It makes sense keeping him white as well.
Making White Characters Black Isn't Progress—It's Pandering. And It Insults Black Fans Like Me
- Thread starter raze
- Start date
Agreed.
I agree. James Bond and Idris in particular. Making Bond black actually isn't what I as a black person want to see. I want you to write a black MI6 agent, with the cultural nuances present with a black person or that age, sex, pop culture and everything without shucking and jiving actions and language. Hire black writers to get it right and give them equal footing to Bond. Otherwise is just a black face on an already established character we already know to be white.
Cleopatra was ugly as shit also.
That "character" debuted in the 200X series, by episode's end it turned out that Adam was not calling on the castle - envoking his actual ancestor.
you watch it here
Gives new dimension to the term "calling on the ancestors".
Hordak was in that ep too. He recently defeated the Snakemen. They Hordak a beast - NOBODY wanted to see him coming.
I don't care about White tears when they see their White characters Black, it tickles me. Fuc'em.
Yeah, but she good people...
Too many faggot cornballs in hollywood with ZERO
creativity.... THATS the PROBLEM... get more non conforming BRUHS and SISTAHS
in there.. POOF problem SOLVED!!!
creativity.... THATS the PROBLEM... get more non conforming BRUHS and SISTAHS
in there.. POOF problem SOLVED!!!
So we don't want "pandering." We want "original" Black characters who are bland rip offs of established white ones. That's all I got from those who care about characters whose race has changed. I'm sure we all would've preferred a white Nick Fury, perhaps played by Nick Cage, rather than Sam Jackson's version.
Gimme a fuckin break.
Gimme a fuckin break.
They are going in on the Netflix movie..
Queen Cleopatra
'Queen Cleopatra': The controversy over Jada Pinkett Smith's Netflix series explained
RAECHAL SHEWFELT
Updated April 22, 2023 at 1:28 PM
[IMG alt="The role of Cleopatra has attracted Elizabeth Taylor, Adele James and Angelina Jolie. (Photo: Everett Collection, Netflix, Getty Images)
"]https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Z...nt_231/a294539db3ec148c13b1ea5544d12acb[/IMG]
The role of Cleopatra has attracted Elizabeth Taylor, Adele James and Angelina Jolie. (Photo: Everett Collection, Netflix, Getty Images)
Coming to Netflix screens next month: Queen Cleopatra, a four-part "docudrama," incorporating interviews from experts as well as reenactments and narrated by Jada Pinkett Smith. But a heated debate over the actress cast as the iconic Egyptian ruler is here now.
Nearly three weeks ahead of its May 10 premiere, director Tina Gharavi has said that during filming she "became the target of a huge online hate campaign," and an Egyptian lawyer has filed a legal complaint that the series violates media laws and aims to "erase the Egyptian identity."
Here's a closer look:
Why are people so upset? And what are they saying?
Their issue is that Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, has been cast in the role of the title character, while, at the same time, the series is part of executive producer Smith's African Queens, which allows the audience to learn "about the fearless, captivating lives of queens who were likely not part of their Western academic curriculum." And there has been backlash from people in Egypt and elsewhere, who say the series is historically inaccurate for a Black woman to play the role.Historians have debated the precise ancestry and race of Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt for 21 years, from 51 B.C. to 30 B.C. However, she is most often described as having been Macedonian Greek on her father's side. In Stacy Schiff's acclaimed biography Cleopatra: A Life, the author wrote that Cleopatra was Greek and "approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor." Ancestry of the queen's mother is unknown.
How has the show responded?
Netflix is obviously well aware of the criticism. "The creative choice to cast an actor of mixed heritage to play Cleopatra is a nod to the centuries-long conversation about the ruler's race," a post on the streamer's official blog reads. "During the time of her reign, Egypt's population was multicultural and multiracial. Cleopatra's race was unlikely to be documented, and the identities of her mother and paternal grandparents weren't known. Some speculate she was a native Egyptian woman, while others say she was Greek."Also, race wasn't talked about then in the same way it is now.
"To ask whether someone was 'Black' or 'white' is anachronistic," Rebecca Futo Kennedy, an associate professor of classics at Denison University, told Time. She added that it "says more about modern political investments than attempting to understand antiquity on its own terms."
Gharavi herself wrote about the uproar Friday for Variety.
"Doing the research, I realized what a political act it would be to see Cleopatra portrayed by a Black actress. For me, the idea that people had gotten it so incredibly wrong before — historically, from Theda Bara to Monica Bellucci, and recently, with Angelina Jolie and Gal Gadot in the running to play her — meant we had to get it even more right," she wrote. "The hunt was on to find the right performer to bring Cleopatra into the 21st century."
She also asked some interesting questions.
"Why shouldn't Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value, and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter."
And the star of the series has shared some of the hateful comments that she's received on social media, explaining that she banned the offenders.
"If you don't like the casting don't watch the show," she tweeted. "Or do & engage in (expert) opinion different to yours. Either way, I'M GASSED and will continue to be!"
What have people said about the women who have previously portrayed Cleopatra?
James, of course, isn't the first to play the woman who continues to be talked about worldwide thousands of years after she died.Taylor, whose portrayal is the most renowned, starred in the 1963 movie Cleopatra, which infamously endured a disastrous shoot — it's where Taylor and Richard Burton coupled up — that led to it becoming the most expensive movie ever made. Reviews for the movie were mixed, but it topped the box office and eventually won four Oscars.
As recounted in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Taylor encountered criticism for a different reason: She had converted to Judaism before marrying Eddie Fisher. The fact that she had been supportive of Israel meant that Egypt, who considered the country their enemy, banned her film.
Even before that, actresses including Theda Bara (1917's Cleopatra) and Vivian Leigh (1945's Caesar and Cleopatra) had played her.
She's not the first person to face backlash either.
Gal Gadot experienced criticism in 2020 when she stepped into the role for an unreleased film. Angelina Jolie, who has long been linked to a movie based on Schiff's book, has been accused of "whitewashing" Hollywood.
The director behind the latest project defended her decision to cast the person she did: "After much hang-wringing and countless auditions, we found in Adele James an actor who could convey not only Cleopatra's beauty, but also her strength. What the historians can confirm is that it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele than Elizabeth Taylor ever did."
Queen Cleopatra is available Wednesday, May 10 on Netflix.
Originally published April 21, 2023 at 8:24 PM
No, what this reveals is that a significant portion of the black artists’ mind have been co-opted. People can’t seem themselves because they don’t want to see themselves. We have as a people cherish crossing over to white acceptance so much that we have created a time loop for the process. But in the real world, you’ve just provided white people with content for them to take and repurpose.
There isn’t anything more depressing that black “artists” bemoan being deprived of white acceptance and black critics up in anger that black artists aren’t being viewed and paid for “black acts”. Folks forgot the adage about cooking for yourself and cooking for the community.
Entertainment isn’t history.
They are going in on the Netflix movie..
Queen Cleopatra
'Queen Cleopatra': The controversy over Jada Pinkett Smith's Netflix series explained
RAECHAL SHEWFELT
Updated April 22, 2023 at 1:28 PM
[IMG alt="The role of Cleopatra has attracted Elizabeth Taylor, Adele James and Angelina Jolie. (Photo: Everett Collection, Netflix, Getty Images)
"]https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/Z...nt_231/a294539db3ec148c13b1ea5544d12acb[/IMG]
The role of Cleopatra has attracted Elizabeth Taylor, Adele James and Angelina Jolie. (Photo: Everett Collection, Netflix, Getty Images)
Coming to Netflix screens next month: Queen Cleopatra, a four-part "docudrama," incorporating interviews from experts as well as reenactments and narrated by Jada Pinkett Smith. But a heated debate over the actress cast as the iconic Egyptian ruler is here now.
Nearly three weeks ahead of its May 10 premiere, director Tina Gharavi has said that during filming she "became the target of a huge online hate campaign," and an Egyptian lawyer has filed a legal complaint that the series violates media laws and aims to "erase the Egyptian identity."
Here's a closer look:
Why are people so upset? And what are they saying?
Their issue is that Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, has been cast in the role of the title character, while, at the same time, the series is part of executive producer Smith's African Queens, which allows the audience to learn "about the fearless, captivating lives of queens who were likely not part of their Western academic curriculum." And there has been backlash from people in Egypt and elsewhere, who say the series is historically inaccurate for a Black woman to play the role.
Historians have debated the precise ancestry and race of Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt for 21 years, from 51 B.C. to 30 B.C. However, she is most often described as having been Macedonian Greek on her father's side. In Stacy Schiff's acclaimed biography Cleopatra: A Life, the author wrote that Cleopatra was Greek and "approximately as Egyptian as Elizabeth Taylor." Ancestry of the queen's mother is unknown.
How has the show responded?
Netflix is obviously well aware of the criticism. "The creative choice to cast an actor of mixed heritage to play Cleopatra is a nod to the centuries-long conversation about the ruler's race," a post on the streamer's official blog reads. "During the time of her reign, Egypt's population was multicultural and multiracial. Cleopatra's race was unlikely to be documented, and the identities of her mother and paternal grandparents weren't known. Some speculate she was a native Egyptian woman, while others say she was Greek."
Also, race wasn't talked about then in the same way it is now.
"To ask whether someone was 'Black' or 'white' is anachronistic," Rebecca Futo Kennedy, an associate professor of classics at Denison University, told Time. She added that it "says more about modern political investments than attempting to understand antiquity on its own terms."
Gharavi herself wrote about the uproar Friday for Variety.
"Doing the research, I realized what a political act it would be to see Cleopatra portrayed by a Black actress. For me, the idea that people had gotten it so incredibly wrong before — historically, from Theda Bara to Monica Bellucci, and recently, with Angelina Jolie and Gal Gadot in the running to play her — meant we had to get it even more right," she wrote. "The hunt was on to find the right performer to bring Cleopatra into the 21st century."
She also asked some interesting questions.
"Why shouldn't Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value, and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter."
And the star of the series has shared some of the hateful comments that she's received on social media, explaining that she banned the offenders.
"If you don't like the casting don't watch the show," she tweeted. "Or do & engage in (expert) opinion different to yours. Either way, I'M GASSED and will continue to be!"
What have people said about the women who have previously portrayed Cleopatra?
James, of course, isn't the first to play the woman who continues to be talked about worldwide thousands of years after she died.
Taylor, whose portrayal is the most renowned, starred in the 1963 movie Cleopatra, which infamously endured a disastrous shoot — it's where Taylor and Richard Burton coupled up — that led to it becoming the most expensive movie ever made. Reviews for the movie were mixed, but it topped the box office and eventually won four Oscars.
As recounted in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Taylor encountered criticism for a different reason: She had converted to Judaism before marrying Eddie Fisher. The fact that she had been supportive of Israel meant that Egypt, who considered the country their enemy, banned her film.
Even before that, actresses including Theda Bara (1917's Cleopatra) and Vivian Leigh (1945's Caesar and Cleopatra) had played her.
She's not the first person to face backlash either.
Gal Gadot experienced criticism in 2020 when she stepped into the role for an unreleased film. Angelina Jolie, who has long been linked to a movie based on Schiff's book, has been accused of "whitewashing" Hollywood.
The director behind the latest project defended her decision to cast the person she did: "After much hang-wringing and countless auditions, we found in Adele James an actor who could convey not only Cleopatra's beauty, but also her strength. What the historians can confirm is that it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele than Elizabeth Taylor ever did."
Queen Cleopatra is available Wednesday, May 10 on Netflix.
Originally published April 21, 2023 at 8:24 PM
If there is a subject worse understood than Math, it is History. Sadly most people get their history from religious texts and pop culture. Two of the most dubious sources of information known to Man. (Other than Fox News)