Netflix has stirred up more controversy and this time it involves Cleopatra.
The streaming giant has angered a lot of people by portraying the famous Queen of the Nile as a black woman. The problem with that is Cleopatra was not black… and Egypt is pissed and now, they’re suing Netflix.
The People’s Voice reported that Netflix is desperate to find new black heroes for its woke content, and “Queen Cleopatra,” produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of Will Smith, chose to cast Casualty actress Adele James as the iconic Egyptian monarch. However, in reality, Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of ancient Egypt, was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, which descended from Ptolemy I, a Macedonian Greek general who served under Alexander the Great.
As a result, some argue that Cleopatra’s ancestry was primarily Greek, and thus, she should not be portrayed as a black queen.
Calling for the Netflix production team to be punished for participating in a “crime” against Egypt and its culture, Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary argued that the recently-released trailer promotes a divisive Afrocentrism.