’t find it anywhere on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts

Somehow Cleopatra is back

I love how the biggest thing they say is "well Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra wheres the outrage?" Well tbh she was probably closer in pigment to the real Cleopatra then this current actress trying to play Cleopatra lol. 🤷🏻‍♂️

When I was in elementary school, they did a special lecture on...something or other, I can't remember...and one of the teachers (a black man) told us Cleopatra was black and his evidence he presented was a photo of the famous image of Nefertiti. I tried to point this out but he just brushed me off with an "Ahhh, you don't know what you're talking about kid..."

The joke here that Netflix was trying to blachwash the Egyptian history, but it backfired at Netflix by letting everyone know much more about the Egyptian history and even the Egyptian people themselves including me, we found out more and more about our history and we're spreading knowledge and awareness everywhere.

Personally I think Netflix should make a movie about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. And hire Kevin Hart to play him.

Remnants of paint on ancient Greek statuary suggests that in ancient times there were blonde and redheaded Greeks. And light skin was prized (especially by women) as it indicated you were from the upper classes, since they weren't stuck toiling in a field under the sun. So, Elizabeth Taylor may have been just the right shade to play Cleopatra.

Good luck to the Egyptian archaeologist suing Netflix

I want to see movies about Shaka Zulu starring Jason Momoa in the lead role, and a movie about Nelson Mandela with Sir Anthony Hopkins portraying Mandela. Give them a dose of their own medicine.

It’s funny that people that are “against cultural appropriation” has made the most “cultural appropriation” movie ever made.

"I remember my grandmother saying to me, I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black." As a history instructor in that area of specialty I really loved that golden gem of a statement.

Nobody’s more pissed about this than Egyptians and Greeks

Elizabeth Taylor was admittedly English, but she didn't look radically different from Greek actresses in the 1960s if you Google "1960s Greek actresses" and compare their looks. There are even a minority of Greeks who are blondes and redheads, and Cleopatra was possibly ginger haired given Roman frescoes. For native Egyptian dynasties, though, by all means cast a real Egyptian or at least North African.

Ages ago I was a professional historian. I bailed on the job due to professional and intellectual dishonesty in the field. Short version: the recordkeepers write whatever they want as long as it's signed off by those in power. Conflicting versions, even with physical evidence and documentation, are destroyed, discredited or de-emphasized (see: KZfaq treating the non-woke as an example). It's entirely possible that Cleopatra was ugly as sin but would have you tortured or killed if you didn't write love letters about her beauty--which I've seen in the past with fellow historians writing hagiographies to idiocy and ensuring only their version survived.

The hypocrisy of Hollywood and their unquestioning followers never ceases to amaze me. You have the Lilo & Stitch remake (big surprise Disney’s remaking that…) with people going stark raving mad over the girl who’s playing Nani being slightly lighter skinned despite her being Hawaiian, yet here is a clear historical bastardization (even if we’re not entirely sure what her skin tone was, there’s quite a lot of evidence to show she was of Macedonian or Greek decent) but Jada and the team are like “oh, well we need more empowering colored female figures that haven’t had their stories told” and people eat that shit up…like what is it you want? Do you want accuracy to representation or representation only when it suits your needs? You can’t have it both ways, especially in historical context where these people actually existed! The more I see this, the more I find the whole Ryan Gosling as MLK joke less funny and more like a perfect example of why this hypocritical shit is so stupid. With that logic, that MLK casting should be totally fine.

I loved the part where Cleopatra gathered the 5 parts of Exodia. Best part of the documentary

I think a big part of this is that jada smith is an incredible narcissist and wanted to play “the most beautiful woman in the world” despite being a middle aged 6/10 at best

We should join in and remake Shaka Zulu staring Jeremy Irons as "our truth"

Don't forget.. the director was told by a fortune teller that she was destined to do this "documentary"

Rewriting history: "it's ok when we do it!" - Hollywood

Back in the day, they had Elizabeth Taylor who was white played Cleopatra and nobody complained about it. Even had an on and off relationship with Richard Burton who played Mark Antony.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan was completely ridiculous and miscast but the filmmakers never suggested that Temujin was born in Iowa. However, Netflix's Queen Cleopatra, Bridgerton, Queen Charlotte and other productions from the BBC and Channel 4 are pushing a particular type of false history. Casting in period pieces should primarily be believable. For example, the following all work: Omar Sharif as a Russian in Doctor Zhivago, Eli Wallach as a Mexican in The Good, the Bad & the Ugly and Morgan Freeman as a red-haired Irishman in The Shawshank Redemption.

They said worse - they said Anne Boleyn was a victim, and having a black woman portraying a victim made it more relatable to young people!

3:35 That comment about COCAINE BEAR 🐻 made me LOL 😅😅

It wasn't just Cleo being black it was also that they made her a "master swordsman, scholar, scientist and beloved by all" and probably wanted to also make her the first astronaut etc

I was completely unaware you could make “your version” of anything based on history and change it how you want. This could get wild…

If it was just an ordinary show with a black actress, the backlash would not have been so massive. The main problem here is that, not only it's an hybrid "serie/documentary" thing, but also that in the first teaser released by netflix, you already see that, given the speakers chosen (some of whom are far from being specialists in ancient Egypt) and the excerpts put end to end, it is clearly an ideological project and an attempt to rewrite things, with even the last woman interviewed who basically says: "my mother told me that no matter what they would say to me at school, Cleopatra was black" Also, I'm happy that the Egypt gov. reacted about this show and this matter, I think some pan africanists should understand that Africa doesn't equal homogeneity and black people absolutely everywhere, you have plenty of ethnicities especially in North Africa, also Cleopatra was a least half greek so she would be at most brown skinned but not black

I think the makers grew up with Cleopatra Jones and Foxxy Cleopatra in their subconscious and confused that with the historical Cleopatra.

What's crazy is that it's not your typical hollywood modernized film it's a Documentary.

I'm surprised that the first actor ever, Jennifer Lawrence, didn't play herself as Cleopatra,

In order to balance the scales, we need a docuseries about Mansa Musa, starring Leonardo Dicaprio

Finally, someone else to understand my absolute hatred for the 5-second pre-trailer that happens for every trailer nowadays. You just showed me a trailer version trailer of your trailer.

There's so much to unpack here, John Wayne also realized that his portrayal of Genghis Khan was ridiculous and regretted doing it, however the great Boris Karloff was convincing and reverent as the Chinese born London educated James Lee Wong in a good movie series in the 30s and early 40s. Is it always inappropriate to have an actor play a character of a different race? Of course changing Cleopatra's race in a supposed documentary is a whole other issue entirely, also when historical fiction ends up historically accurate that's a rare bonus.

Filmmakers have really forgotten the meaning of the word "documentary".