Queen Cleopatra Filmmaker Defends Black Actress Casting Amid Backlash

• Filmmaker Tina Gharayi defends her decision to cast a Black actress in the titular role of the upcoming Netflix documentary on Queen Cleopatra.
• Gharayi questions why some people need Cleopatra to be white and argues that it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele James than Elizabeth Taylor.
• Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary had previously sued Netflix over the documentary, accusing it of ‘blackwashing’ the queen and promoting Afrocentrism instead of Egyptian history.

After backlash erupted over the casting of a Black actress in the titular role of the upcoming Netflix documentary on Queen Cleopatra, filmmaker Tina Gharayi has come out to defend her decision.

Writing in Variety, Gharayi argued that it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele James, the actress chosen for the role, than Elizabeth Taylor, who famously portrayed the historical figure in the 1963 film Cleopatra.

Gharayi also questioned why some people need Cleopatra to be white, stating that her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value.

The Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary had previously sued Netflix over the documentary, accusing it of ‘blackwashing’ the queen and promoting Afrocentrism instead of Egyptian history.

Al-Semary had taken serious action against the documentary makers and called for the streaming service to be banned in Egypt following the release of the documentary’s trailer.

While it is uncertain whether Cleopatra was Black, Gharayi stressed the importance of having a conversation about colorism and the internalized white supremacy that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with.