@@Historian-Perspective "Egypt was a Mediterranean state that reach down north of Khartoum" What is the distance between Alexandria in Egypt to Khartoum in the Sudan? It is 2,257 kilometers but according to you that distance to the south is the Mediterranean Sea and not Sub-Saharan black Africa. Please Google map and get your bearings right. "Check out the busts, paintings and coins of Cleopatra. Does she look like an African queen or a Greek ruler? Why is her coins written in Greek? It was a Mediterranean state. There are paintings of her in Pompeii for God sake". Check and and Google, "Bust of Cleopatra Royal Ontario Museum". While you are at it also check out and Google, "Statue of Cleopatra State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Then tell be why would a lily white Greek Macedonian Persian woman choose to have her bust and statue depicted in pitch black basalt? Would you a Eurocentric, choose to have your bust and statute depicted in pitch black basalt? I would imagine not. Why in 4,000 AD your bust might come to light and some archeologist would conclude you were a black person. The white Eurocentric Cleopatra to me resembles Julius Creaser's grandmother especially that one in Pompeii for crying out loud. That is why the real Cushite black African Cleopatra has the distinctive cobra vulture crown characteristic of the ones worn by pharaohs of the Nilo Sudanic-Egyptian civilization while the lily white Cleopatra doesn't. To me this proves the Eurocentric depiction of a lily white Greek Macedonian Persian Cleopatra are yet another typical Eurocentric lie as is everything about Eurocentrism, You see, the first thing you have got to do when you are talking about ancient Egypt and what most Eurocentrists seem to forget or are ignorant about is the fact that the modern-day frontiers separating today's north east African states are artificial creations of the 1884 Berlin colonial conference. You have got to remove the modern day frontiers separating the north east African states. Ancient Egypt of old extended from the northern shores of Egypt to the Sudan, to Ethiopia and Puntland in east Africa. In essence ancient Egypt extended into "sub-Saharan" Africa. This is why you see depictions of all 3 north east African ethnic groups in ancient art, murals and sculpture of the Nilo Sudanic-Egyptian civilization. All these 3 macro ethnic groups and their micro sub-ethnicities resided in the same ONE country and civilization. The image of the Sphinx is clearly Nilotic, That of Queen Tiye is Bantu, while the bust and statues of Queens Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Kings Tut and Akhenaten for example are clearly Cushitic. I am persuaded to believe that the hundreds of Bantu, Nilotic and Cushite micro sub ethnicities lived in the same ancient state in north east Africa. If you want to know how the ancient Egyptians looked like have a look at these videos: ruclips.net/video/oURLKZjDnVg/видео.html ruclips.net/video/nq1jGHk1YcM/видео.html ruclips.net/video/JUl5z_QUm8A/видео.html ruclips.net/video/0rEzlqhBuj0/видео.html And as you enjoy the music, have a close look at those hair locks worn by the women and tell me where have you seen them before. Also have a close look at the loincloth worn by the man with the mic and tell me where you have seen such loin cloth. The ancient Egyptians were black people. And ancient Egypt was a sub-Saharan black civilization. Have a good educative day.
One thing that I did not mention, and I think is a much greater issue with the Netflix docudrama, is that Cleopatra is portrayed as fighting for Egyptian national independence from Rome, which is cast as an ancient forerunner to 19th and 20th century European colonial empires. She even claims that she is willing to "die for Egypt". This smacks of modern national and anti-colonial rhetoric, which is completely out of place in the context of antiquity. Cleopatra would have had no notion of liberating the Egyptian nation from Roman "colonialism". She understood herself to be an imperial figure in her own right, and sought to safeguard the interests of her imperial dynasty, not safegaurd a national community (which is something that did not exist at the time).
@@SpartanLeonidas1821 Now there's a thought!! How come no one has ever thought of that before instead everyone and their grandmother are chiming in to make her anything from black to Egyptian to Levantine, anything except for the people we know we can trace her ancestry to? That is a rhetorical question, you and I both know the answer to it.
I agree, there are a few Historical inconsistencies The bigger problem is Afro-centricism of that the creators They claim , Greek , Olmec, Israelite and even Celtic cultures North African "Mine Is another on being erased
Honnest question: I agree with almost everything you have said. I have some doubt about Cleopatra's lineage. As you said, the Ptolemies were inbreeding, however you mentionned marriages with Persians and Levantines (I'm assuming you mean the Greek royal familly of Syria). I won't nitpick, though. You went on to say that Cleopatra would probably look like a Turk or a Lebanese, leaving Greeks completely out of it. Why? Why didn't you just say that she would look like the average Greek woman? I bet that you can't tell Greeks from Turks or even Lebanese apart (most people can't), yet you made the choice to leave Cleopatra's place of origin out when deacribing what she would look like. Why was that? Oh, and Netflix is claiming it's productions is a documentary, not fiction.
What I find concerning is regardless if Cleopatra was black or white, she was a colonial invader of native Egyptians. Depicting her as black and then depicting her as fighting for Egypt is so inaccurate and dangerous as it portrays the colonialist as a native freedom fighter. It's like depicting George Washington as a native American freedom fighter against British imperialism instead of a colonist wanting to fight UK influence on his own distinct colonialist Republic in the Americas. If she was black, she was a a black Greek of a ruling class that invaded and took over Egypt and she fought for the preservation of that Greek ruling class to continue to have power within the Roman empire not fighting for native Egyptians to remove colonizers
Actually she was the first one to speak the Egyptian language and she did care a lot about Egypt resources and people but at this time she was smart enough to know that she can’t creat her won empire in Egypt
@@mohamedrabie3646Even if George Washington spoke a native language and liked some native tribe's resources and people the republic of the 13 colonies which he was leader or president of didn't have the interests of native people first. The 13 colonies primary goal was them taking care of their interests first and far most which included taking native lands moving west. Same with Cleopatra. She was not concerned with returning Egypt to it's native population and being a welcomed guest in native Egypt despite embracing much of the language and culture. She was interested in Macedonian-Greek rulership of Egypt and self serving to her place in the ruling class.
My biggest issue with the show is a professor of classics saying “I don’t care what they told you in school, my grandmother said….” This quote legitimizes a method of thinking that is anti-intellectual and lazy. It’s dangerous.
They also taught us in school that Jesus Christ was White, blue eyed with long blond hair. They also taught us in school that Chris Columbus discovered America and looked like that statue they have standing in Columbus Circle NYC. LOL! They also taught us in school that what was Babylon is present day Persia/Iran. They also taught us in school that . . . .
@@jendunn7946 I live in the bible belt and my school taught me that Jesus was olive skinned and Christopher Columbus killed a bunch of people for no reason.
It’s not any way out of ordinary human behavior. The problem is PSEUDO science should NEVER have an outlet where they can reach MILLIONS of people with false or made up facts. That’s why they keep updating medical books, psyics books, math books etcetra. Beacuse giving wrong facts, stating wrong facts can have an IMMENSE dangerous outcome. But as we have seen. Everybody has called their bullshit out. No one wants to touch this documentary.
I'm an Egyptian and my problem with this that they called it a documentary and tried to rewrite our history if they called it drama I wouldn't care if she was white black or even Asian but again this is just me I can't speak for a 105 million living here
Not only you, ad not only for Egypt or Greek. It is a spit in the face to all of mediteranian countries ho was a part of Roman Empire at the time of this events. That includes me.
@@pianoblack5885 Funny, I have seen him portrayed as all races. That is the point he has no color/race but loves us all. BTW, he is Jewish. Shall we talk about the black Israelite debacle??? That's a whole other issue no one wants to discuss.
What upsets me more, is that there are hundreds of actual black historical figures with stories worthy of remembrance, and if not told they could be lost forever. But instead of actually doing their due diligence they rather latch onto what is widely known or already popular, and change that story to suit their purposes. The irony is that in so doing, they are neglecting and damaging actual black history in their laziness.
Dude I cannot agree more. This is part of why I see race swapping as such a pointless and harmful practice. Why do you bury the actual, real, historical figures with fascinating stories with this ridiculousness that is just an excuse not to tell an original story? Why do you insist on it being racism to question you when you are burying Egyptian culture and history? Why didn't you just say it was inspired by history instead of saying "nO iT's a ReaL dOCumeNtarY"? Why make the movie about Rome being a "CoLonIZer"... When you could have made one about what of the multiple black Emperors of Rome...
This is exactly what I thought when I heard of the tv-series where Anne Boleyn was played by an actress of colour. Sure, Anne Bolyen and Cleopatra were fascinating women but their stories have been done to death, one way or another. There are plays, operas, movies and tv-shows that feature these women, why can't Hollywood bring us the real story of a lesser-know historical figure who was not white, being played by an actor or actress with the correct racial background? I am white so I don't know how people of colour feel about these questionable casting choices but for me it transmits a message of "actors of colour can only tell a white person's story or to play the token non-white character". Which is not empowering at all.
I disagree that people who watch documentaries don't want to be shown a historically accurate picture. That is literally what separates documentaries from fiction.
No, they don't. Instead, they want to watch something that will make them believe they're being shown a historically accurate picture and the Netflix show failed to do that. E.g. imagine a show without dialogues (they're fictional based on imagination, not sources) with a narrator discussing various possibilities - boring AF and wouldn't attract large audience
@@slawero You're both right. Of course every dialogue not taken verbatim from documents - and even IF they are taken from documents that may idealise the protagonist - is an "artist's rendition". On the other hand, almost all shows today hire historic consultants and try to get the maximum possible depiction, using dog breeds, sets, uniforms, clothing and hair styles as close to the time as possible (insurances have vetoed consistently saddles without stirups, b/c of safety; however, CGIed out stirrups aren't off the tables). What we get is still "sanitised" - nobody wants to see Roman/medieval people wade knee-deep through sewage in the roads, extremely colourful and pronographic statues are shown much less than they seem to have existed in Rome, and the flick of Hypathia for unknown reasons omitted the famous scene of Hypathia throwing a used menstrual pad at a suitor. But there are videos and panels looking at how authentic a production is, up to anal retentiveness (a RUclipsr calling the main protagonist of "Vercingétorix" "Forehead" - Christopher Lambert's makeup was modelled - obviously - after the statue of Vercingétorix in France; or other RUclipsrs claiming ridiculous "time travel"-conspiracies in "Apocalypto" because you see smallpox there, but not Europeans and we all have learned in the last 3 years that you need, for an epidemic to spread, somebody of the original culture present, it's not as if epidemics could "burn through" lands that never saw a European and won't for the next centuries). "Barbarians Season 1" was examined and praised for their authentic pronounciations of Latin, the uniforms, and how it showed the historic context. Sewing RUclipsrs are rating costumes in period dramas. This goes up to examining which ethnicities would have been present in a specific area and/or legion. "Cleopatra" manages to be more historically inaccurate than "Braveheart", and Gibson explicitly stated that he made the movie to tell a story, not as an authentic history film. Braveheart is entertainment, Cleopatra claims to be a "documentary".
@@enysuntra1347 I never saw Netflix advertise the show as a full-fledged 'documentary'. Instead, they're saying it's a docudrama and the genre normally incorporates fiction to various degrees. I think you're trying to scrutinize the show for something it never aspired to be. Was Braveheart more historically accurate than Cleopatra? It probably depends on what you prioritize as judging criteria - typical skin tone for the region or convincing regional accent. If it's the skin tone for some reasons, then sure. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though - you might have thought about other inaccuracies). As far as I understood, your line of reasoning is as follows - if the mass audiences weren't attracted to faithful depiction of fashion, architecture, social life and so on, then the showmakers wouldn't go to great lengths to get historical details right. In addition to that, there are popular YT creators that make money on that type of content. My response to that would be - do those creators focus solely on historical accuracy, and if so how many views do they get? When it comes to showmakers, my understanding is that spending money on those details may attract geeks. It's not a large group of people but they're the loudest ones and they offer free promotion. Besides, I'd argue that a typical viewer likes the aesthetics of historical accuracy rather than the thing itself and as you justifiably pointed out, not everything is good to be shown. The subject is complex and there are nuances to it, which you touched upon. I got your point but I don't want to deep dive into the discussion. I believe your opinion is well justified but it's not the only explanation of what we see.
I think the biggest problem/confusion with this discussion is that besides the obvious fact of Netflix totally disregarding any historical facts, the colour of the skin is not really the biggest problem, but the fact that “black” word used by the African American people only represent Sub-Saharan African people and culture. The wardrobe, hair and makeup in this series disregards what ancient Egyptian culture was like at all but appears like a mix of Egypt and Sub-Saharan culture. There was no way the Goddess Queen of Egypt rode on a horse or were involved in sword fights herself and her hairstyle is so messy. I think the blatant disrespect for the Egyptian culture is the most insulting aspect of it all. The backlash may not have been this severe if say a dark skinned Indian or Sri Lankan woman portrayed Cleopatra with all hairstyles, makeup and wardrobes of Cleopatra and the people surrounding her was historically relatively accurate, the way she was portrayed was historically accurate and the ONLY thing different was the skin colour and it wasn’t called a documentary. I am not saying it’s a good thing to ignore historical facts so obviously the best would be if an Egyptian played Cleopatra but this is just to say if they absolutely HAD to have a dark skinned woman playing Cleopatra like the opposite of Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra, then at least get the other historical facts correct! African American people should try to understand that there are soooooo many different cultures and people with specific facial features besides skin colour differences in the world and stop pushing the American cultural agenda to the world. It is embarrassing and annoying.
You point to another major flaw in the afrocentric movement; the idea that Africa is monolithic in terms of not only skin tone but more importanntly in terms of culture and customs. I saw this in the Holywood film Black Panther as well, where all sorts of completely unrelated African tribal asthetics were just mashed together for a dumbed-down American audience to consume.
Had they simply called the actress Cleopatra it would have been fine, a previous Netflix doc showed an Actress of East Asian Decent play as Cleopatra and it was fine, but when they went "She was X ethnicity" or "she was a warrior queen" and went "I don't care about academics" than thats were things went off the rails. Basically IMO you hire the Talent you have but that doesn't mean because of this you make up your own facts. (Especially when you are claiming to be a Docudrama expected to have a certain amount of accuracy.)
@@Historian-Perspective to be fair to Black Panther he is suppose to be fiction but just because Atlantis and Middle Earth are based on a Civilization or a collaction of them doesn't mean that one needs to view them as the same as the Historical Civilizations they took inspirations too so I can see why you mention Wakanda.
And previous iterations of Cleopatra give respect to Ancient Egyptian culture? Especially to a Greek queen who ruled Egypt? Isn't a lot of what her specific dynasty had in their rule Greek inspired not just ancient Egypt?
I think most people don't understand the issues involved and want to push US internal politics onto the issues. Egyptians are not upset that the actress is black they are upset that the movie is used to push the Afrocentrsit agenda. And that Afrocentrsits try to claim that all non black Egyptians are recent Arab invaders and that all of history Egypt was black nubians. They ignore the art, the mummies, the DNA tests everything and call the Egyptians invaders. And are trying to push The Egyptians out of their own history. The issue of Gal Gadot who is from that region, is not her race it is the she is a Veteran of the Israeli military. They banned Wonder Women as well. This is more of a religious issue. Even though Egypt and Israel have been at peace for 40 yrs. This is based on where she came from not race, at least not as understood in the US.
So why aren’t they upset about the Eurocentrism agenda or the Arab centrist agenda? At least Afrocentric is African and need I remind you that Egypt is on the African continent and ancient Egypt had much contact with inner Africa more to the point ta seti was part of ancient Egypt which is actually nubia.
@@trevormcdonald385 Egypt was an Empire whose size varied over the centuries when it extend down to Nubia it also controlled parts of Libya and all of the Levant up into Syria. And it traded with all of the Mediterranean as well. Northern Europeans are not claiming Egypt is European history or culture, European did have an interest in archeology and ancient Egypt. And that Egypt was tied to Israel, Israel tied to Christianity, and Europe for the most part was Christian.
@@trevormcdonald385 Afrocentrics seek to culture jack every culture under the sun that is not theirs, including ancient Egypt. Egypt is in Africa but it is not of Africa. Egypt had no contact with "inner Africa", the farthest point Egypt conquered and colonized was at Kurgus in Nubia. In any case, every single mummy that has been tested from the OK, MK and NK including the Amarna family has been shown to belong to Eurasian genetics and these people cluster on PCA and f-stats with Levantines, North Africans and Europeans. Not sub-Saharans.
@@trevormcdonald385 Just did It was the first nome (administrative district) and it defined the border between Egypt and Nubia. Ta-Seti land of the bow or sometimes Ta- Khentit Frontier or border land. And these were set up in the 12th dynasty.And it was where Aswan in modern Egypt is today. And it is claimed that the mother of Amenemhat I founder of the 12th Dynsaty was born there. There is no evidence of Nubian connection to this dynasty. And note further that on the pase I checked out is this disclaimer "The XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory?
The director of this docudrama has already admitted that making Cleopatra black is a "political statement" and that's also why they call this a "documentary" Rather than a drama. But even IMDb has already labeled it a docudrama simply to make it clear that calling it a documentary would be a bridge too far.
Yes, the way in which the producers and directors in particular have talked about the modern political concerns they were trying to address in making this docudrama is what has caused so much controversy. Using Cleopatra as a symbol of "Black" empowerment is utterly anachronistic. She would have been utterly alien to these racial categories that people today are trying to box her into.
If you have watched the first season of the series the African Quees, then you can to see that it is a docu-series and its classification as a documentary is not far-fetched because in its episodes experts analyze and tell about historical figures and their own researcher's opinions on the matter and sometimes it shows dramatized clips from the lives of these historical figures. Cleopatra VII is the second season of the historical docuseries, while the first season was about the queen Nzinga and it received an equally critical reception for portraying 17th-century Ambundu Kingdoms as a sort of real-life Wakanda, although it didn't create the same kind of backlash.
Three classes inhabited the city (Alexandria in Egypt): first the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not inclined to civil life; and secondly the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable...; and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others, for even though they were a MIXED people, still they were Greeks by origin and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks. Strabo
@@Historian-Perspective No, white societies need to erase black people from any history that does not involve their enslavement or depict them as perpetual universal primitives is what has caused so much controversy. No one was outraged when Elisabeth Taylor portrayed her, however, one black woman in the role in the entire hundred-plus years history of cinema is causing the swoons and the faints, smelling salts for all!! I wonder where were all the historian RUclipss when blond Nordics were depicting Egyptian Pharaohs? Those depictions didn't seem to spur historians to make qualified clarification videos. In reality Isn't it the need to erase blacks why early historians created the Hesimites and placed Ethiopians, and Nubians in this newly created fantasy racial group because they refused to believe that "black people" could have had a non-primitive past? Isn't this need why Great Zimbabwe was attributed to some mystery non-black group who wandered into sub-Saharan West Africa? What is being challenged is this white supremacist view of history, that so many historians hold as gospel or as a subliminal bias and this challenge is what is controversial. We have for more than a century been asked to believe that the Sahara and waterways around and in Africa were a barrier to black people and no one else. Somehow light-skinned people could find a way to sail the Nile but Black skinned people just couldn't figure out how to make a boat, canoe, or raft. You will forgive black people, given the history of how historians have gone to extremes to erase them and mis portrayed them and their history If they have decided that the standard narrative is suspect and that in all likelihood ten miles from the Nubian border did not suddenly and magically turn everyone white or light skinned and make blacks disappear. They are pressing the case that the ancient world was probably more complicated than that and I think they are probably correct. The controversy is actually about anti-blackness and a little more. All the rest is just a symptom of that anti-blackness.
I agree with what you say, but the issue here is not mere representation in the art, this is being marketed as a factual documentary, the least they can do is remove that label, then do whatever they want as long as they know it is fiction. The other problem here we are facing as Egyptians is the outlandish claims we are invaders and have no relation to the "original" ancient Egyptians who must have been black, since Egypt is in Africa, personally I consider myself African, I have no shame or preference to any skin tone, I see all skin tones in Egypt and I feel that despite Egypt being an melting pot of sorts it didn't really affect the population that much, my issue is the future, will I witness Egyptian artifacts given to black Americans because of their claims? will people come invade my country for such a silly cause? Anti Egyptian sentiment has been growing in Africa in the past twenty years and it is almost a belief now that Egyptians are intruders on Africa, even in some cases the ancient Egyptians themselves are considered invaders, I fear this might go out of hand and threaten our stability, which is why I am outraged by this documentary, please tell me what do you think of this if you can. Thank you.
No my friend you are African as you are Asian and also Egyptian, also you have ancient Egypt and a little ancient Greek cultural legacy as well as you have Islamic culture also, you have Islamic, Orthodox Christianity (and also other Christianity branches) and a little bit of paganistic also religions cultural and religion legacy also, your country is in close club of countries alongside with Greece, Israel, India,China, Korea,Japan, Mexico,Peru and a little more countries "that had the luck" to keep the cultural,linguistic and religion legacy, so you doesn't need to shame for what you are 😉🙂😎. Greeting's and love to your country and your history from Greece 👋 🇬🇷❤️🇪🇬
@@nick_vigerfil Thank you, but cultural and religious legacy is being mistaken for genetic origins and relationship to our ancient ancestors, this is being used as a political excuse to isolate Egypt, that's all, I am not ashamed of my country's legacy, but it cannot be used to deny my ancestry. Thank you and greeting and love to you and Greece and its rich history.
Wait until a bunch of african american mass migrate to Egypt, claim it's their ancestors "promised land" because they say so and declare it's their nation now. 😁
My observations: 1) You stated Cleopatra VII had Levantine ancestry. I guess you have made this claim based on Cleopatra I. Syra, but as far as I am aware, all known ancestors of Cleopatra Syra were Persian and Greek Macedonian. 2) There is, in my opinion, huge difference between 18th century painting of Cleopatra VII or Hollywood movies (where you expect artistic freedom and dramatization) and a project presented to public as factual historical documentary. Presentation of the African Queens project as a documentary while it makes several unbased speculations and fabrications even in trailer is what makes most people uncomfortable. Not the casting per se. 3) you are focusing on the Ptolemies identifying themselves as deities, but you are disregarding one important aspect - Ptolemies saw themselves, at least culturally, as a Greek dynasty and thanks to them, Egypt was hellenised as they brought Greek culture and customs to Egypt and Alexandria with its famous Museion became the center of Hellenistic world.
Some excellent observations. 1. With regard to the Levantine ancestry, I was really trying to underline the fact that the Persians that the Seleucid forbears of the Ptolemies were marrying were not from Persia proper, but were descendants of Persian nobility who had resided in the greater Levant for generations, almost certainly inter-marrying with the local nobility. Take for example, Cleopatra Syra's mother, Laodice III, who was the daughter of Mithridates II of Pontus, a dynasty with Persian extraction that claimed to have become resident in what is now central and northern Turkey around the time of the Achaemenid empire. 2. I don't think there's a huge difference. This is not a documentary but a docudrama, it is meant to entertain as much as "educate", although I think it did a terrible job on the latter. As I think you also acknowledge, its not that they got Cleopatra's skin tone wrong, but that the political and cultural ideas which they ascribe to Cleopatra (turning her into an anti-colonial hero fighting for Egyptian national independence) that is really jarring. 3. This is an incontrovertible point. The Ptolemies definitely saw themselves as belonging to a Hellenic tradition of kingship and culture, though they of course adopted many local traditions and cultural practices from the local Egyptians which horrified other Greeks, such as sibling marriages. Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I really enjoy reading comments that engage with the ideas expounded in the video in a thoughtful and informed manner.
Dear Magdalena, I’m convinced that no matter what I say, large numbers of people will go with their preconceived ideas on this issue. It’s a surprisingly emotive controversy
The identity of her mother is unknown. I’ve read she was ethnic Egyptian whatever that means. Some historians have said that her mother was black, using the modern understanding of what black is
@@MrPhillip1964 The hypothesis that Cleopatras mother could have been Egyptian was based solely on the information that she was the only Ptolemaic ruler who bothered to learn Egyptian language. This hypothesis has major flaws, mainly the fact Cleopatra was a polyglot. The native language of Ptolemies including Cleopatra was Greek, and ancient sources state that she could speak 8 different languages including Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Median, Parthian... it is also possible, even though the language was not listed, that she spoke at least to some degree also Latin. Most historians agree that the safest informed guess to who her mother was is Cleopatra V Tryphaena.
@@Raymoiful I think people understand the difference between ethnicity and the spoken language. The jury’s out on her race. There is some vile anti blackness in the Arab world and for them to accept the historical truths that the ancients were black and most definitely not Arabs will take a lot of persuasion.
I'm proud to be a black West Indian with west African ancestry. I don't need Cleopatra to be black. She clearly wasn't from the artifacts of her. What yoy said at 9:15mins is spot on.
Speaking for myself, I, personally, watch documentaries to learn and find out about things, but not to simply get entertained. For that there is fiction which I also enjoy but we should not confuse the too.
It doesn't matter! She was of Greek and Iranian decent, and as a person that values fact, I want documentaries to reflect this. As a drama I just don't care who plays who. At this point believe your own notion of reality, but facts will always be facts
They're coming at this production from an Afrocentric world view. They believe that all of recorded history is a lie and that what they're presenting is true history. Seriously, they believe that. It's not even "what if Cleopatra was black?". It's "Cleopatra was black, deal with it!" There's no reasoning with them.
She was the princess of the Ptolemies in Macdeonia, she was Greek. She just ruled in Egypt and went to wed with other royals. She also was a relative of Alexander THe Great.
Unfortunately, with liberal ideologies stating that there is no biological difference between men and women, then facts are not always facts in their eyes!
I'll say this right now. I prefer my documentaries to be as ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE. ESPECIALLY when they CALL it a documentary. I DON'T want history rewritten for the sake of someone's political statement. And there is a reason why we try to separate 'Fact' from 'Fiction'.
Im fed up with America's insular racialist ideology being thwarted onto the global map, and having America project their internal socio political framework onto the rest of us. They never shut up about critical race theory this and systemic racism that. I wish the lot of them would give it a rest.
Egyptology universities are across not only Europe, but Asia, Africa, Egypt, and America as they check multiple genetic samples, and do research. Including archelogy excavations done by many nations in Egypt from across the world. Including genetic research by using DNA, X and Y chromosome, radiometric dating, teeth, bone, and even hair samples from mummies. Ancient Egypt started with Naqada culture splitting into Naqada I, II, and III periods by pottery, sculpture, and art split into three periods of Amratian, Gerzean, and Semainean. Spanning the Matmar archelogy site to the first white water rapid cataract of Upper Egypt from the Protodynastic and early dynastic periods and later dynasties. Their cultural ancestor was Badarian culture with early Fayum A culture. Morphological, genetic, and archaeological data shows they originated from Fertile Crescent in the Near East migrating or returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic interacting with coastal populations from North Africa from 12,000 till 3150 BC with the first dynasty start. The genetic studies using bone, teeth, radiometric dating, and hair samples from mummies including before and after the dynastic period along the Nile indicate and matches that modern Egyptians and Ancient Egyptian population along North Africa are of North African and Middle Eastern population. Under haplogroup E1b1b and J. There are also small Saharan, low genetic heritage from Sub-Saharan, and Mediterranean from genetic studies of remains, and living human blood samples indicating that more genetic intensive interaction happened post 639 AD under radiometric dating and genetic studies with the previous three genetic branches. It matches the Islamic religion expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate. Indicating that the Nubian twenty-fifty dynasty, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arab period population that was of ruling minority class in Egypt was small to even leave a large genetic dent on the local population. Similar to Spain having a low heritage of Arab ancestry. Or Greeks, having low Italian ancestry from Roman Empire. Kemet actually was a black land made from Nile black silt. The Nile is the lifeblood of Ancient Egypt both for drinking water, irrigation, and rich sediment for soil. Do you think Ancient Egyptians had a modern fertilizer, or there were no floods each season? It is easy to observe that each spring rivers from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas get fuller when the snow melts, and monsoons bring rain. Rivers carry sediment with them without it the bread basket for trade that was Egypt would have seen a deterioration of its topsoil leading to an event like the Dust Bowl in America and massive hunger. The black silt that yearly Nile floods left behind were indicated by the appearance of the star Sirius in the Egyptian name Sopdet, later Isis in the Ancient Egyptian calendar announcing the start of the flood period as Ancient Egyptians used the black sediment left by the retreating waters of Nile for farming in the rich soil even in the branching Nile Delta referenced on the temple walls, songs, and papyrus texts and hieroglyphs. Nothing of food staples like grain would grow in the desert sand lands named in Ancient Egyptian Deshret or Red Lands. Today like in the past there are Nile floods, but controlled by Aswan High and Low Dam, Sennar Dam, Assiut Barrage, and Lake Nasser with other dams upon the Blue and White Nile and the Nile main part. Take two planters and try growing grain in sandy soil, and in black soil from a river or pond bottom? Where will it grow best?
Netflix BRITISH! produced series TROY failed before too: The Iliad features a character named Memnon who is Nubian, possesses incredible strength, and is favored by Zeus, placing him on par with Achilles. However, the Netflix series TROY missed a chance to showcase this fascinating and underrepresented character and instead opted to replace Achilles with an actor of a different race. This decision not only removes a significant and interesting character from the original story, which is predominantly known as a Greek and Middle Eastern epic, but also perpetuates the harmful practice of race-swapping in media. By failing to include the character of Memnon, the series missed an opportunity to promote inclusivity and diversity, particularly for black viewers who may not be aware of their connection to this historical poem.
I appreciate and very much enjoyed this video as I am currently helping my 8yr old with a school project on Egypt. We appreciate the facts given. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 The difference between the 1963 film with Elizabeth Taylor portraying Cleopatra is that the audience all knew Taylor wasn’t faithful to what Cleopatra looked like as it was just for film purposes, the west never contemplated that we had any involvement with Egyptian culture or history - however what is frustrating to most intelligent individuals is that the blacks make a film and they want to claim, dilute the facts and hijack other cultures “blackwashing” to suggest that they were the ones to reach the great standards of the Egyptians. It’s like copying someone’s homework and passing it off as your own. Disgraceful and very delusional in my opinion. It would be great if you could create a video to educate us all on black history - particularly focusing on their powerful Kings and Queens prestigious heritage, their infrastructure and technologies that advanced and improved the world. I think this would be very well received as it is not mentioned at the forefront of our history. Thank you 🙏🏻
"The blacks" generalizes people to all blacks. Do you really want to speak like this? Be careful. Some element in Black America do this and maybe elsewhere. Most Black people aren't trying to claim anything about Cleopatra whatsoever.
Finally someone makes SENSE with his comments and deals with FACTS! So many people freak out when reminded that race is cultural rather than genetic. It shakes their foundational beliefs.
Ancient Egyptian DNA samples taken from mummies disaproves that. North Africans were not and have never been Sub saharan Black africans. Ancient Egyptians mummies have genetic markers that are also found in populations in both the Mediterranean and west Asia. North Africa is in the Mediterranean region. The only black african presence known in Egypt is that of the Kushites of kush of modern day Sudan AKA the nubians. The 25th dynasty were Kushites but they were later defeated and driven back into Nubia by the Persian Achemineds.
I can only speak for myself as a consumer of content like this. I do not need to see myself depicted in order to enjoy content. If a movie comes on the race or ethnicity other cast is not important. The question is, are the characters interesting an well developed and is the plot compelling. And that is the way I look at RUclips videos as well of the people doing the video are interesting and what they are doing is interesting then I keep watching and give a like. If they are boring and uninteresting I don't watch or subscribe. I can easily say that 90% of the channels I follow involve people who don't look like me and possibly half are not even from my own country.
Unfortunately, only a minority of people are as open-minded. Most people, subconsciously or outright, are drawn to content which is familiar and somewhat reflects their own background and values. Studio execs and production companies bank on this and that is why we have the portrayals that we have.
Same with me. I don't want to watch things all the time with people that look like me. When I play the sims I play, make families that don't look like me. If you cant identify with or yourself in characters or people unless they look like you is kind of racist imo
@@Historian-Perspective are you open minded? I would love to know your nationality and how your nation teaches history especially Europeans and Arabs constant raping of Africa or the present day Europeans in Isreal..
@@Historian-Perspective Open-mindedness is not what documentaries are for. They are to teach and provide background on a topic, period. Stop your psychobabble, we all get too much of that nowadays. You failed here and it gets more laughable by the moment as you denigrate a culture and defend misinformation and bias.
@@OUTTA-TYME88 No one is saying this is why people are upset and you and he missed the point, period. This is not fiction but a people's history being taken away. That is a real problem nowadays and needs to stop, Fiction- no one would have cared but this is not that.
Based on what is usually teach about documentaries, the primary purpose of documentaries is to be educational, to be factual and to bring information to the audience, unlike fiction, such as costume dramas and movies, whose primry purpose is to entertain and be freer. In the book world, documentaries are compared to school textbooks and movies to prose novels. And it's as weird to say that documentaries are no different from movies than saying that school textbooks are as factual as prose novels. That's why it's really important that what documentaries teach and whether the information they teach is fact. And because of this, i.e. for the same reason, people are interested in whether the new Cleopatra VII documentary teaches currently accepted and revised scientific information.
did the brother just say that people don’t watch documentaries for a historically accurate picture? that we want to be entertained? if this is true, we are in big trouble. if i knew a documentary was a lie i would be very upset. this isn’t a movie where you expect it to be mostly made up. in the age of distrust this “documentary” just adds more fuel to our suspicions.
I liked your video, the summation in it, your conclusions, and the way you think. You gave the context, and attacked one of the most repeated vices of today's speech: Presentism, that tendency to think that ideas, concepts and points of view remained the same for all eternity. And I admire your patience answering your naysayers. Regarding this Cleopatra, the most troublesome aspect is not the depiction of Cleopatra as an woman of dark skin, but as sort of a 1960's revolutionary independentist that wield swords. That screams anacronism all over the place. As you say, this would be a totally alien concept for a person of the time of Cleopatra. Kudos for mentioning it. Also, I liked how you tackled the concept of kinship.
No the biggest problem is definitely skin. Blackwashing historical figures at a whim like this is terrifying. Whites are being genocided from our own history. This is war. Blacks are waging war on us.
Hmmmmm. "Makedonian" and "Pitolemy" - aren't these pronunciations a little peculiar? If someone was Mycenaean and wielded a mace, would you pronounce that as Mykenaean and wielding a maké? Would you pronounce Pterodactyl as "Piterodactyl"?
OK, Black South American leftwinger speaking here, so anyone who might feel like accusing me of rightwing conservatism can back off. We in the left, especially the Black movement, have long been denouncing productions such as the 60s "Cleopatra" as anachronostic and whitewashed, so words can't describe the irony of us now standing by Jada Pinkett Smith's million-dollar fanfic on grounds that accurate skin colour depiction isn't relevant. If that is the case, then we should be OK with whitewashing, as well. Secondly, even though some of Cleopatra's female ancestors aren't known for sure, the fact that Greeks were so sectarian and Cleopatra was the first Ptolemeic ruler to even bother learning the Egyptian language makes it highly unlikely that she had any significant Egyptian blood. And, even if she did, her dinasty was based in the north of the country, where most people have traditionally been fairly lighter skinned anyway. Third, it certainly is true that most people don't watch documentaries looking for the truth. But is that a good thing? Shouldn't educated people be rallying against the acceptance of historical distortions. I mean, if this was pure fiction, we could argue that accuracy is secondary, but, as a documentary? Yes, I'd say it very much has the duty of accurately depicting history. Folks, if we accept the rewriting of history whenever it suits us, then we're no better than the far right. And nowadays, more than ever, we need to be.
I almost guarantee that Jada always wanted to play Cleopatra and thought she was the perfect example of Cleopatra. Nothing more nothing less. She had the power and the reputation to push that but knew she was to old for the role.
That comment that people go to entertainment to have their values reinforced and not to actually learn about reality isn't true about all of us. I watch history/anthropology stuff to learn. Because I really believe that while the victors write history, when we uncover a truth that disagrees we need to know about it and that when we cover up or ignore things; like a lot of African and World History that the US has ignored, then we suffer for it in the future. I do appreciate the comment that "race" as we conceive it today had pretty much no bearing on how the ancient world regarded people. Interesting presentation.
Most cowboy movies depicted red Indians as evil savages and the cowboys colonizing them as heroes as a young man I thought the cowboys were the good guys only to find out it's the opposite later
While I agree with you, I think you are forgetting the political implication of using race. It's not about Cleopatra being Black per say, but rather, about a narrative which says that we are special because we are race. This is why such people do not, for instance, take real life figures of African culture but rather try to modify those who weren't into a different vision. Precisely to push a narrative, and NOT for an entertainment value. In other words, to put it plainly it's to push racism. Did the old Cleopatra movie did the same? I honestly don't know, because I never studied the culture back then , nor do I care to. It just as likely was using Taylor simply because she was an A star celebrity as for racist reasons. They simply may not have cared. It doesn't matter because whether they did or not, the reality is that it's past and as such immaterial. However current push is NOW and therefore it is. I do disagree with you on your assertion that she was more of Middle Eastern heritage, I think records show that she is far more Macedonian than she would be Middle Eastern, even those in the line who were NOT directly of Macedonian heritage, were Greek. Of course nation of Turkey isn't the same as when Greeks largely occupied it 2K years ago. One of the reasons I love History is because it has a lot of unknowns, but I absolutely hate when history is being used to push modern agenda and politics. That part is outright evil.
Modern Turkey wasna region of several also Indo Euro peoples of Lowian branch fot about 1000 years. 1 member e as Troy. and many empires? ?conquered the Lowians, Trojans, Phrygians.Capadoccians, etc. Finally SejukmTurks.Mongols than.current, Osmanli ( Ottoman) Turks conquered all (+ minorities like Armenians . killed or deported in WWI, Kurds some killed but not yet expulsions.
I'm trying to be open minded and have been trying to understand the concept of cultural appropriation. Now to me using Egyptian and Greek history for the entertainment of Americans, while Egyptians are upset about how their history is presented to me looks like what I've understood would be called cultural appropriation. If anyone might help me understand if I'm right or wrong, I'd be very grateful.
@@paulhester489 Long ago. The theft of the Elgin Marbles ie Greek Parthenon frescoes over 200 years ago was literally art appropriation. The ancient Romans appropriated Greek deities (& others).
I've heard the PUH-tolomy pronunciation a couple times recently. Am I dumb and this is the real way to say it? If so... that sounds really really dumb.
I am on the side of the Egyptians. I share their disgust. Isn't it enough that Egypt's relics have already been ransacked? Claims of Aliens or Slaves building the Pyramids still propagate. "Documentary" is not the correct term for Jada's show. 'Fantasy' would be a closer fit. Even then, the show is simply not worth a watch. Anyhoo, maybe the next show will be better: "JFK - The Fist Black Female American President". What could possibly go wrong with that factual Documentary?
Modern politics & shallow identity perspectives, have no place in the ancient world. These ancient people had very different cultures & views compared to the modern world.
It’s not just Americans that talk about race and separate people into races. There is a Black British talk show host, I don’t know her name, that went on live TV and said that the British monarchy on the balcony of king Charle’s coronation was too white.
I disagree with most of what you said. Yes Cleopatra was Greek, hence white and yes she tried her best to preserve some sort of independence for her crown and Egypt from the ever growing threat of Rome. Now then the biggest fallacy in your reasoning is this: we Greeks consider it a MAJOR sin and blasphemy, worthy of eternal condemnation in the sewers of hell itself, to drag our ancestors through the mud. We would all rather starve to death or perish in a nuclear holocaust with a smile on our face knowing that we never did such an unthinkable thing and stood true to them to the very end. As such do with your ancestors whatever you wish but don't touch ours. Have a nice day.
Recent.hitorian websites say.that.Grees +.Romans saw.selves as members of 1 1.(now.capled. S Euro.or.Mediterranean group..They saw N.Euro Celts, Germanics. Slavs. as members of.some other group---NOT 1 unified all.Euro = all.white.
Last royal family was from Albania. Turks, Arabs, Greeks. You see a bedouin with a pointed nose smashing of the noses of Kemetian statutes and saying we wuz always here. Your ancestors couldn't even wipe themselves after going to the toilet, yet alone create a pyramid
Well said. We live in weird times where people don't want to dwell in the complexity of scientific historical research and instead want to attach themselves to instant pseudo-scientific hollywood fantasies. This is sad and absurd.
"Discussions on race and skin colour as the basis of identity really don't belong to the realm of ancient history." They don't belong in modern day either... yet we persist, and so much strife is born, which needn't exist.
You had me right up until you said that people watch documentaries merely to be entertained, so it doesn't matter if characters are not accurately presented. I disagree. Documentaries, by their very nature, are supposed to present facts, so it is only natural to expect that what you see represents those facts in as legitimate a way as possible. So, in this case, presenting a queen of Mediterranean heritage as someone of clearly, west African descent is both deceptive and misleading.
I disagree with the last part, Netflix is worldwide, and cleopatra is supposed to be a documentry not a fiction , besides Elizabeth Taylor's movie was back in the sixties, where Hollywood didn't know any better! As Egyptian they should use accurate information and trusted source, why then a professor like you should teach history or become a historian when u can get the information from grandma! It is insulting and racist for us as Egyptians, they could have picked a Nubian Queen from the Kush Empire!
I agree that the 1960s film is not really a one to one comparison to the current Netflix docudrama. I am as surprised as you by the Afrocentrist movement's fixation on Cleopatra rather than the 25th dynasty of Kushite Pharaohs who did indeed have dark skin. Although I still think it would be rediculous for modern African-Americans to claim any sort of kinship with this dynasty who also regarded themselves as God Kings. Also, the part about the "my grandma said it doesn't matter what they tell you at school, Cleopatra was black!" was so incredibly silly that I decided that I wouldn't even engage with it. It was low-hanging fruit.
@@Historian-Perspective , as a black person in the United States. I'm Haitian American. A lot of African Americans are searching for a history before slavery. Afrocentrists said "Egypt in Africa, therefore Ancient Egyptians were black." They like to claim the Pyramids, The Sphinx, obelisk, mummification, hieroglyphics, medicines, treasures, and popular figures (Cleopatra, Tutankhamen, Hatsheput, Ramses II, Nefertiti) as a past black civilization. It makes black people feel good about themselves. They like to romanticize the history of Ancient Egypt, especially Cleopatra VII. Even though there is abundant proof from Egypt's archives. Other intellectuals from other nations have thoroughly studied and documented Ancient Egypt. Even unbiased Sub-Sarahan Africans have concluded that Ancient Egypt wasn't black, other then the Nubian dynasty. There have been ancient mummies who have had DNA testing done which says there are descended from the Levant. All this thoroughly negates the Afrocentrists' claims to Ancient Egypt. Try to tell many of these African Americans that, they will reply that "Egyp is in Africa, not in Sweden." They will claim some conspiracy to steal their history. Many will claim that they need black historians and archeologists THAT THEY TRUST to do the research. Meaning that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Michael Eric Dyson could go over there to Egypt. Take a glance at the actual proof. Then turn around and tell the public, that Ancient Egypt was black. The masses of African Americans would ONLY accept that answer. Despite none of those aforementioned men having any qualifications in historic documenting and archeology. You gotta understand that a good majority of the African American community is radicalized. That's why we are constantly having these racial issues in the United States for like past 20 years. Even though are some legitimate issues with the police brutality and unfair justice system. The majority of the problems are cultural problems within the African American community. Trust me, I don't have it easy as a black person when I stand up and say that Cleopatra wasn't black and Ancient Egypt wasn't black. However, I believe the truth is the truth. Afrocentrists also claim the Moors (who conquered the Iberian pennisula), the Carthaginians (led by Hannibal Barca), the Jews, Arabs, and Native American Indians (Aztec, Mayan, Taino, Cherokee, Eskimo, Iroquois, etc) were black too. So trust me, when another bogus Afrocentric documentary comes out. We will be back at this again.
@@HappyRoach1 thank you for your honesty. I find it incredibly bizarre that Afrocentrists identify with Ancient Egyptian civilisation, even though there are so many wall paintings and carvings showing the Egyptians taking people.from neighbouring countries including Nubians, as captives and prisoners. Its literally in every single temple I visit.
Sorry, I watch a documentary to expand my knowledge and I want it to be true and accurate. If I want to be entertained I watch fiction, although finding entertainment that is actually entertaining is almost impossible in today's woke hellscape. As for Cleopatras ethnicity, yes it's important as it's part of history, which should be true and accurate. While she was born in Egypt she was a direct descendant of Ptolemy I, a dynasty that went to great lengths to keep a pure Macedonian bloodline. Given the evidence that's written, painted and carved in stone, it's all but certain she was a light skinned Macedonian with either red or blonde hair.
I think the problems lies with her being a proud ex-member of the IDF and is still supporting their policies .I doubt the contemporary Egyptians would like that. Oh, Gal Gadot is also a horrible actress. It puzzles me how people still cast her with her distinct lack of acting talent.
I used to work at an Egyptian museum. Every once in awhile the subject of Cleopatra would come up and a red flag would go up. "Oh no "... I would think and as inconspicuously as possible, leave
Yeah everytime someone brings up the race of any Egyptian historical figure, I just roll my eyes and leave the scene as it always ends up badly. Usually the one bringing race up is an ignorant trying to stir the pot for political reasons.
Ancient people absolutely thought of themselves along racial lines. Maybe not the same as us today, probably more so. We think of whites and blacks, but they think of French and English, Cretan vs Athenian. No overarching connection of all whites to each other. Each region was considered a different people. African tribes that to us seem the same would consider each other different peoples entirely and enslave each other and sell them to the whites.
I don't know what to write other then this was a great listen. Historian's should be the first to be contacted to when making historical or documentary about historical persons.
Race is a recent development in society due to the advent of science in genetics. In the Roman Era and prior Eras, there are castes to categorize people. Those are the ruling classes, the commonwealths/working class, and the slaves/surfs. Bravo for bringing up this discussion.👍
@@remliqa You are silent when the characters are white and only ask for accuracy when the characters are black. You are nothing but nazis crying about color. Not to mention how your history books are absolutely inaccurate about Africa. Remliqa what nation do you come from where the films and literature is accurate about Africa? Not one person will answer because you all live in glass houses...
Good points but a few issues note residents of Turkey depended from a group of Asiatic people who arrived over a thousand years after Cleopatra. But Greek, Albanian, Lebanese, Arab, Jew and Persians would be accurate. As far as Elizabeth Taylor goes, her playing the part had nothing to do with race politics. In 1963 that was the most expensive and ambitious film ever. They needed the biggest stars to draw enough viewers to make money on the film. That was th only consideration. Also on another channel it was commented that even though she was from England she was actually Jewish or at least part Jewish, haven't bothered to check on that claim. So assuming that true then much like Gal Gadot her ethnicity is at least eatern Mediterranean.
Cleopatra (Κλεοπάτρα) and her family can't be black figures because they were Greeks. The Ptolemies, originated in the Greek Kingdom of Macedonia (Alexander the Great). She was just the last member of a Greek Dynasty that ruled Egypt, as other Greek Dynasties ruled Asian Kingdoms in the same period (Bactria, Seleucid Empire, Pergamon, Indo-Greek kingdom etc) {Greek/Hellenistic period of Asia and North Africa}.
Roman historian Appian, basing his description of Cleopatra off contemporary sources said she was “fair” in tone and who’s beauty was said to rival the appearance of the Goddess Venus. Also, Lucan, 80 years after her passing, in his poem Pharsalia, wrote “her white breasts visible beneath the sheer fabric of her oriental dress.” She was definitely fair-skinned, as Alexander was noted to be fair skinned with dirty blonde hair (think Northern Macedonian).
Umm.. did you not watch Alexander the Great movie w Colin Farrell? Even in that movie you can clearly see he was dominating regions and joining races together. Yea that really happened. You bringing up Alexander’s features is irrelevant considering Cleopatra lives many years after all his conquests. Greece was like NY as it was a mixed bowl so for you to use that as an example is stupid and the poem u mention is hearsay as you mention this happened 80yrs after her death wtf and also YOU did not exist back then, none of us did as it was BC we especially cannot possibly know all the details of the time but why make ignorant remarks?? I just don’t understand people like you smfh
Appian was born around 150 years after Cleopatra. Also as you say Lucan was born 80 years after her and was born on the other side of the empire in Spain.
@@juliandinkins2531 Appian was well read and had access to contemporary sources. It’s the same if someone asked an American to describe George Washington’s appearance. I personally never seen him in person, but based on contemporary portraits, busts in the White House, one could deduce an accurate depiction of the real man.
@@Sylus_Domanni Look , her is the real bust of Cleopatra. Not Roman styled or second hand but from her palace in Alexandria. This is what she looked like whatever race this seems like is up to you. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_of_Cleopatra
@@juliandinkins2531 That is typical Aswan granite (dark granite native to Egypt). Stylistically sought after for sculpting royalty up to 4th-3rd centuries BC, but definitely was used in older specimens from the earlier dynasties. The material used can give the illusion its portraying skin color, but the darkness accentuates the Hellenistic features more so than lighter granite would. Here’s a bronze rendition of Emperor Augustus: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroë_Head Again, color of material does not always connote artistic expression of the subject’s skin tone, more so to highlight facial features.
The Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor was advertized as a film and caters to the audience of the time. Netflix Cleopatra is advertized as a documentary. That is the difference between the two...
Very good, reasoned video. I think the problem most people have with the Netflix film is the use of the word documentary. A word that has connotations and weight of fact and legitimacy - something this film does not deserve and did not earn.
This Netflix show managed to anger Egypt (not portraying them accurately), Greece (not portraying Cleopatra accurately), Iran (bc of like 15% of Cleopatra’s DNA), history fans, black people (this show puts a big target on their backs and doesn’t even adapt their real history), white women (Queen Charlotte and Cleopatra got blackwashed at the same time as TinkerBell, Ariel, Velma, Daphne and the white woman erasure isn’t stopping and I don’t know why it’s happening so much. xD)
I think you gave some good qualifiers to the issue in your introduction. It seems like people make a quick jump from "[Modern] racism didn't exist in antiquity" to "there were no notions of race in antiquity", "ancient people didn't associate race/ethnicity with skin color", "no one noticed skin color". Did they have "racial identity"? I haven't studied every ancient culture, but the Greeks thought of these phenotypal variations as a function of climate and geography, with maybe a dash of social conditioning. So, I think it would be like identifying as lactose intolerant, or allergic to rag weed. That said, they also had certain prejudices, like thinking Northern Europeans' brains were too cold to think properly. But for them, identity was more about language, culture, what gods you worshiped, and if you held citizenship in this or that city state.
@@pianoblack5885 well actually it is mentioned quite a lot so lol. But you have to understand that peiople that made the arts didnt even know how the people in Betlehem looked like. As well that Jesus was portrayed the way the people that worshipped him looked like
@@-_YouMayFind_- Jesus wasn't Greek or Roman. He was middle eastern. Moses was played by Christian Bale...where was your outrage? ... and stop lying. Your parents and grandparents generation would never follow a brown skinned man while they were telling brown skinned people that they couldn't go to their schools and drink from their water fountains. Quick question, what nation are you from which shows such accuracy/care when making films and writing books about African people? Which land that hasn't imprinted their culture on African people... I would love to know? By the way, not one person has the courage to mention where they are from because you know your nations have never cared about accuracy and preserving any kind of African culture....
@@pianoblack5885 Semites belong to the white race. So Jesus was white. White race just doesn’t equal lily white skin, it also includes darker skin shades.
Black people from the USA think they are Israelites, indigenous , Japanese , Filipino, south Asians, everything but what they really are which is sub Saharan or Central African
Sir or Miss We Americans that Blacks from the USA are primary from West Africa and proud of it!!!! The people of Sudan are Black and of East Africans that we are fighting for in Ancient Sudan was part of Egypt. Which they are trying to erase!!!!
@@sanitizerwilson1599 Wrong The Nubians were from The Sudan. They INVADED Egypt in 712BC. NIce Try. But the Berbers are Indigenous to Egypt and most of North Africa.
Your informed guess about the possible shade of Cleopatra's skin is right on the money. She might even been whiter than your average Mediterranean/Middle Easterns considering that her ancestry had red hair, gingers are usually very white, and the prevailing incest between the Ptolemies. Painting of her in Rome, show her with red hair. So chances of her being of olive skin, like Sophia Loren, for example, are slim to none. Now, the ruling Pharaohs claimed to be descendents of deities. [That is ingrained in our Egyptian religion, Isis, Osiris, Horus, etc.] However, they didn't claim to be from a different race or different land than the masses, like the Greeks for example. Now, growing up in Egypt, Egyptologists I knew like Dr. Labib Habashi & others in my family, graduates of the Antiquities College of Cairo University, used to explain the drawings or wall murals in Egyptian temples. The idea of race never came across anyone's mind. It was totally a non-issue. While explaining the murals, they always said, "Egyptian men are colored with a reddish paint because they were out in the sun all day. While the women, who mostly were inside the home, were painted with a paler color shade. The features are clearly Caucasian. So, I don't know how Egyptians would be classified or categorized. I thought this latest DNA research (2017) might be of interest to you. It compared DNA of 151 mummies from 1388 to 400 BCE. The research concluded that for 1300 years (BCE) there was complete genetic continuity despite all the foreign invaders, & not much sub-Saharan African ancestry. The analysis showed that ancient Egyptians were closely related to people who lived along the eastern Mediterranean. They also shared genetic material with residents of the Turkish peninsula at the time and Europe. www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry/
Very well said on your arguments that this has nothing to do with skin colour. People had their own nationalities and probably didn't care at all for colours. And now that you mentioned it, yeah you certainly wouldn't dare to approach a Queen or King too close and say whatever comes on your mind. Last, a documentary is a film production that its purpose is to present and depict a dramatised version of historical facts, otherwise has no right to be called one. By the way, completely off topic, you got an amazing moustache !!!
Racial/ethnic identity is like peeling an onion. There is always another layer and all you have in the end is a lots of pieces and even more tears. Once you move outside of the liberal, New York/West Coast bubbles and talk to regular people; especially in the large multicultural neighborhoods; you will find that race is a "liberal" construct and ethnicity is the critical differentiator. Growing up in Chicago during the 50's and 60's nobody identified as white, but rather as Irish, Polish, Bohemian, Serbian, Croatian, Greek, Italian - actually the Italians tended to identify as Sicilian, Sardinian, Neapolitan, etc. Italy being a geographic region - etc. Americans were white, Protestants who living in the suburbs who had married outside their neighborhood, ethnic group and church. Working at Western Electric in the late sixties where the signs were in 7 languages, I learned that Hispanic/Latino was another "liberal" construct. There were Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans all of whom regarded themselves as distinct and different. Moving to New York in the 2000s, I also learned that black was another construct - since there were African Americans (Blacks), Haitians, Jamaicans, Creoles, West Indians. Then there were the real Africans - West Africans who divided into English speaking, subdivided into Ghanian Nigerian, etc. and French speaking. Not to be confused with East Africans such as Ethiopians and Eritreans. The only possible exception to this hyper-diversity was the South up through the 70's. There was little ethnic diversity -basically white, Anglo Saxon stock and descendants of black African slaves - with a lot of intermixing. Not Openly discussed, but very evident. Even then, there were pockets of ethnic identity/diversity - Greeks, Irish, Scots, etc. The reality, both now and throughout history, is that humans beings have worked very hard to differentiate, me and mine, from "those people" living down the road. The old Arab proverb: Me against my brother; my brother and I against my family; my family against my clan; my clan against my tribe; etc; etc; etc says it best.
There is no evidence that Cleopatra's image was influenced by "Persian or "Levantine" nobility". All records depict her as a Caucasian of northern Greek origin. I don't know why it is so hard for all youtube "historians" to just state a simple fact. The family that was so obsessed with keeping its lineage pure that it married its own siblings and offspring at least deserves the courtesy of not injecting into it, modern-day speculations.
Any color actor should be able to play different parts. The issue is, this was presented as a documentary. It should never have been. Egyptians should be outraged, all of us should. My question is to the producers, why did they not make a film about the black Nubians? Hollywood has ignored this nation of Kings and Queens. Old white archaeologists ignored this nation. I liken it to whitewashing that is going on in the USA…..not teaching the history of African Americans or that the USA imprisoned thousands of Japanese-Americans in WWII. Please stop trying to rewrite history because you may feel guilty….
Historian's perspective on the issue. Yet, not one of them can speak Greek or Egyptian. Amir Parsa, I don't think Cleopatra spoke English, mate. It's not Rocket Science. If any one really want to understand what people looked like than just look-up Herodotus, the father of histories. He was among the first writers to report about Africa in positive ways. He said Africa: Ethiopia? Dark skin and the men are the tallest, the most handsome, and the longest lived. Herodotus also said that the Egyptians were different than Africans with different clothes [ etc ]. He even mentions Greeks have fair skin.
This documentary is not simply the product of "African Americans wanting to see themselves in the art produced nowadays", it is a product of the ideological movement known as "wokeness"
What is “wokeness” in this day and age? When I first heard of people being “woke” it meant pointing out truths, facts, and evidence that went against the mainstream narrative or was so suppressed. Now, it seems that the meaning has changed to mean distortion.
The deabate as a relates to Cleopatra (from both sides) is pretty fucking stupid. I get why Black people are upset and angry and if we're being honest, they have a right to be upset and angry because let's face it there has been a lot of white washing and outright erasure of their history when it comes to that region and the African continent as a whole. Now was Cleopatra "Black Negro?" ..(No she wasn't ) but for those critics of Black people who assert and make such claims, who say that Cleopatra was Egyptian and assert that the people of today (a.k.a. modern Egyptian's) are the true indigenous Egyptian's are absolutely being intellectually dishonest. Cleopatra herself wasn't "Egyptian" she was Greek..(Macedonian) the Egyptian people were her subjects. The irony here is if people could get past the emotional part of the argument, they could actually utilize this fact to undergird the argument that ancient Egypt was indeed rooted in a black civilization, and that the ancient people of Egypt (a.k.a. Kemet) were Hamites.. (they were indeed Negro)
It's a GD movie, not something one can claim to be holy scripture. The big question is whether the star of the film will deliver a big take at the box office & whether she will be liked by the movie goers. If you can't take the idea that she's Black or brown or white or whatever other color, don't go to the movie. It's that simple. Everybody's so GD racist these days! Get over it!
Could you please also explain the origins of the Egyptian people as a whole? There is much debate about this and I read a lot about different kinds of dynasties over the centuries, whereas one group claims Egypt was originally inhabited by sub-Saharan people. It sounds interesting, but I have little knowledge about it and I like the way you describe historical figures. It makes more sense.
First of all stop using the term sub saharan it’s a modern term, also what do the people who visited Egypt say about Egypt and and what they saw, another how do Egyptians describe themselves and where they come from. As well you can look at patterns of migration across Africa, hope that helps
My question comes from a place of curiosity and Africa is such a diverse continent with numerous interesting ethnicities and cultures, but since there is a lot commotion about Egypt these days, I’m asking the creator (a historian) of this content to enlighten us viewers about this topic specifically. The terminology Sub-Saharan refers to, as far as I know, the countries and its inhabitants in the more South region of Africa, but after some digging, I found out why the terminology can be hurtful. That was not my intention, because I focus on facts. Have a blessed day!❤
Africa is such a vast continent that I don’t think sub-Saharan or West African peoples have anything to do with Egypt’s culture and history. This is their own very distinct one.. It’s like saying that the whole of Asia is all Chinese culture. Even neighboring countries in Asia like Thailand, Cambodia or Malaysia have very distinct histories and cultures from each other. Sure there were migrations but they each still developed their own histories and cultures.
When this was first released it was labeled a Documentary which (rightfully) sparked the controversy from the get go, did Netflix relabel it a Docu-drama to try and weasel out of all the backlash? (I don't use Netflix anymore so I can't verify it)
A documentary is a type of film that uses facts to convince an audience to the film makers views. It's not an actual unbias factual form of film making. All documentaries that are in TV show formants are docu-series and if they are reliant on comedy then they are docu-comedies like the office film in documentary style. Shows like the African queen show is a docu-drma from the very start, it's not a single film so isn't a documentary.
@@Thed538dhsk then why the term “documentary” exist??if any form of film is to convince audiences to film maker view then there is no need of producing document to preserve history on visual form. After all any form of visual media are propaganda and entertainment.
I find it hysterical all the backlash this thing has gotten when there was nothing but praise for the musical Hamilton a while ago. No one seemed to have a problem with a Latino playing Alexander Hamilton or a Black playing Thomas Jefferson. Nor did any historians rise up in protest that such a musical failed to even mention slavery. Yet Cleopatra being presented as a Black woman -- that's the end of the world. I get it though. No one likes historical figures being misrepresented. It's just curious how it only seems to work one way.
As an Egyptian I'd like to thank you for your video what Netflix done wasn't accepted by any means Cleopatra is actually loved by all of us one of our ancestors and ancient queens and we love her story she is our Joliet and it's not about color it's about history and truth ❤
Despite all that was said the ancients did perceive significant differences. Macedonians struggled to be perceived as Greeks. Alexander's Macedonians resented his taking on Persian customs. The Romans had many words for darker skin tones That is not saying black = bad but skin color was noted. That is not to say Romans thought black = bad but it was highly unlikely if Cleopatra was deepest darkest black that it would not have been commented upon by those who disliked her. It was not as if they were so indifferent that they just didn't of it. They did take some pains to describe the people they set about and their habits. Herodotus also. The most reasonable explanation was that Cleopatra's skin tones were unremarkable for 'Maco' girl so there was nothing to comment on.
I'm excited for Netflix next docudrama about Martin Luthor King where a grandma doesn't care what video footage shows, he was a Chinese lesbian who has their own pronouns.
No one is black or white, you mean there are those of sub Saharan ancestry in North Africa. The Arab slave trade started earlier and lasted quite longer than any European slave trade.
I’m surprised a historian would pronounce the P in Ptolemy. Otherwise I agree with you . The significance of skin color is due to the American Afrocentric movement and the fact that the Netflix movie is a Documentary unlike the previous movies .Also this is 2023 not 1960 .
Ptolemaic is a Greek word so if u wanna pronounce it the "Greek way" then the p is not silent. Honestly idk why in English they silence it always. So both are correct depending on what style u wanna talk in
@@ecstasi The P is indeed not silent in Greek but we don't emphasize it either, we don't say Pu-tolemy which is what this so called historian was doing. Also most Brits and Americans that I know of don't make the P silent but instead make it slightly softer than Greeks do.
@@Crypt0n1an In English, most of the P in front of Greek-origin and Greek-derived words are usually silenced, for example, psychology. I was trying to remain faithful to the original pronunciation by pronouncing the P, but I've since been told to keep to the regular anglicised pronunciation which just drops the P. I'm glad that we have a native Greek speaker like yourself who can point out the true pronunciation though. Thanks.
Frankly speaking it should be illegal to pronounce Greek names in English. The language is a chaotic mess. The name Ptolemaios (''Ptolemy'' is just the result of the English broken telephone) is related to the Greek word for war, ''Polemos'', which was also pronounced as ''Ptolemos''. The etymology of the name is ''the warlike one''. Another example with the same root is the name of Achilleus son, Neoptolemos. Neo + P(t)olemos = young warrior. So the P is pronounced, although not over emphasized.
Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek. But also the original Egyptians were not the same race (and definitely not the same culture) as the Arabs who invaded and overtook Egypt 600 years later. Muslims do their best to wipe out any pre-existing culture and replace it with their own. If they could have destroyed the pyramids, they would have. Now they want to take credit for that ancient culture. It's not theirs to take.
There were DNA analyses on modern Egyptian population by government and it show that approx 68% were native with only 15-17% Arab ancestry. This point to modern Egypt was culturally arabzied and the Arabs didn't chance local population but were small elite minority.
Thank you very much Amir for your video! To me, your contribuition to the Netflix's Cleopatra discussion/controversy is, so far, the most (if not the only) reasonable & spot-on response I have heard & watched in RUclips. I also cherish the fact you present your history knowledge, explain the facts & how this whole issue is mostly irrelevant, & express your points of view without being on any kind high horse, rather the oppositte, with, as I see it, a refreshing (& much needed & apreciated) disinterest. Last but not least, I found genuinely interesting the point you make about the differences of perspective on race & kinship between ancient Egypt (& most of past History) & the present day "Modern West". Thank you again. Kudos!
Are you really a historian Amir? Your claim about Cleopatras Middle Eastern ancestry is non sense Ptolemies were renowned for refusing to intermix with other people in order to retain theyr Greek bloodline. You basically trying to tell us that Cleopatra was related to you just like black Americans say that she was related to them. Really hard to find historians who stick with scientific research and evidence in your part of the world Amir and thats sad because you look like a smart guy and as an Iranian you should be content with your own history instead of trying to appropriate historical figures of other ancestries
Cleopatra is weird as do to her being mixed and only one color being of sure relivence it makes knowing what she actually looks like hard. Reason for this is of course because we do not know her grandmother or mother and as they were both concubines it muddled the already at the time possible mix and if not it does the other mix or duel mixture they could have brought into her skin. In other words if she was not purely macadoneon Greek, she was that and something or possibly multiple other things else. In other words she’s like Jesus until we find their body we do not actually know for a fact
The pale man is a lair and a history thief.
This comment made my day.
@@Historian-Perspective "Egypt was a Mediterranean state that reach down north of Khartoum"
What is the distance between Alexandria in Egypt to Khartoum in the Sudan? It is 2,257 kilometers but according to you that distance to the south is the Mediterranean Sea and not Sub-Saharan black Africa. Please Google map and get your bearings right.
"Check out the busts, paintings and coins of Cleopatra. Does she look like an African queen or a Greek ruler? Why is her coins written in Greek? It was a Mediterranean state. There are paintings of her in Pompeii for God sake".
Check and and Google, "Bust of Cleopatra Royal Ontario Museum". While you are at it also check out and Google, "Statue of Cleopatra State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Then tell be why would a lily white Greek Macedonian Persian woman choose to have her bust and statue depicted in pitch black basalt? Would you a Eurocentric, choose to have your bust and statute depicted in pitch black basalt? I would imagine not. Why in 4,000 AD your bust might come to light and some archeologist would conclude you were a black person.
The white Eurocentric Cleopatra to me resembles Julius Creaser's grandmother especially that one in Pompeii for crying out loud. That is why the real Cushite black African Cleopatra has the distinctive cobra vulture crown characteristic of the ones worn by pharaohs of the Nilo Sudanic-Egyptian civilization while the lily white Cleopatra doesn't. To me this proves the Eurocentric depiction of a lily white Greek Macedonian Persian Cleopatra are yet another typical Eurocentric lie as is everything about Eurocentrism,
You see, the first thing you have got to do when you are talking about ancient Egypt and what most Eurocentrists seem to forget or are ignorant about is the fact that the modern-day frontiers separating today's north east African states are artificial creations of the 1884 Berlin colonial conference. You have got to remove the modern day frontiers separating the north east African states. Ancient Egypt of old extended from the northern shores of Egypt to the Sudan, to Ethiopia and Puntland in east Africa. In essence ancient Egypt extended into "sub-Saharan" Africa. This is why you see depictions of all 3 north east African ethnic groups in ancient art, murals and sculpture of the Nilo Sudanic-Egyptian civilization. All these 3 macro ethnic groups and their micro sub-ethnicities resided in the same ONE country and civilization. The image of the Sphinx is clearly Nilotic, That of Queen Tiye is Bantu, while the bust and statues of Queens Nefertiti, Cleopatra, Kings Tut and Akhenaten for example are clearly Cushitic. I am persuaded to believe that the hundreds of Bantu, Nilotic and Cushite micro sub ethnicities lived in the same ancient state in north east Africa. If you want to know how the ancient Egyptians looked like have a look at these videos:
ruclips.net/video/oURLKZjDnVg/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/nq1jGHk1YcM/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/JUl5z_QUm8A/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/0rEzlqhBuj0/видео.html
And as you enjoy the music, have a close look at those hair locks worn by the women and tell me where have you seen them before. Also have a close look at the loincloth worn by the man with the mic and tell me where you have seen such loin cloth. The ancient Egyptians were black people. And ancient Egypt was a sub-Saharan black civilization. Have a good educative day.
Wow that was a big waste of time.😘
@@Historian-Perspective You’re a wolf’s den. 😅😅😅😅😅
@@chizirada865 She WAS NOT BLACK....
One thing that I did not mention, and I think is a much greater issue with the Netflix docudrama, is that Cleopatra is portrayed as fighting for Egyptian national independence from Rome, which is cast as an ancient forerunner to 19th and 20th century European colonial empires. She even claims that she is willing to "die for Egypt". This smacks of modern national and anti-colonial rhetoric, which is completely out of place in the context of antiquity. Cleopatra would have had no notion of liberating the Egyptian nation from Roman "colonialism". She understood herself to be an imperial figure in her own right, and sought to safeguard the interests of her imperial dynasty, not safegaurd a national community (which is something that did not exist at the time).
It also shows cleopatra with a sword fight an Arab dressed man !
This is fiction not a documentary.
If you want to find someone that looks like Cleopatra, I would suspect Macedonia in Greece to be a fantastic option !!! 😃
Greetings from Aegae! 💙
@@SpartanLeonidas1821 Now there's a thought!! How come no one has ever thought of that before instead everyone and their grandmother are chiming in to make her anything from black to Egyptian to Levantine, anything except for the people we know we can trace her ancestry to?
That is a rhetorical question, you and I both know the answer to it.
@@Crypt0n1an Preach my Brother, Preach!!! 👍
I agree, there are a few Historical inconsistencies
The bigger problem is Afro-centricism of that the creators
They claim , Greek , Olmec, Israelite and even Celtic cultures
North African "Mine
Is another on being erased
Great video!! Also, your mustache is one of the best I’ve seen.
Thank you
Honnest question: I agree with almost everything you have said. I have some doubt about Cleopatra's lineage. As you said, the Ptolemies were inbreeding, however you mentionned marriages with Persians and Levantines (I'm assuming you mean the Greek royal familly of Syria). I won't nitpick, though.
You went on to say that Cleopatra would probably look like a Turk or a Lebanese, leaving Greeks completely out of it. Why? Why didn't you just say that she would look like the average Greek woman? I bet that you can't tell Greeks from Turks or even Lebanese apart (most people can't), yet you made the choice to leave Cleopatra's place of origin out when deacribing what she would look like. Why was that?
Oh, and Netflix is claiming it's productions is a documentary, not fiction.
What I find concerning is regardless if Cleopatra was black or white, she was a colonial invader of native Egyptians. Depicting her as black and then depicting her as fighting for Egypt is so inaccurate and dangerous as it portrays the colonialist as a native freedom fighter. It's like depicting George Washington as a native American freedom fighter against British imperialism instead of a colonist wanting to fight UK influence on his own distinct colonialist Republic in the Americas. If she was black, she was a a black Greek of a ruling class that invaded and took over Egypt and she fought for the preservation of that Greek ruling class to continue to have power within the Roman empire not fighting for native Egyptians to remove colonizers
Actually she was the first one to speak the Egyptian language and she did care a lot about Egypt resources and people but at this time she was smart enough to know that she can’t creat her won empire in Egypt
@@mohamedrabie3646Even if George Washington spoke a native language and liked some native tribe's resources and people the republic of the 13 colonies which he was leader or president of didn't have the interests of native people first. The 13 colonies primary goal was them taking care of their interests first and far most which included taking native lands moving west. Same with Cleopatra. She was not concerned with returning Egypt to it's native population and being a welcomed guest in native Egypt despite embracing much of the language and culture. She was interested in Macedonian-Greek rulership of Egypt and self serving to her place in the ruling class.
My biggest issue with the show is a professor of classics saying “I don’t care what they told you in school, my grandmother said….” This quote legitimizes a method of thinking that is anti-intellectual and lazy. It’s dangerous.
They also taught us in school that Jesus Christ was White, blue eyed with long blond hair. They also taught us in school that Chris Columbus discovered America and looked like that statue they have standing in Columbus Circle NYC. LOL! They also taught us in school that what was Babylon is present day Persia/Iran. They also taught us in school that . . . .
@@jendunn7946 you went to the wrong school then….
@@jendunn7946 I live in the bible belt and my school taught me that Jesus was olive skinned and Christopher Columbus killed a bunch of people for no reason.
@@jendunn7946 tell me which schools and which teachers would say it.
It’s not any way out of ordinary human behavior. The problem is PSEUDO science should NEVER have an outlet where they can reach MILLIONS of people with false or made up facts.
That’s why they keep updating medical books, psyics books, math books etcetra. Beacuse giving wrong facts, stating wrong facts can have an IMMENSE dangerous outcome.
But as we have seen. Everybody has called their bullshit out. No one wants to touch this documentary.
I'm an Egyptian and my problem with this that they called it a documentary and tried to rewrite our history if they called it drama I wouldn't care if she was white black or even Asian
but again this is just me I can't speak for a 105 million living here
Not only you, ad not only for Egypt or Greek. It is a spit in the face to all of mediteranian countries ho was a part of Roman Empire at the time of this events. That includes me.
As another fellow Egyptian i join in on this.
As a Greek i agree Totally with you also offended by this nasty attack to our common piece of history and cultural legacy....👍
Where is this conversation the number of times Jesus is portrayed as white?
Which is also inaccurate.
Not one person can answer...
@@pianoblack5885 Funny, I have seen him portrayed as all races. That is the point he has no color/race but loves us all. BTW, he is Jewish. Shall we talk about the black Israelite debacle??? That's a whole other issue no one wants to discuss.
What upsets me more, is that there are hundreds of actual black historical figures with stories worthy of remembrance, and if not told they could be lost forever. But instead of actually doing their due diligence they rather latch onto what is widely known or already popular, and change that story to suit their purposes. The irony is that in so doing, they are neglecting and damaging actual black history in their laziness.
Dude I cannot agree more. This is part of why I see race swapping as such a pointless and harmful practice. Why do you bury the actual, real, historical figures with fascinating stories with this ridiculousness that is just an excuse not to tell an original story? Why do you insist on it being racism to question you when you are burying Egyptian culture and history? Why didn't you just say it was inspired by history instead of saying "nO iT's a ReaL dOCumeNtarY"? Why make the movie about Rome being a "CoLonIZer"... When you could have made one about what of the multiple black Emperors of Rome...
This is exactly what I thought when I heard of the tv-series where Anne Boleyn was played by an actress of colour. Sure, Anne Bolyen and Cleopatra were fascinating women but their stories have been done to death, one way or another. There are plays, operas, movies and tv-shows that feature these women, why can't Hollywood bring us the real story of a lesser-know historical figure who was not white, being played by an actor or actress with the correct racial background? I am white so I don't know how people of colour feel about these questionable casting choices but for me it transmits a message of "actors of colour can only tell a white person's story or to play the token non-white character". Which is not empowering at all.
Name a few, I don't know them but I could be wrong of course.
@@arobluckyRosa Parks, Harriet Tuban, Martin Luther King Jr...
I disagree that people who watch documentaries don't want to be shown a historically accurate picture. That is literally what separates documentaries from fiction.
I agree. When I watch a fictional movie or TV show, I want to be entertained. When I watch a documentary, I want to be educated.
No, they don't. Instead, they want to watch something that will make them believe they're being shown a historically accurate picture and the Netflix show failed to do that. E.g. imagine a show without dialogues (they're fictional based on imagination, not sources) with a narrator discussing various possibilities - boring AF and wouldn't attract large audience
@@slawero You're both right. Of course every dialogue not taken verbatim from documents - and even IF they are taken from documents that may idealise the protagonist - is an "artist's rendition".
On the other hand, almost all shows today hire historic consultants and try to get the maximum possible depiction, using dog breeds, sets, uniforms, clothing and hair styles as close to the time as possible (insurances have vetoed consistently saddles without stirups, b/c of safety; however, CGIed out stirrups aren't off the tables).
What we get is still "sanitised" - nobody wants to see Roman/medieval people wade knee-deep through sewage in the roads, extremely colourful and pronographic statues are shown much less than they seem to have existed in Rome, and the flick of Hypathia for unknown reasons omitted the famous scene of Hypathia throwing a used menstrual pad at a suitor. But there are videos and panels looking at how authentic a production is, up to anal retentiveness (a RUclipsr calling the main protagonist of "Vercingétorix" "Forehead" - Christopher Lambert's makeup was modelled - obviously - after the statue of Vercingétorix in France; or other RUclipsrs claiming ridiculous "time travel"-conspiracies in "Apocalypto" because you see smallpox there, but not Europeans and we all have learned in the last 3 years that you need, for an epidemic to spread, somebody of the original culture present, it's not as if epidemics could "burn through" lands that never saw a European and won't for the next centuries).
"Barbarians Season 1" was examined and praised for their authentic pronounciations of Latin, the uniforms, and how it showed the historic context. Sewing RUclipsrs are rating costumes in period dramas. This goes up to examining which ethnicities would have been present in a specific area and/or legion.
"Cleopatra" manages to be more historically inaccurate than "Braveheart", and Gibson explicitly stated that he made the movie to tell a story, not as an authentic history film. Braveheart is entertainment, Cleopatra claims to be a "documentary".
@@enysuntra1347 I never saw Netflix advertise the show as a full-fledged 'documentary'. Instead, they're saying it's a docudrama and the genre normally incorporates fiction to various degrees. I think you're trying to scrutinize the show for something it never aspired to be.
Was Braveheart more historically accurate than Cleopatra? It probably depends on what you prioritize as judging criteria - typical skin tone for the region or convincing regional accent. If it's the skin tone for some reasons, then sure. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, though - you might have thought about other inaccuracies).
As far as I understood, your line of reasoning is as follows - if the mass audiences weren't attracted to faithful depiction of fashion, architecture, social life and so on, then the showmakers wouldn't go to great lengths to get historical details right. In addition to that, there are popular YT creators that make money on that type of content. My response to that would be - do those creators focus solely on historical accuracy, and if so how many views do they get? When it comes to showmakers, my understanding is that spending money on those details may attract geeks. It's not a large group of people but they're the loudest ones and they offer free promotion. Besides, I'd argue that a typical viewer likes the aesthetics of historical accuracy rather than the thing itself and as you justifiably pointed out, not everything is good to be shown.
The subject is complex and there are nuances to it, which you touched upon. I got your point but I don't want to deep dive into the discussion. I believe your opinion is well justified but it's not the only explanation of what we see.
@@CrystalGoddess90 they got that in Mrs Pinket’s film Cleopatra.
I think the biggest problem/confusion with this discussion is that besides the obvious fact of Netflix totally disregarding any historical facts, the colour of the skin is not really the biggest problem, but the fact that “black” word used by the African American people only represent Sub-Saharan African people and culture. The wardrobe, hair and makeup in this series disregards what ancient Egyptian culture was like at all but appears like a mix of Egypt and Sub-Saharan culture. There was no way the Goddess Queen of Egypt rode on a horse or were involved in sword fights herself and her hairstyle is so messy. I think the blatant disrespect for the Egyptian culture is the most insulting aspect of it all. The backlash may not have been this severe if say a dark skinned Indian or Sri Lankan woman portrayed Cleopatra with all hairstyles, makeup and wardrobes of Cleopatra and the people surrounding her was historically relatively accurate, the way she was portrayed was historically accurate and the ONLY thing different was the skin colour and it wasn’t called a documentary. I am not saying it’s a good thing to ignore historical facts so obviously the best would be if an Egyptian played Cleopatra but this is just to say if they absolutely HAD to have a dark skinned woman playing Cleopatra like the opposite of Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra, then at least get the other historical facts correct!
African American people should try to understand that there are soooooo many different cultures and people with specific facial features besides skin colour differences in the world and stop pushing the American cultural agenda to the world. It is embarrassing and annoying.
You point to another major flaw in the afrocentric movement; the idea that Africa is monolithic in terms of not only skin tone but more importanntly in terms of culture and customs.
I saw this in the Holywood film Black Panther as well, where all sorts of completely unrelated African tribal asthetics were just mashed together for a dumbed-down American audience to consume.
Exactly, this is the reason we are fuming !
Had they simply called the actress Cleopatra it would have been fine, a previous Netflix doc showed an Actress of East Asian Decent play as Cleopatra and it was fine, but when they went "She was X ethnicity" or "she was a warrior queen" and went "I don't care about academics" than thats were things went off the rails.
Basically IMO you hire the Talent you have but that doesn't mean because of this you make up your own facts. (Especially when you are claiming to be a Docudrama expected to have a certain amount of accuracy.)
@@Historian-Perspective to be fair to Black Panther he is suppose to be fiction but just because Atlantis and Middle Earth are based on a Civilization or a collaction of them doesn't mean that one needs to view them as the same as the Historical Civilizations they took inspirations too so I can see why you mention Wakanda.
And previous iterations of Cleopatra give respect to Ancient Egyptian culture? Especially to a Greek queen who ruled Egypt? Isn't a lot of what her specific dynasty had in their rule Greek inspired not just ancient Egypt?
I think most people don't understand the issues involved and want to push US internal politics onto the issues.
Egyptians are not upset that the actress is black they are upset that the movie is used to push the Afrocentrsit agenda. And that Afrocentrsits try to claim that all non black Egyptians are recent Arab invaders and that all of history Egypt was black nubians. They ignore the art, the mummies, the DNA tests everything and call the Egyptians invaders. And are trying to push The Egyptians out of their own history.
The issue of Gal Gadot who is from that region, is not her race it is the she is a Veteran of the Israeli military. They banned Wonder Women as well. This is more of a religious issue. Even though Egypt and Israel have been at peace for 40 yrs. This is based on where she came from not race, at least not as understood in the US.
So why aren’t they upset about the Eurocentrism agenda or the Arab centrist agenda? At least Afrocentric is African and need I remind you that Egypt is on the African continent and ancient Egypt had much contact with inner Africa more to the point ta seti was part of ancient Egypt which is actually nubia.
@@trevormcdonald385 Egypt was an Empire whose size varied over the centuries when it extend down to Nubia it also controlled parts of Libya and all of the Levant up into Syria.
And it traded with all of the Mediterranean as well.
Northern Europeans are not claiming Egypt is European history or culture, European did have an interest in archeology and ancient Egypt.
And that Egypt was tied to Israel, Israel tied to Christianity, and Europe for the most part was Christian.
@@gerardcote8391 look up ta seti
@@trevormcdonald385 Afrocentrics seek to culture jack every culture under the sun that is not theirs, including ancient Egypt. Egypt is in Africa but it is not of Africa. Egypt had no contact with "inner Africa", the farthest point Egypt conquered and colonized was at Kurgus in Nubia. In any case, every single mummy that has been tested from the OK, MK and NK including the Amarna family has been shown to belong to Eurasian genetics and these people cluster on PCA and f-stats with Levantines, North Africans and Europeans. Not sub-Saharans.
@@trevormcdonald385 Just did It was the first nome (administrative district) and it defined the border between Egypt and Nubia. Ta-Seti land of the bow or sometimes Ta- Khentit Frontier or border land. And these were set up in the 12th dynasty.And it was where Aswan in modern Egypt is today. And it is claimed that the mother of Amenemhat I founder of the 12th Dynsaty was born there.
There is no evidence of Nubian connection to this dynasty. And note further that on the pase I checked out is this disclaimer
"The XIIth Dynasty (1991-1786 B.C.E.) originated from the Aswan region. As expected, strong Nubian features and dark coloring are seen in their sculpture and relief work. This dynasty ranks as among the greatest, whose fame far outlived its actual tenure on the throne. Especially interesting, it was a member of this dynasty- that decreed that no Nehsy (riverine Nubian of the principality of Kush), except such as came for trade or diplomatic reasons, should pass by the Egyptian fortress at the southern end of the Second Nile Cataract. Why would this royal family of Nubian ancestry ban other Nubians from coming into Egyptian territory?
The director of this docudrama has already admitted that making Cleopatra black is a "political statement" and that's also why they call this a "documentary" Rather than a drama. But even IMDb has already labeled it a docudrama simply to make it clear that calling it a documentary would be a bridge too far.
Yes, the way in which the producers and directors in particular have talked about the modern political concerns they were trying to address in making this docudrama is what has caused so much controversy. Using Cleopatra as a symbol of "Black" empowerment is utterly anachronistic. She would have been utterly alien to these racial categories that people today are trying to box her into.
If you have watched the first season of the series the African Quees, then you can to see that it is a docu-series and its classification as a documentary is not far-fetched because in its episodes experts analyze and tell about historical figures and their own researcher's opinions on the matter and sometimes it shows dramatized clips from the lives of these historical figures. Cleopatra VII is the second season of the historical docuseries, while the first season was about the queen Nzinga and it received an equally critical reception for portraying 17th-century Ambundu Kingdoms as a sort of real-life Wakanda, although it didn't create the same kind of backlash.
Three classes inhabited the city (Alexandria in Egypt): first the Aegyptian or native stock of people, who were quick-tempered and not inclined to civil life; and secondly the mercenary class, who were severe and numerous and intractable...; and, third, the tribe of the Alexandrians, who also were not distinctly inclined to civil life, and for the same reasons, but still they were better than those others, for even though they were a MIXED people, still they were Greeks by origin and mindful of the customs common to the Greeks.
Strabo
@@Historian-Perspective No, white societies need to erase black people from any history that does not involve their enslavement or depict them as perpetual universal primitives is what has caused so much controversy. No one was outraged when Elisabeth Taylor portrayed her, however, one black woman in the role in the entire hundred-plus years history of cinema is causing the swoons and the faints, smelling salts for all!! I wonder where were all the historian RUclipss when blond Nordics were depicting Egyptian Pharaohs? Those depictions didn't seem to spur historians to make qualified clarification videos. In reality Isn't it the need to erase blacks why early historians created the Hesimites and placed Ethiopians, and Nubians in this newly created fantasy racial group because they refused to believe that "black people" could have had a non-primitive past? Isn't this need why Great Zimbabwe was attributed to some mystery non-black group who wandered into sub-Saharan West Africa? What is being challenged is this white supremacist view of history, that so many historians hold as gospel or as a subliminal bias and this challenge is what is controversial. We have for more than a century been asked to believe that the Sahara and waterways around and in Africa were a barrier to black people and no one else. Somehow light-skinned people could find a way to sail the Nile but Black skinned people just couldn't figure out how to make a boat, canoe, or raft. You will forgive black people, given the history of how historians have gone to extremes to erase them and mis portrayed them and their history If they have decided that the standard narrative is suspect and that in all likelihood ten miles from the Nubian border did not suddenly and magically turn everyone white or light skinned and make blacks disappear. They are pressing the case that the ancient world was probably more complicated than that and I think they are probably correct. The controversy is actually about anti-blackness and a little more. All the rest is just a symptom of that anti-blackness.
u CAN STOP THE UNSUPPORTED NONESENSE. PLENTY OF FACTUAL EVIDENCE AVAILBLE TODAY. GOOGLE ...CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY REAL CLEOPATRA)
I agree with what you say, but the issue here is not mere representation in the art, this is being marketed as a factual documentary, the least they can do is remove that label, then do whatever they want as long as they know it is fiction.
The other problem here we are facing as Egyptians is the outlandish claims we are invaders and have no relation to the "original" ancient Egyptians who must have been black, since Egypt is in Africa, personally I consider myself African, I have no shame or preference to any skin tone, I see all skin tones in Egypt and I feel that despite Egypt being an melting pot of sorts it didn't really affect the population that much, my issue is the future, will I witness Egyptian artifacts given to black Americans because of their claims? will people come invade my country for such a silly cause?
Anti Egyptian sentiment has been growing in Africa in the past twenty years and it is almost a belief now that Egyptians are intruders on Africa, even in some cases the ancient Egyptians themselves are considered invaders, I fear this might go out of hand and threaten our stability, which is why I am outraged by this documentary, please tell me what do you think of this if you can. Thank you.
No my friend you are African as you are Asian and also Egyptian, also you have ancient Egypt and a little ancient Greek cultural legacy as well as you have Islamic culture also, you have Islamic, Orthodox Christianity (and also other Christianity branches) and a little bit of paganistic also religions cultural and religion legacy also, your country is in close club of countries alongside with Greece, Israel, India,China, Korea,Japan, Mexico,Peru and a little more countries "that had the luck" to keep the cultural,linguistic and religion legacy, so you doesn't need to shame for what you are 😉🙂😎. Greeting's and love to your country and your history from Greece 👋 🇬🇷❤️🇪🇬
@@nick_vigerfil No, they are not. Try some research.
@@nick_vigerfil Thank you, but cultural and religious legacy is being mistaken for genetic origins and relationship to our ancient ancestors, this is being used as a political excuse to isolate Egypt, that's all, I am not ashamed of my country's legacy, but it cannot be used to deny my ancestry.
Thank you and greeting and love to you and Greece and its rich history.
Wait until a bunch of african american mass migrate to Egypt, claim it's their ancestors "promised land" because they say so and declare it's their nation now. 😁
My observations:
1) You stated Cleopatra VII had Levantine ancestry. I guess you have made this claim based on Cleopatra I. Syra, but as far as I am aware, all known ancestors of Cleopatra Syra were Persian and Greek Macedonian.
2) There is, in my opinion, huge difference between 18th century painting of Cleopatra VII or Hollywood movies (where you expect artistic freedom and dramatization) and a project presented to public as factual historical documentary. Presentation of the African Queens project as a documentary while it makes several unbased speculations and fabrications even in trailer is what makes most people uncomfortable. Not the casting per se.
3) you are focusing on the Ptolemies identifying themselves as deities, but you are disregarding one important aspect - Ptolemies saw themselves, at least culturally, as a Greek dynasty and thanks to them, Egypt was hellenised as they brought Greek culture and customs to Egypt and Alexandria with its famous Museion became the center of Hellenistic world.
Excellent analysis.
Some excellent observations.
1. With regard to the Levantine ancestry, I was really trying to underline the fact that the Persians that the Seleucid forbears of the Ptolemies were marrying were not from Persia proper, but were descendants of Persian nobility who had resided in the greater Levant for generations, almost certainly inter-marrying with the local nobility. Take for example, Cleopatra Syra's mother, Laodice III, who was the daughter of Mithridates II of Pontus, a dynasty with Persian extraction that claimed to have become resident in what is now central and northern Turkey around the time of the Achaemenid empire.
2. I don't think there's a huge difference. This is not a documentary but a docudrama, it is meant to entertain as much as "educate", although I think it did a terrible job on the latter. As I think you also acknowledge, its not that they got Cleopatra's skin tone wrong, but that the political and cultural ideas which they ascribe to Cleopatra (turning her into an anti-colonial hero fighting for Egyptian national independence) that is really jarring.
3. This is an incontrovertible point. The Ptolemies definitely saw themselves as belonging to a Hellenic tradition of kingship and culture, though they of course adopted many local traditions and cultural practices from the local Egyptians which horrified other Greeks, such as sibling marriages.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I really enjoy reading comments that engage with the ideas expounded in the video in a thoughtful and informed manner.
The documentary hasn’t been released yet. So claiming it has unbased speculations and fabrications is false.
@@MrPhillip1964 Except that the director stated this all on interviews.
@@rroberts6887 what you should do it watch it for yourself. The facts are, Cleopatra’s mother and grandmother are of unknown identities.
Mr. Parsa, no matter what you say, Small Group of Black people in USA feel entitled to other peoples glory.
😂
Dear Magdalena, I’m convinced that no matter what I say, large numbers of people will go with their preconceived ideas on this issue. It’s a surprisingly emotive controversy
The identity of her mother is unknown. I’ve read she was ethnic Egyptian whatever that means. Some historians have said that her mother was black, using the modern understanding of what black is
@@MrPhillip1964 The hypothesis that Cleopatras mother could have been Egyptian was based solely on the information that she was the only Ptolemaic ruler who bothered to learn Egyptian language. This hypothesis has major flaws, mainly the fact Cleopatra was a polyglot. The native language of Ptolemies including Cleopatra was Greek, and ancient sources state that she could speak 8 different languages including Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic, Median, Parthian... it is also possible, even though the language was not listed, that she spoke at least to some degree also Latin.
Most historians agree that the safest informed guess to who her mother was is Cleopatra V Tryphaena.
@@Raymoiful I think people understand the difference between ethnicity and the spoken language. The jury’s out on her race. There is some vile anti blackness in the Arab world and for them to accept the historical truths that the ancients were black and most definitely not Arabs will take a lot of persuasion.
I'm proud to be a black West Indian with west African ancestry. I don't need Cleopatra to be black. She clearly wasn't from the artifacts of her. What yoy said at 9:15mins is spot on.
AND U R CLEARLY IGNORANT
The fact that they (docuseries directors /Netflix)say that Cleopatra is black is like calling Jada Pinkett Smith a (loving/faithful wife) 😂😂😂😂
Cleopatra was not An Abdul
Speaking for myself, I, personally, watch documentaries to learn and find out about things, but not to simply get entertained. For that there is fiction which I also enjoy but we should not confuse the too.
It doesn't matter! She was of Greek and Iranian decent, and as a person that values fact, I want documentaries to reflect this. As a drama I just don't care who plays who. At this point believe your own notion of reality, but facts will always be facts
You should produce your own documentary.
They're coming at this production from an Afrocentric world view. They believe that all of recorded history is a lie and that what they're presenting is true history. Seriously, they believe that. It's not even "what if Cleopatra was black?". It's "Cleopatra was black, deal with it!" There's no reasoning with them.
She was the princess of the Ptolemies in Macdeonia, she was Greek. She just ruled in Egypt and went to wed with other royals. She also was a relative of Alexander THe Great.
Unfortunately, with liberal ideologies stating that there is no biological difference between men and women, then facts are not always facts in their eyes!
I'll say this right now. I prefer my documentaries to be as ACCURATE AS POSSIBLE.
ESPECIALLY when they CALL it a documentary.
I DON'T want history rewritten for the sake of someone's political statement.
And there is a reason why we try to separate 'Fact' from 'Fiction'.
The problem is they have classified this as a documentary??. It is not. It is someone's interpretation but not a documentary.
Im fed up with America's insular racialist ideology being thwarted onto the global map, and having America project their internal socio political framework onto the rest of us. They never shut up about critical race theory this and systemic racism that. I wish the lot of them would give it a rest.
Europeans do it as well! Don’t kid yourself!
Egyptology universities are across not only Europe, but Asia, Africa, Egypt, and America as they check multiple genetic samples, and do research. Including archelogy excavations done by many nations in Egypt from across the world. Including genetic research by using DNA, X and Y chromosome, radiometric dating, teeth, bone, and even hair samples from mummies. Ancient Egypt started with Naqada culture splitting into Naqada I, II, and III periods by pottery, sculpture, and art split into three periods of Amratian, Gerzean, and Semainean. Spanning the Matmar archelogy site to the first white water rapid cataract of Upper Egypt from the Protodynastic and early dynastic periods and later dynasties. Their cultural ancestor was Badarian culture with early Fayum A culture. Morphological, genetic, and archaeological data shows they originated from Fertile Crescent in the Near East migrating or returning during the Egyptian and North African Neolithic interacting with coastal populations from North Africa from 12,000 till 3150 BC with the first dynasty start. The genetic studies using bone, teeth, radiometric dating, and hair samples from mummies including before and after the dynastic period along the Nile indicate and matches that modern Egyptians and Ancient Egyptian population along North Africa are of North African and Middle Eastern population. Under haplogroup E1b1b and J. There are also small Saharan, low genetic heritage from Sub-Saharan, and Mediterranean from genetic studies of remains, and living human blood samples indicating that more genetic intensive interaction happened post 639 AD under radiometric dating and genetic studies with the previous three genetic branches. It matches the Islamic religion expansion of the Rashidun Caliphate. Indicating that the Nubian twenty-fifty dynasty, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Arab period population that was of ruling minority class in Egypt was small to even leave a large genetic dent on the local population. Similar to Spain having a low heritage of Arab ancestry. Or Greeks, having low Italian ancestry from Roman Empire. Kemet actually was a black land made from Nile black silt. The Nile is the lifeblood of Ancient Egypt both for drinking water, irrigation, and rich sediment for soil. Do you think Ancient Egyptians had a modern fertilizer, or there were no floods each season? It is easy to observe that each spring rivers from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas get fuller when the snow melts, and monsoons bring rain. Rivers carry sediment with them without it the bread basket for trade that was Egypt would have seen a deterioration of its topsoil leading to an event like the Dust Bowl in America and massive hunger. The black silt that yearly Nile floods left behind were indicated by the appearance of the star Sirius in the Egyptian name Sopdet, later Isis in the Ancient Egyptian calendar announcing the start of the flood period as Ancient Egyptians used the black sediment left by the retreating waters of Nile for farming in the rich soil even in the branching Nile Delta referenced on the temple walls, songs, and papyrus texts and hieroglyphs. Nothing of food staples like grain would grow in the desert sand lands named in Ancient Egyptian Deshret or Red Lands. Today like in the past there are Nile floods, but controlled by Aswan High and Low Dam, Sennar Dam, Assiut Barrage, and Lake Nasser with other dams upon the Blue and White Nile and the Nile main part. Take two planters and try growing grain in sandy soil, and in black soil from a river or pond bottom? Where will it grow best?
TMI.
Netflix BRITISH! produced series TROY failed before too: The Iliad features a character named Memnon who is Nubian, possesses incredible strength, and is favored by Zeus, placing him on par with Achilles. However, the Netflix series TROY missed a chance to showcase this fascinating and underrepresented character and instead opted to replace Achilles with an actor of a different race. This decision not only removes a significant and interesting character from the original story, which is predominantly known as a Greek and Middle Eastern epic, but also perpetuates the harmful practice of race-swapping in media. By failing to include the character of Memnon, the series missed an opportunity to promote inclusivity and diversity, particularly for black viewers who may not be aware of their connection to this historical poem.
Interesting
Screw inclusivity and diversity! That’s an ideological statement ! Simply be accurate
I appreciate and very much enjoyed this video as I am currently helping my 8yr old with a school project on Egypt. We appreciate the facts given. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The difference between the 1963 film with Elizabeth Taylor portraying Cleopatra is that the audience all knew Taylor wasn’t faithful to what Cleopatra looked like as it was just for film purposes, the west never contemplated that we had any involvement with Egyptian culture or history - however what is frustrating to most intelligent individuals is that the blacks make a film and they want to claim, dilute the facts and hijack other cultures “blackwashing” to suggest that they were the ones to reach the great standards of the Egyptians. It’s like copying someone’s homework and passing it off as your own. Disgraceful and very delusional in my opinion.
It would be great if you could create a video to educate us all on black history - particularly focusing on their powerful Kings and Queens prestigious heritage, their infrastructure and technologies that advanced and improved the world. I think this would be very well received as it is not mentioned at the forefront of our history.
Thank you 🙏🏻
"The blacks" generalizes people to all blacks. Do you really want to speak like this? Be careful. Some element in Black America do this and maybe elsewhere. Most Black people aren't trying to claim anything about Cleopatra whatsoever.
Sub Saharan empires had little impact upon the modern world
@@PoldarkGodzilla, close to zero
Finally someone makes SENSE with his comments and deals with FACTS! So many people freak out when reminded that race is cultural rather than genetic. It shakes their foundational beliefs.
Ancient Egyptian DNA samples taken from mummies disaproves that. North Africans were not and have never been Sub saharan Black africans. Ancient Egyptians mummies have genetic markers that are also found in populations in both the Mediterranean and west Asia. North Africa is in the Mediterranean region. The only black african presence known in Egypt is that of the Kushites of kush of modern day Sudan AKA the nubians. The 25th dynasty were Kushites but they were later defeated and driven back into Nubia by the Persian Achemineds.
I can only speak for myself as a consumer of content like this. I do not need to see myself depicted in order to enjoy content.
If a movie comes on the race or ethnicity other cast is not important. The question is, are the characters interesting an well developed and is the plot compelling.
And that is the way I look at RUclips videos as well of the people doing the video are interesting and what they are doing is interesting then I keep watching and give a like. If they are boring and uninteresting I don't watch or subscribe. I can easily say that 90% of the channels I follow involve people who don't look like me and possibly half are not even from my own country.
Unfortunately, only a minority of people are as open-minded. Most people, subconsciously or outright, are drawn to content which is familiar and somewhat reflects their own background and values. Studio execs and production companies bank on this and that is why we have the portrayals that we have.
Same with me. I don't want to watch things all the time with people that look like me. When I play the sims I play, make families that don't look like me. If you cant identify with or yourself in characters or people unless they look like you is kind of racist imo
@@Historian-Perspective are you open minded? I would love to know your nationality and how your nation teaches history especially Europeans and Arabs constant raping of Africa or the present day Europeans in Isreal..
@@Historian-Perspective Open-mindedness is not what documentaries are for. They are to teach and provide background on a topic, period. Stop your psychobabble, we all get too much of that nowadays. You failed here and it gets more laughable by the moment as you denigrate a culture and defend misinformation and bias.
@@OUTTA-TYME88 No one is saying this is why people are upset and you and he missed the point, period. This is not fiction but a people's history being taken away. That is a real problem nowadays and needs to stop, Fiction- no one would have cared but this is not that.
Based on what is usually teach about documentaries, the primary purpose of documentaries is to be educational, to be factual and to bring information to the audience, unlike fiction, such as costume dramas and movies, whose primry purpose is to entertain and be freer. In the book world, documentaries are compared to school textbooks and movies to prose novels. And it's as weird to say that documentaries are no different from movies than saying that school textbooks are as factual as prose novels. That's why it's really important that what documentaries teach and whether the information they teach is fact. And because of this, i.e. for the same reason, people are interested in whether the new Cleopatra VII documentary teaches currently accepted and revised scientific information.
Wonderful perspective taking into account the historical perspective of ruling classes especially for their family.
@@moralmorallady She might have been forgotten or unknown. It happened a lot back then.
did the brother just say that people don’t watch documentaries for a historically accurate picture? that we want to be entertained?
if this is true, we are in big trouble. if i knew a documentary was a lie i would be very upset. this isn’t a movie where you expect it to be mostly made up.
in the age of distrust this “documentary” just adds more fuel to our suspicions.
Wow that really scares me damn
I liked your video, the summation in it, your conclusions, and the way you think. You gave the context, and attacked one of the most repeated vices of today's speech: Presentism, that tendency to think that ideas, concepts and points of view remained the same for all eternity. And I admire your patience answering your naysayers.
Regarding this Cleopatra, the most troublesome aspect is not the depiction of Cleopatra as an woman of dark skin, but as sort of a 1960's revolutionary independentist that wield swords. That screams anacronism all over the place. As you say, this would be a totally alien concept for a person of the time of Cleopatra. Kudos for mentioning it. Also, I liked how you tackled the concept of kinship.
Thank you for your kind words.
@@Historian-Perspective thank you for your video
No the biggest problem is definitely skin. Blackwashing historical figures at a whim like this is terrifying. Whites are being genocided from our own history. This is war. Blacks are waging war on us.
I call bs- not your history. The whole video had issues and do some research, seriously.
Hmmmmm. "Makedonian" and "Pitolemy" - aren't these pronunciations a little peculiar? If someone was Mycenaean and wielded a mace, would you pronounce that as Mykenaean and wielding a maké? Would you pronounce Pterodactyl as "Piterodactyl"?
those are the old greek pronouncements.
OK, Black South American leftwinger speaking here, so anyone who might feel like accusing me of rightwing conservatism can back off.
We in the left, especially the Black movement, have long been denouncing productions such as the 60s "Cleopatra" as anachronostic and whitewashed, so words can't describe the irony of us now standing by Jada Pinkett Smith's million-dollar fanfic on grounds that accurate skin colour depiction isn't relevant. If that is the case, then we should be OK with whitewashing, as well.
Secondly, even though some of Cleopatra's female ancestors aren't known for sure, the fact that Greeks were so sectarian and Cleopatra was the first Ptolemeic ruler to even bother learning the Egyptian language makes it highly unlikely that she had any significant Egyptian blood. And, even if she did, her dinasty was based in the north of the country, where most people have traditionally been fairly lighter skinned anyway.
Third, it certainly is true that most people don't watch documentaries looking for the truth. But is that a good thing? Shouldn't educated people be rallying against the acceptance of historical distortions. I mean, if this was pure fiction, we could argue that accuracy is secondary, but, as a documentary? Yes, I'd say it very much has the duty of accurately depicting history.
Folks, if we accept the rewriting of history whenever it suits us, then we're no better than the far right. And nowadays, more than ever, we need to be.
hear hear
But ... but my Granny said that Cleopatra was Chinese ... 🥺
I almost guarantee that Jada always wanted to play Cleopatra and thought she was the perfect example of Cleopatra. Nothing more nothing less. She had the power and the reputation to push that but knew she was to old for the role.
If the wokes didnt give us concept of white face yellow face and cultural appropriation..... I would accept Jada as Cleopatra
@@sonnymak6707 All those concepts predates the idea (or even the word) woke.
That comment that people go to entertainment to have their values reinforced and not to actually learn about reality isn't true about all of us. I watch history/anthropology stuff to learn. Because I really believe that while the victors write history, when we uncover a truth that disagrees we need to know about it and that when we cover up or ignore things; like a lot of African and World History that the US has ignored, then we suffer for it in the future. I do appreciate the comment that "race" as we conceive it today had pretty much no bearing on how the ancient world regarded people. Interesting presentation.
Most cowboy movies depicted red Indians as evil savages and the cowboys colonizing them as heroes as a young man I thought the cowboys were the good guys only to find out it's the opposite later
While I agree with you, I think you are forgetting the political implication of using race. It's not about Cleopatra being Black per say, but rather, about a narrative which says that we are special because we are race. This is why such people do not, for instance, take real life figures of African culture but rather try to modify those who weren't into a different vision. Precisely to push a narrative, and NOT for an entertainment value. In other words, to put it plainly it's to push racism.
Did the old Cleopatra movie did the same? I honestly don't know, because I never studied the culture back then , nor do I care to. It just as likely was using Taylor simply because she was an A star celebrity as for racist reasons. They simply may not have cared.
It doesn't matter because whether they did or not, the reality is that it's past and as such immaterial. However current push is NOW and therefore it is.
I do disagree with you on your assertion that she was more of Middle Eastern heritage, I think records show that she is far more Macedonian than she would be Middle Eastern, even those in the line who were NOT directly of Macedonian heritage, were Greek. Of course nation of Turkey isn't the same as when Greeks largely occupied it 2K years ago.
One of the reasons I love History is because it has a lot of unknowns, but I absolutely hate when history is being used to push modern agenda and politics. That part is outright evil.
Modern Turkey wasna region of several
also Indo Euro peoples of Lowian branch
fot about 1000 years. 1 member e as Troy. and many empires? ?conquered the
Lowians, Trojans, Phrygians.Capadoccians, etc.
Finally SejukmTurks.Mongols than.current, Osmanli ( Ottoman)
Turks conquered all (+ minorities
like Armenians . killed or deported
in WWI, Kurds some killed but
not yet expulsions.
This conversation is the direct result of Jada pinkett's decisions and Netflix's decision to support her.
I'm trying to be open minded and have been trying to understand the concept of cultural appropriation.
Now to me using Egyptian and Greek history for the entertainment of Americans, while Egyptians are upset about how their history is presented to me looks like what I've understood would be called cultural appropriation.
If anyone might help me understand if I'm right or wrong, I'd be very grateful.
An actual example of cultural appropriation
When did cultural appropriation start? With John Wayne playing Ghengis Khan?
@@paulhester489 I have no idea. I didn't come up with the concept.
@@paulhester489 Long ago. The theft of the Elgin Marbles ie Greek Parthenon frescoes over 200 years ago was literally art appropriation. The ancient Romans appropriated Greek deities (& others).
@@paulhester489 no, they made make up for him to look Asian.
I've heard the PUH-tolomy pronunciation a couple times recently. Am I dumb and this is the real way to say it? If so... that sounds really really dumb.
Can you investigate Shaka Zulu having Dutch ancestry?🤣🤣
It's ok, we don't need to steel valor. We have plenty of accomplishments ourselves
I am on the side of the Egyptians. I share their disgust. Isn't it enough that Egypt's relics have already been ransacked? Claims of Aliens or Slaves building the Pyramids still propagate. "Documentary" is not the correct term for Jada's show. 'Fantasy' would be a closer fit. Even then, the show is simply not worth a watch. Anyhoo, maybe the next show will be better: "JFK - The Fist Black Female American President". What could possibly go wrong with that factual Documentary?
Modern politics & shallow identity perspectives, have no place in the ancient world. These ancient people had very different cultures & views compared to the modern world.
The Egyptian's should make a documentary about the USA civil rights movement and cast a fair skinned Egyptian as Dr. Martin Luther King 😂🤣
It’s not just Americans that talk about race and separate people into races. There is a Black British talk show host, I don’t know her name, that went on live TV and said that the British monarchy on the balcony of king Charle’s coronation was too white.
Not a talk show host, but an actress. She's famous for portraying a blackwashed English queen in a TV show.
I disagree with most of what you said. Yes Cleopatra was Greek, hence white and yes she tried her best to preserve some sort of independence for her crown and Egypt from the ever growing threat of Rome. Now then the biggest fallacy in your reasoning is this: we Greeks consider it a MAJOR sin and blasphemy, worthy of eternal condemnation in the sewers of hell itself, to drag our ancestors through the mud. We would all rather starve to death or perish in a nuclear holocaust with a smile on our face knowing that we never did such an unthinkable thing and stood true to them to the very end.
As such do with your ancestors whatever you wish but don't touch ours. Have a nice day.
Nonetheless, thanks for watching and sharing your views.
So your ancestors were Nubian? Kermit?.... So we're mine😢
Recent.hitorian websites say.that.Grees +.Romans saw.selves as members of 1
1.(now.capled. S Euro.or.Mediterranean
group..They saw N.Euro Celts, Germanics. Slavs. as members of.some other group---NOT 1 unified all.Euro =
all.white.
Last royal family was from Albania. Turks, Arabs, Greeks. You see a bedouin with a pointed nose smashing of the noses of Kemetian statutes and saying we wuz always here. Your ancestors couldn't even wipe themselves after going to the toilet, yet alone create a pyramid
Well said. We live in weird times where people don't want to dwell in the complexity of scientific historical research and instead want to attach themselves to instant pseudo-scientific hollywood fantasies. This is sad and absurd.
"Discussions on race and skin colour as the basis of identity really don't belong to the realm of ancient history." They don't belong in modern day either... yet we persist, and so much strife is born, which needn't exist.
Thoughtful, calm well spoken review. I appreciated this viewpoint.🙏
You had me right up until you said that people watch documentaries merely to be entertained, so it doesn't matter if characters are not accurately presented. I disagree. Documentaries, by their very nature, are supposed to present facts, so it is only natural to expect that what you see represents those facts in as legitimate a way as possible. So, in this case, presenting a queen of Mediterranean heritage as someone of clearly, west African descent is both deceptive and misleading.
It is not a documentary, it is instead, a mockumentary!
Greeks/Macedonians were White Europeans.
I disagree with the last part, Netflix is worldwide, and cleopatra is supposed to be a documentry not a fiction , besides Elizabeth Taylor's movie was back in the sixties, where Hollywood didn't know any better! As Egyptian they should use accurate information and trusted source, why then a professor like you should teach history or become a historian when u can get the information from grandma! It is insulting and racist for us as Egyptians, they could have picked a Nubian Queen from the Kush Empire!
I agree that the 1960s film is not really a one to one comparison to the current Netflix docudrama.
I am as surprised as you by the Afrocentrist movement's fixation on Cleopatra rather than the 25th dynasty of Kushite Pharaohs who did indeed have dark skin. Although I still think it would be rediculous for modern African-Americans to claim any sort of kinship with this dynasty who also regarded themselves as God Kings.
Also, the part about the "my grandma said it doesn't matter what they tell you at school, Cleopatra was black!" was so incredibly silly that I decided that I wouldn't even engage with it. It was low-hanging fruit.
but Elizabeth taylor is not that much different than the real cleopatra who had pale skinned and red hair
@@Historian-Perspective , as a black person in the United States. I'm Haitian American. A lot of African Americans are searching for a history before slavery. Afrocentrists said "Egypt in Africa, therefore Ancient Egyptians were black." They like to claim the Pyramids, The Sphinx, obelisk, mummification, hieroglyphics, medicines, treasures, and popular figures (Cleopatra, Tutankhamen, Hatsheput, Ramses II, Nefertiti) as a past black civilization. It makes black people feel good about themselves. They like to romanticize the history of Ancient Egypt, especially Cleopatra VII. Even though there is abundant proof from Egypt's archives. Other intellectuals from other nations have thoroughly studied and documented Ancient Egypt. Even unbiased Sub-Sarahan Africans have concluded that Ancient Egypt wasn't black, other then the Nubian dynasty. There have been ancient mummies who have had DNA testing done which says there are descended from the Levant. All this thoroughly negates the Afrocentrists' claims to Ancient Egypt.
Try to tell many of these African Americans that, they will reply that "Egyp is in Africa, not in Sweden." They will claim some conspiracy to steal their history. Many will claim that they need black historians and archeologists THAT THEY TRUST to do the research. Meaning that Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, and Michael Eric Dyson could go over there to Egypt. Take a glance at the actual proof. Then turn around and tell the public, that Ancient Egypt was black. The masses of African Americans would ONLY accept that answer. Despite none of those aforementioned men having any qualifications in historic documenting and archeology. You gotta understand that a good majority of the African American community is radicalized. That's why we are constantly having these racial issues in the United States for like past 20 years. Even though are some legitimate issues with the police brutality and unfair justice system. The majority of the problems are cultural problems within the African American community.
Trust me, I don't have it easy as a black person when I stand up and say that Cleopatra wasn't black and Ancient Egypt wasn't black. However, I believe the truth is the truth.
Afrocentrists also claim the Moors (who conquered the Iberian pennisula), the Carthaginians (led by Hannibal Barca), the Jews, Arabs, and Native American Indians (Aztec, Mayan, Taino, Cherokee, Eskimo, Iroquois, etc) were black too. So trust me, when another bogus Afrocentric documentary comes out. We will be back at this again.
@@HappyRoach1 thank you for your honesty. I find it incredibly bizarre that Afrocentrists identify with Ancient Egyptian civilisation, even though there are so many wall paintings and carvings showing the Egyptians taking people.from neighbouring countries including Nubians, as captives and prisoners. Its literally in every single temple I visit.
Sorry, I watch a documentary to expand my knowledge and I want it to be true and accurate. If I want to be entertained I watch fiction, although finding entertainment that is actually entertaining is almost impossible in today's woke hellscape. As for Cleopatras ethnicity, yes it's important as it's part of history, which should be true and accurate. While she was born in Egypt she was a direct descendant of Ptolemy I, a dynasty that went to great lengths to keep a pure Macedonian bloodline. Given the evidence that's written, painted and carved in stone, it's all but certain she was a light skinned Macedonian with either red or blonde hair.
This is the best most fair perspective i've seen on this issue it's not racially motivated, angry or biased towards any particular race ✌
And it made no sense! 🤔
Well, that comes out if you let opinions out and concentrate on facts and logic...
Gal Godat in my mind is a perfect Cleopatra. She's so looks so multicultural that no one can fight lol
I think the problems lies with her being a proud ex-member of the IDF and is still supporting their policies .I doubt the contemporary Egyptians would like that.
Oh, Gal Gadot is also a horrible actress. It puzzles me how people still cast her with her distinct lack of acting talent.
Dude your ‘stash is awesome!
I used to work at an Egyptian museum. Every once in awhile the subject of Cleopatra would come up and a red flag would go up. "Oh no "... I would think and as inconspicuously as possible, leave
Haha. This is such a touchy subject. Most of the comments here have been quite civil, but you can tell that people are heated.
Yeah everytime someone brings up the race of any Egyptian historical figure, I just roll my eyes and leave the scene as it always ends up badly. Usually the one bringing race up is an ignorant trying to stir the pot for political reasons.
@@lubkak7058 It only ends up badly because someone doesn’t want to hear the true. Usually it’s the ones who believe Eurocentric lies.
Ancient people absolutely thought of themselves along racial lines. Maybe not the same as us today, probably more so. We think of whites and blacks, but they think of French and English, Cretan vs Athenian.
No overarching connection of all whites to each other. Each region was considered a different people. African tribes that to us seem the same would consider each other different peoples entirely and enslave each other and sell them to the whites.
I don't know what to write other then this was a great listen. Historian's should be the first to be contacted to when making historical or documentary about historical persons.
Race is a recent development in society due to the advent of science in genetics. In the Roman Era and prior Eras, there are castes to categorize people. Those are the ruling classes, the commonwealths/working class, and the slaves/surfs. Bravo for bringing up this discussion.👍
Where is this conversation the number of times Jesus is portrayed as white?
Which is also inaccurate.
Not one person can answer...
@casumarzu you make my point. When people from the cultures are portrayed as white, it's fine.
Clown..
@@pianoblack5885 Two wrong don't make a right.
@@remliqa You are silent when the characters are white and only ask for accuracy when the characters are black.
You are nothing but nazis crying about color.
Not to mention how your history books are absolutely inaccurate about Africa.
Remliqa what nation do you come from where the films and literature is accurate about Africa?
Not one person will answer because you all live in glass houses...
Good points but a few issues note residents of Turkey depended from a group of Asiatic people who arrived over a thousand years after Cleopatra. But Greek, Albanian, Lebanese, Arab, Jew and Persians would be accurate.
As far as Elizabeth Taylor goes, her playing the part had nothing to do with race politics. In 1963 that was the most expensive and ambitious film ever. They needed the biggest stars to draw enough viewers to make money on the film. That was th only consideration. Also on another channel it was commented that even though she was from England she was actually Jewish or at least part Jewish, haven't bothered to check on that claim.
So assuming that true then much like Gal Gadot her ethnicity is at least eatern Mediterranean.
Cleopatra (Κλεοπάτρα) and her family can't be black figures because they were Greeks. The Ptolemies, originated in the Greek Kingdom of Macedonia (Alexander the Great). She was just the last member of a Greek Dynasty that ruled Egypt, as other Greek Dynasties ruled Asian Kingdoms in the same period (Bactria, Seleucid Empire, Pergamon, Indo-Greek kingdom etc)
{Greek/Hellenistic period of Asia and North Africa}.
Roman historian Appian, basing his description of Cleopatra off contemporary sources said she was “fair” in tone and who’s beauty was said to rival the appearance of the Goddess Venus. Also, Lucan, 80 years after her passing, in his poem Pharsalia, wrote “her white breasts visible beneath the sheer fabric of her oriental dress.” She was definitely fair-skinned, as Alexander was noted to be fair skinned with dirty blonde hair (think Northern Macedonian).
Umm.. did you not watch Alexander the Great movie w Colin Farrell? Even in that movie you can clearly see he was dominating regions and joining races together. Yea that really happened. You bringing up Alexander’s features is irrelevant considering Cleopatra lives many years after all his conquests. Greece was like NY as it was a mixed bowl so for you to use that as an example is stupid and the poem u mention is hearsay as you mention this happened 80yrs after her death wtf and also YOU did not exist back then, none of us did as it was BC we especially cannot possibly know all the details of the time but why make ignorant remarks?? I just don’t understand people like you smfh
Appian was born around 150 years after Cleopatra. Also as you say Lucan was born 80 years after her and was born on the other side of the empire in Spain.
@@juliandinkins2531 Appian was well read and had access to contemporary sources. It’s the same if someone asked an American to describe George Washington’s appearance. I personally never seen him in person, but based on contemporary portraits, busts in the White House, one could deduce an accurate depiction of the real man.
@@Sylus_Domanni Look , her is the real bust of Cleopatra. Not Roman styled or second hand but from her palace in Alexandria. This is what she looked like whatever race this seems like is up to you. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_of_Cleopatra
@@juliandinkins2531 That is typical Aswan granite (dark granite native to Egypt). Stylistically sought after for sculpting royalty up to 4th-3rd centuries BC, but definitely was used in older specimens from the earlier dynasties.
The material used can give the illusion its portraying skin color, but the darkness accentuates the Hellenistic features more so than lighter granite would.
Here’s a bronze rendition of Emperor Augustus:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meroë_Head
Again, color of material does not always connote artistic expression of the subject’s skin tone, more so to highlight facial features.
The Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor was advertized as a film and caters to the audience of the time. Netflix Cleopatra is advertized as a documentary. That is the difference between the two...
Very good, reasoned video. I think the problem most people have with the Netflix film is the use of the word documentary. A word that has connotations and weight of fact and legitimacy - something this film does not deserve and did not earn.
Would not Elizabeth Taylor more closely reflect Cleopatra's greek ancestry?
I think the problem is when you make a documentary you should at least ATTEMPT to base your story in recorded historical evidence.
This Netflix show managed to anger Egypt (not portraying them accurately), Greece (not portraying Cleopatra accurately), Iran (bc of like 15% of Cleopatra’s DNA), history fans, black people (this show puts a big target on their backs and doesn’t even adapt their real history), white women (Queen Charlotte and Cleopatra got blackwashed at the same time as TinkerBell, Ariel, Velma, Daphne and the white woman erasure isn’t stopping and I don’t know why it’s happening so much. xD)
I think you gave some good qualifiers to the issue in your introduction. It seems like people make a quick jump from "[Modern] racism didn't exist in antiquity" to "there were no notions of race in antiquity", "ancient people didn't associate race/ethnicity with skin color", "no one noticed skin color". Did they have "racial identity"? I haven't studied every ancient culture, but the Greeks thought of these phenotypal variations as a function of climate and geography, with maybe a dash of social conditioning. So, I think it would be like identifying as lactose intolerant, or allergic to rag weed. That said, they also had certain prejudices, like thinking Northern Europeans' brains were too cold to think properly. But for them, identity was more about language, culture, what gods you worshiped, and if you held citizenship in this or that city state.
Where is this conversation the number of times Jesus is portrayed as white?
Which is also inaccurate.
Not one person can answer...
People did notice skin colour look at the Egyptians art haha
@@pianoblack5885 well actually it is mentioned quite a lot so lol. But you have to understand that peiople that made the arts didnt even know how the people in Betlehem looked like. As well that Jesus was portrayed the way the people that worshipped him looked like
@@-_YouMayFind_- Jesus wasn't Greek or Roman.
He was middle eastern. Moses was played by Christian Bale...where was your outrage?
... and stop lying. Your parents and grandparents generation would never follow a brown skinned man while they were telling brown skinned people that they couldn't go to their schools and drink from their water fountains.
Quick question, what nation are you from which shows such accuracy/care when making films and writing books about African people?
Which land that hasn't imprinted their culture on African people...
I would love to know?
By the way, not one person has the courage to mention where they are from because you know your nations have never cared about accuracy and preserving any kind of African culture....
@@pianoblack5885 Semites belong to the white race. So Jesus was white.
White race just doesn’t equal lily white skin, it also includes darker skin shades.
I like your wall paper
I am not Egyptian. But I am part Nigerian and I would NEVER claim that I was just because I am mixed race like MOST "black" people are in the US.
Black people from the USA think they are Israelites, indigenous , Japanese , Filipino, south Asians, everything but what they really are which is sub Saharan or Central African
Sir or Miss We Americans that Blacks from the USA are primary from West Africa and proud of it!!!! The people of Sudan are Black and of East Africans that we are fighting for in Ancient Sudan was part of Egypt. Which they are trying to erase!!!!
@@sanitizerwilson1599 Wrong The Nubians were from The Sudan. They INVADED Egypt in 712BC. NIce Try. But the Berbers are Indigenous to Egypt and most of North Africa.
Your informed guess about the possible shade of Cleopatra's skin is right on the money. She might even been whiter than your average Mediterranean/Middle Easterns considering that her ancestry had red hair, gingers are usually very white, and the prevailing incest between the Ptolemies. Painting of her in Rome, show her with red hair. So chances of her being of olive skin, like Sophia Loren, for example, are slim to none.
Now, the ruling Pharaohs claimed to be descendents of deities. [That is ingrained in our Egyptian religion, Isis, Osiris, Horus, etc.] However, they didn't claim to be from a different race or different land than the masses, like the Greeks for example.
Now, growing up in Egypt, Egyptologists I knew like Dr. Labib Habashi & others in my family, graduates of the Antiquities College of Cairo University, used to explain the drawings or wall murals in Egyptian temples. The idea of race never came across anyone's mind. It was totally a non-issue. While explaining the murals, they always said, "Egyptian men are colored with a reddish paint because they were out in the sun all day. While the women, who mostly were inside the home, were painted with a paler color shade. The features are clearly Caucasian. So, I don't know how Egyptians would be classified or categorized.
I thought this latest DNA research (2017) might be of interest to you. It compared DNA of 151 mummies from 1388 to 400 BCE. The research concluded that for 1300 years (BCE) there was complete genetic continuity despite all the foreign invaders, & not much sub-Saharan African ancestry.
The analysis showed that ancient Egyptians were closely related to people who lived along the eastern Mediterranean. They also shared genetic material with residents of the Turkish peninsula at the time and Europe.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/05/30/dna-from-ancient-egyptian-mummies-reveals-their-ancestry/
Very well said on your arguments that this has nothing to do with skin colour. People had their own nationalities and probably didn't care at all for colours. And now that you mentioned it, yeah you certainly wouldn't dare to approach a Queen or King too close and say whatever comes on your mind. Last, a documentary is a film production that its purpose is to present and depict a dramatised version of historical facts, otherwise has no right to be called one.
By the way, completely off topic, you got an amazing moustache !!!
Racial/ethnic identity is like peeling an onion. There is always another layer and all you have in the end is a lots of pieces and even more tears. Once you move outside of the liberal, New York/West Coast bubbles and talk to regular people; especially in the large multicultural neighborhoods; you will find that race is a "liberal" construct and ethnicity is the critical differentiator. Growing up in Chicago during the 50's and 60's nobody identified as white, but rather as Irish, Polish, Bohemian, Serbian, Croatian, Greek, Italian - actually the Italians tended to identify as Sicilian, Sardinian, Neapolitan, etc. Italy being a geographic region - etc. Americans were white, Protestants who living in the suburbs who had married outside their neighborhood, ethnic group and church. Working at Western Electric in the late sixties where the signs were in 7 languages, I learned that Hispanic/Latino was another "liberal" construct. There were Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans all of whom regarded themselves as distinct and different. Moving to New York in the 2000s, I also learned that black was another construct - since there were African Americans (Blacks), Haitians, Jamaicans, Creoles, West Indians. Then there were the real Africans - West Africans who divided into English speaking, subdivided into Ghanian Nigerian, etc. and French speaking. Not to be confused with East Africans such as Ethiopians and Eritreans. The only possible exception to this hyper-diversity was the South up through the 70's. There was little ethnic diversity -basically white, Anglo Saxon stock and descendants of black African slaves - with a lot of intermixing. Not Openly discussed, but very evident. Even then, there were pockets of ethnic identity/diversity - Greeks, Irish, Scots, etc. The reality, both now and throughout history, is that humans beings have worked very hard to differentiate, me and mine, from "those people" living down the road. The old Arab proverb: Me against my brother; my brother and I against my family; my family against my clan; my clan against my tribe; etc; etc; etc says it best.
Good job. You stayed away from the emotional debate and spoke as a historian.
There is no evidence that Cleopatra's image was influenced by "Persian or "Levantine" nobility". All records depict her as a Caucasian of northern Greek origin. I don't know why it is so hard for all youtube "historians" to just state a simple fact. The family that was so obsessed with keeping its lineage pure that it married its own siblings and offspring at least deserves the courtesy of not injecting into it, modern-day speculations.
No, I totally do want any documentary I watch to be an accurate picture. Thats the entire point of a documentary
Any color actor should be able to play different parts. The issue is, this was presented as a documentary. It should never have been. Egyptians should be outraged, all of us should. My question is to the producers, why did they not make a film about the black Nubians? Hollywood has ignored this nation of Kings and Queens. Old white archaeologists ignored this nation. I liken it to whitewashing that is going on in the USA…..not teaching the history of African Americans or that the USA imprisoned thousands of Japanese-Americans in WWII. Please stop trying to rewrite history because you may feel guilty….
Thank you for your observations, we really need more people like you.
Historian's perspective on the issue. Yet, not one of them can speak Greek or Egyptian. Amir Parsa, I don't think Cleopatra spoke English, mate.
It's not Rocket Science. If any one really want to understand what people looked like than just look-up Herodotus, the father of histories.
He was among the first writers to report about Africa in positive ways. He said Africa: Ethiopia? Dark skin and the men are the tallest, the most handsome, and the longest lived.
Herodotus also said that the Egyptians were different than Africans with different clothes [ etc ]. He even mentions Greeks have fair skin.
This documentary is not simply the product of "African Americans wanting to see themselves in the art produced nowadays", it is a product of the ideological movement known as "wokeness"
What is “wokeness” in this day and age? When I first heard of people being “woke” it meant pointing out truths, facts, and evidence that went against the mainstream narrative or was so suppressed. Now, it seems that the meaning has changed to mean distortion.
The deabate as a relates to Cleopatra (from both sides) is pretty fucking stupid. I get why Black people are upset and angry and if we're being honest, they have a right to be upset and angry because let's face it there has been a lot of white washing and outright erasure of their history when it comes to that region and the African continent as a whole. Now was Cleopatra "Black Negro?" ..(No she wasn't ) but for those critics of Black people who assert and make such claims, who say that Cleopatra was Egyptian and assert that the people of today (a.k.a. modern Egyptian's) are the true indigenous Egyptian's are absolutely being intellectually dishonest.
Cleopatra herself wasn't "Egyptian" she was Greek..(Macedonian) the Egyptian people were her subjects. The irony here is if people could get past the emotional part of the argument, they could actually utilize this fact to undergird the argument that ancient Egypt was indeed rooted in a black civilization, and that the ancient people of Egypt (a.k.a. Kemet) were Hamites.. (they were indeed Negro)
Amir, I enjoyed your video. It was nice to watch an independent and impartial "tell it like it is" analysis.
He made no sense! 🤔
It's a GD movie, not something one can claim to be holy scripture. The big question is whether the star of the film will deliver a big take at the box office & whether she will be liked by the movie goers. If you can't take the idea that she's Black or brown or white or whatever other color, don't go to the movie. It's that simple. Everybody's so GD racist these days! Get over it!
Could you please also explain the origins of the Egyptian people as a whole? There is much debate about this and I read a lot about different kinds of dynasties over the centuries, whereas one group claims Egypt was originally inhabited by sub-Saharan people. It sounds interesting, but I have little knowledge about it and I like the way you describe historical figures. It makes more sense.
First of all stop using the term sub saharan it’s a modern term, also what do the people who visited Egypt say about Egypt and and what they saw, another how do Egyptians describe themselves and where they come from. As well you can look at patterns of migration across Africa, hope that helps
Yes totally agree I would love a video on that subject
mINADr92..YES THE TERM SUBSAHARAN LEANS MORE TO RACISTS ,not really used by native Africans. ALL AFRICANS ORIGINATED FROM SUBSAHARA.
My question comes from a place of curiosity and Africa is such a diverse continent with numerous interesting ethnicities and cultures, but since there is a lot commotion about Egypt these days, I’m asking the creator (a historian) of this content to enlighten us viewers about this topic specifically. The terminology Sub-Saharan refers to, as far as I know, the countries and its inhabitants in the more South region of Africa, but after some digging, I found out why the terminology can be hurtful. That was not my intention, because I focus on facts. Have a blessed day!❤
Africa is such a vast continent that I don’t think sub-Saharan or West African peoples have anything to do with Egypt’s culture and history. This is their own very distinct one.. It’s like saying that the whole of Asia is all Chinese culture. Even neighboring countries in Asia like Thailand, Cambodia or Malaysia have very distinct histories and cultures from each other. Sure there were migrations but they each still developed their own histories and cultures.
When this was first released it was labeled a Documentary which (rightfully) sparked the controversy from the get go, did Netflix relabel it a Docu-drama to try and weasel out of all the backlash? (I don't use Netflix anymore so I can't verify it)
A documentary is a type of film that uses facts to convince an audience to the film makers views. It's not an actual unbias factual form of film making. All documentaries that are in TV show formants are docu-series and if they are reliant on comedy then they are docu-comedies like the office film in documentary style. Shows like the African queen show is a docu-drma from the very start, it's not a single film so isn't a documentary.
@@Thed538dhsk then why the term “documentary” exist??if any form of film is to convince audiences to film maker view then there is no need of producing document to preserve history on visual form. After all any form of visual media are propaganda and entertainment.
I find it hysterical all the backlash this thing has gotten when there was nothing but praise for the musical Hamilton a while ago. No one seemed to have a problem with a Latino playing Alexander Hamilton or a Black playing Thomas Jefferson. Nor did any historians rise up in protest that such a musical failed to even mention slavery. Yet Cleopatra being presented as a Black woman -- that's the end of the world. I get it though. No one likes historical figures being misrepresented. It's just curious how it only seems to work one way.
As an Egyptian I'd like to thank you for your video what Netflix done wasn't accepted by any means Cleopatra is actually loved by all of us one of our ancestors and ancient queens and we love her story she is our Joliet and it's not about color it's about history and truth ❤
Despite all that was said the ancients did perceive significant differences. Macedonians struggled to be perceived as Greeks. Alexander's Macedonians resented his taking on Persian customs. The Romans had many words for darker skin tones
That is not saying black = bad but skin color was noted. That is not to say Romans thought black = bad but it was highly unlikely if Cleopatra was deepest darkest black that it would not have been commented upon by those who disliked her. It was not as if they were so indifferent that they just didn't of it. They did take some pains to describe the people they set about and their habits. Herodotus also.
The most reasonable explanation was that Cleopatra's skin tones were unremarkable for 'Maco' girl so there was nothing to comment on.
One of the most even-handed even-tempered explanations or reactions if seen about this online.
ruclips.net/video/BTzuQE2DZXw/видео.html
I'm excited for Netflix next docudrama about Martin Luthor King where a grandma doesn't care what video footage shows, he was a Chinese lesbian who has their own pronouns.
There are black North Africans too which people seem to conveniently forget
No one is black or white, you mean there are those of sub Saharan ancestry in North Africa. The Arab slave trade started earlier and lasted quite longer than any European slave trade.
@@paolo4749 surely you are not naive enough to think blacks are not native to the north as well?
@@trevormcdonald385 That's right, sub saharans E1b1a carriers are not indigenous to North Africa.
Are you really pronouncing the "P". Come on do you think Ptah one of Ramses' divisions was pronounced like "
P"tah?
I’m surprised a historian would pronounce the P in Ptolemy.
Otherwise I agree with you .
The significance of skin color is due to the American Afrocentric movement and the fact that the Netflix movie is a Documentary unlike the previous movies .Also this is 2023 not 1960 .
You are of course correct as to the pronunciation. I checked with my colleague at the department and he confirmed that the P is indeed silent.
Ptolemaic is a Greek word so if u wanna pronounce it the "Greek way" then the p is not silent. Honestly idk why in English they silence it always. So both are correct depending on what style u wanna talk in
@@ecstasi The P is indeed not silent in Greek but we don't emphasize it either, we don't say Pu-tolemy which is what this so called historian was doing. Also most Brits and Americans that I know of don't make the P silent but instead make it slightly softer than Greeks do.
@@Crypt0n1an In English, most of the P in front of Greek-origin and Greek-derived words are usually silenced, for example, psychology.
I was trying to remain faithful to the original pronunciation by pronouncing the P, but I've since been told to keep to the regular anglicised pronunciation which just drops the P. I'm glad that we have a native Greek speaker like yourself who can point out the true pronunciation though. Thanks.
Frankly speaking it should be illegal to pronounce Greek names in English. The language is a chaotic mess. The name Ptolemaios (''Ptolemy'' is just the result of the English broken telephone) is related to the Greek word for war, ''Polemos'', which was also pronounced as ''Ptolemos''. The etymology of the name is ''the warlike one''. Another example with the same root is the name of Achilleus son, Neoptolemos. Neo + P(t)olemos = young warrior.
So the P is pronounced, although not over emphasized.
Cleopatra was Macedonian Greek. But also the original Egyptians were not the same race (and definitely not the same culture) as the Arabs who invaded and overtook Egypt 600 years later. Muslims do their best to wipe out any pre-existing culture and replace it with their own. If they could have destroyed the pyramids, they would have. Now they want to take credit for that ancient culture. It's not theirs to take.
There were DNA analyses on modern Egyptian population by government and it show that approx 68% were native with only 15-17% Arab ancestry. This point to modern Egypt was culturally arabzied and the Arabs didn't chance local population but were small elite minority.
Thank you very much Amir for your video!
To me, your contribuition to the Netflix's Cleopatra discussion/controversy is, so far, the most (if not the only) reasonable & spot-on response I have heard & watched in RUclips. I also cherish the fact you present your history knowledge, explain the facts & how this whole issue is mostly irrelevant, & express your points of view without being on any kind high horse, rather the oppositte, with, as I see it, a refreshing (& much needed & apreciated) disinterest. Last but not least, I found genuinely interesting the point you make about the differences of perspective on race & kinship between ancient Egypt (& most of past History) & the present day "Modern West".
Thank you again. Kudos!
Are you really a historian Amir? Your claim about Cleopatras Middle Eastern ancestry is non sense Ptolemies were renowned for refusing to intermix with other people in order to retain theyr Greek bloodline. You basically trying to tell us that Cleopatra was related to you just like black Americans say that she was related to them. Really hard to find historians who stick with scientific research and evidence in your part of the world Amir and thats sad because you look like a smart guy and as an Iranian you should be content with your own history instead of trying to appropriate historical figures of other ancestries
Cleopatra is weird as do to her being mixed and only one color being of sure relivence it makes knowing what she actually looks like hard. Reason for this is of course because we do not know her grandmother or mother and as they were both concubines it muddled the already at the time possible mix and if not it does the other mix or duel mixture they could have brought into her skin.
In other words if she was not purely macadoneon Greek, she was that and something or possibly multiple other things else.
In other words she’s like Jesus until we find their body we do not actually know for a fact
she is not mixed she is greek