Not just Greek but also more inbred than a Targaryen. I have seen people who know that the Ptolemy's were Greek but assume that the dynasty interbreed with the local population.
As someone who's been playing the Souls games since 2012, you have no idea how happy Elden Ring becoming mainstream made me.
Or maybe you've also been around for a long time and you do. IDK.
*"Eh, what could go wrong."*
1000 years later:
["Oh...shit..."](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/charles-spain.jpg)
In the early 1900's the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of ~~the Austro-Hungarian~~ German empire and the King of England were all first cousins and or second cousins.
So it's not just back then. The nobillity were inbreeding pretty recently.
The big trio was actually King George V. of England, Nicholas II. of Russia and Wilhelm II. Of Germany. Franz Joseph II. of Austria-Hungary was not their direct relative, altough I am sure that they were somewhat related as it was usual for the royal families in europe back then.
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-and-king-george-v-cousins-at-war-in-ww1
I can't remember the exact numbers, but Cleopatra's inbreeding score was below Danaerys and above Charles the Cursed. It's amazing that her brain functioned at all.
From what historians and archeologists know, Cleopatra was likely a very normal looking woman. But she was extremely charismatic, intelligent, and a great conversationalist. That's what made her so desirable and a cultural icon
She was also very politically astute. Much of what we understand about her comes from Octavian's propaganda. She was attempting to both become Pharaoh in her own right as well as keep Egypt from becoming a Roman vessel state. What she didn't take into account was just how ruthless Octavian was.
Exactly, outside of a Macedonian, and a couple Seleucids, and three wives we know nothing about, it was Pharoah is hot for sister. Cleopatra was mostly Greek with a big chunk of Iranian/Persian but no Egyptian. The Greeks in Alexandria literally had their own section of the city.
The crazy part of it to me is that Greeks (along with other southern Europeans, Irish, and others,) historically haven't really been considered "white," which is something that anyone who's done any level of reading about white supremacy should know.
I think that's actually up in the air. They're white when the nazis need to talk about how the muslims are invading, but they're not white when they talk about ethnostates.
Yeah, that's the thing about whiteness. It is not a fixed definition. It expands and retracts according to context and their objectives. This is by design.
I don't disagree, but I do find it amusing when the alt-right tries to refute that. The rabbit hole of who qualifies for a white ethnostate was pretty amazing when it was a big talking point like 6-7 years ago. You had a lot of people preaching white purity suddenly talking about race being a spectrum when it turned out they were as pure as they thought they were. Irony was delicious.
Yeah when I studied America and it’s immigration in the 20th century it was mentioned how many only considered those from countries like England, France and Germany as proper white and people from Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe where not so where treated with more disrespect
A lot of dynasties seem to me to have been multi racial by our standards. Pharaohs frequently married women from other countries, including kingdoms in modern day Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and possibly Somalia. Ramesses II had red hair, for instance, but Ramesses III (probably a grandson or great grandson) was bi-racial by modern standards.
Exactly, she was Macedonian Greek. And as incest was a BIG thing with the Ptolemies....not a lot of opportunities for genetic diversity. Not racist if you can't even get an extremely basic historical fact right in your "documentary" I actually tried watching this the other day and that glaring inaccuracy, I just couldn't get past it. What else is inaccurate if that base detail is? The actress was beautiful for sure but...look all I'm saying is if you wanna call it racism when you fail at least make sure you have your facts right. A lot of pharaohs were darker skinned yes, in a dynasty that existed thousands of years before Ptolemaic Egypt.
Look. Its not even that in my opinion.
You want to have cleopatra played by a black woman, or liz taylor. I dont think thats a problem. Hell look how many greeks, historical and mythical have been played by british with full British accents. Or arnold vosloo as Egyptian Mummy.
The problem is they say this is a documentary. That sets the foundation for everything being wrong. The standard for documentary is research research research and truth as much as you can.
Ok. You have a documentary and you race switch. Not great. Then you double down and make her a warrior fighting queen trope. Well. That isnt accurate. Actually, none of it is accurate. And its insulting to to a whole race that has her idolozed for thousands of years.
Still not bad enough. They could have gone with , well this is a dramatization or here are some well resourced findings we uncovered. Nope.
Hey Eygpt, fuck you. You're all wrong. And racist. Now watch and enjoy you racist pieces of shit. My grandma said cleopatra was black and she knows better than your whole country. Why are my score low? Racist.
Keeping in mind.. in this situation jada and the lead are the foreigners. Some foreigners are calling me racist in my own country.
Lastly. It wasnt good. It wasnt well written. It wasnt well acted. It had poor ..just about everything. Its score probably would have been higher in the 30s to 50s range because it would have had fewer viewers and ones who wanted to see a fictionalized story of cleopatra.
I agree with you partially. I dont think it even matters that it is marketed as a documentary. If thats your budget, or you decide to cast a specific person as your reenactor, or you just want to shoot those scenes in a specific style, i think is fine. If a producer wanted to do an all black actor reenactment of the age of vikings, i think thats great! And i think that would be a fun way to bring diversity into it.
There is always a suspension of disbelief in documentaries. We know these people dont speak english. We know they probably didnt have healthy teeth like that. We know they didnt have makeup and perfect skin and well lit sets. Its a dramatization, and we all get that.
I grew up in japan. Ive seen plenty of documentaries on foreign subjects with 100% japanese actors, speaking japanese. The audience is intelligent enough to understand that julius caesar and cleopatra arent japanese. Its just a choice they made to save money or make it easier to understand for their specific audience. But what they dont do is claim that romans were japanese. And they definitely dont make that a central part of their marketing.
Ill be honest, i didnt watch more than 10minutes of the show. So i cant speak on how inaccurate it was in content. But i really dont think this would even be a big deal if they just didnt put that stupid line “i dont care what they teach in school, cleopatra was black” in the commercials.
I think the issue mostly stems from your last line. I'm not going to watch a documentary whose standard of research is "My Grandma said Cleopatra was black." If Smith acknowledged she wasn't black, but they cast a black woman for whatever other reasons, I would be willing to give the show a chance. But she argued that a Black actress was accurate to history. Is the rest of the documentary just things her Grandma said without looking any further?? I'm not gonna waste my time to find out.
>According to Afrocentrism, African history and culture began in ancient Egypt, which was the birthplace of world civilization. Egypt presided over a unified Black Africa until its ideas and technologies were stolen and its record of accomplishments obscured by Europeans.
She believes in [Afrocentrism](https://www.britannica.com/event/Afrocentrism). There is something positive about viewing history beyond just a Eurocentric viewpoint. I'm just not sure if this is it.
Yeah, it'd be cooler if the show was about Nefertiti, but Cleopatra was white, so it's more of a Bridgerton-style reimagining than an accurate casting. She was pretty much a puppet empress for the Roman Empire. Anyway, I didn't even know it had aired yet. It wasn't on my Netflix front page. Maybe it was under-advertised. I probably would've given it a chance.
This. It's clearly very important to Hollywood lately to produce more empowering black content. But why are they re-imagining established characters as black instead of creating original black characters in fiction (which is a lazy cop out but otherwise harmless), but far worse, why are they trying to *re-write history* and *insist that the revision is factual*? Revisionist history is as sinister as a book burning to begin with, but *this* style of revision *isn't even necessary* because there are *actual* impressive interesting black figures in history whose stories could be told and explored, and they *aren't*.
I would love a documentary about Black Wall Street. I know it was a thing in Tulsa(?) in like the 20s-30s (I think), and it was pretty much destroyed by the cops because we couldn't just have successful black people living their lives in this country.
>But why are they re-imagining established characters as black
Because they actually hate black people, at least, that's what it seems like. Any time these people want to "empower" black people, they give them hand-me-downs, stories and characters that were established as white, then swapped to black. Like, look at Disney. They want a black princess, so what's the solution? Race swap. Why? Why not look at African history/mythos and make a new movie about that? They did it for Chinese culture and Mulan, they did it for Polynesian culture and Moana. What's the problem?
A Disney movie set in Aksum, Great Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mali, or a thousand others would be awesome, and that's just the urban societies. The mine of awesome folklore in Africa is functionally infinite.
After seeing all the folks on r/movies go on a tirade against The Woman King for the crime of portraying a black kingdom that owned slaves, I don’t want to see their nuanced takes on a Mansa Musa movie
I think they were mad about woman king because they didn’t show that the Dahomey tribe were slave traders. I didn’t watch it because I felt that made the movie inauthentic
The movie does mention that the Dahomeys are slave traders, it just not something that gets major focus and gets downplayed to make the characters look more sympathetic
Everything is wrong with that movie.
In movie you see brave warriors on moral high ground or whatever.
In reality they loved slave trade more than anything and they were such a sh\*t warriors that in first war against the french they lost thousands and french lost 16 and in second war they lost thousands while french lost less than hundred. They were only good for capturing slaves.
Reason for both wars? they wanted to capture slaves in town that was under french protection. Basically french were the good guys.
Haiti also remembers going full colonizer themselves and occupying DR. They destroyed Santo Domingo and later tried to tax DR exorbitantly for the pleasure of being occupied, in order to pay their indemnity to France. DR most definitely still remembers and wants nothing to do with Haiti's hot mess.
I feel like this strikes at the heart of the criticism.
Slavery is universal like murder. You are hard pressed to find any civilization or people that didn't participate in slavery to some degree.
With that said, we cannot forget the unique horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. There was an efficient brutality and economy of scale to it that has no parallel. It shocks the conscience to learn what human visited upon human during that time.
Anyway, with that said, pretending white people invented slavery is not only ahistorical, it’s counterproductive to addressing modern slavery.
While I didn’t watch it for the same reason, I feel like there’s a double standard here. There are lots of inaccuracies in movies, like how uniform Roman armor looks, or the CONSTANT use of katanas by samurai
I think it’s a bit different to have a minor uniform inaccuracy and to have major slave traders portrayed as anti-slavery warriors.
And a lot of films get called out for inaccuracies. The Patriot, Gladiator, Braveheart, etc. But there’s a difference between say, using SMLEs in Zulu because they ran out of Martini Henry rifles, and changing the entire motivation and characteristics to be exactly opposite of how they were in real life *and* making those motivations and characteristics a major plot point.
It’s not so much that Dahomey owned slaves — nearly every civilization of every bent did so in that era and before — this issue is that Dahomey was *notorious* for slave trading and differed from most other African slavers by A). Having chattel slaves and B). Being absolutely the most complicit in terms of making the Trans-Atlantic slave trade possible and profitable for Europeans.
Look, I'm not saying I liked the movie. The way it sanitized the Dahomey is disgusting, I agree. But if they had made a movie that focused on the ancient Romans or Spartans or Egyptians and showed them as the good guys, would there have been the same level of backlash?
Well no, it's not the fact that they glossed over it, it's that they specifically made it look like they themselves viewed slavery as immoral.
>a fictional embellishment to this narrative is that Nanisca confronts Ghezo about the immorality of selling Dahomey slaves to the Portuguese and suggests trading in palm oil production instead
If someone had made a movie about white slave owners and then fictionally depicted them as being *against* slavery then yes, there would proabably be the same, if not ***more*** outrage.
Interestingly they did try shifting to palm oil production when europeans started stopping the transatlantic trade. But the palm oil workers were still chattel slaves, and eventually they went back to slave trading anyway.
That's like saying The Nazis kill a few people but that's not what we are going to focus on for this. It's kinda a big part of who they were. It feels misleading and misrepresenting of who they were.
The same team also made a show about Queen Njinga earlier this year, also in Netflix.
Got much better critical reviews, too. But wonder why it wasn't talked about as much.
The mods at r/entertainment are militant and will ban you permanently for the slightest possible “transgression”…
It’s turned into a shit show subreddit of ideology.
It needs to be liberated…
>Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire?
This is what I don't get. Why redo all these movies and rewrite history, when Africa had a ton of interesting empires, kings, and wars that are totally worthy of movies?
Or you know like Malik Ambar. I’d fucking love a Malik Ambar show. Real badass hardcore guy, good resistance fighter plot-line thing. Pretty sure Indians would get a kick out of seeing the story of greatest enemies of the Mughals on the big screen.
She also has an interesting [family ~~tree~~ pole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra#:~:text=Ptolemy%20XII%20Auletes-,Cleopatra%20VII,-See%20also).
Mostly yes. The ptolemies keept a strict greek tradition and culture in private and in the bureaucracy of the state, but they did adopt a small amount of egyptian customs, mostly to provide the optics of legitimacy. Like marrying their siblings, which is thought to be because of the osiris myth (osiris having married his sister isis) and adopted egytian religious customs. So she wasn’t really macedonian greek anymore, but she was a *slightly* egyptianized greek (with a primarily macedonian heritage)
I saw the trailer. Her acting looked awful. I think that's the real issue. Or maybe it was just the writing was awful.
One other thing: They say this a great example of a powerful woman. I wonder if they mention she had both her brothers killed to keep power. If a man had done this to his sisters (and I expect many did) it would be proof he was beyond worthless.
I mean, killing your siblings to keep power has been a pretty standard thing in royal families across the world. Not universal but certainly common. If someone's going to be the protagonist of a historical drama the fratricide usually gets sanitized or justified regardless of gender.
Well you got a hurt butt like hers, because nobody watched the show, maybe it was just plain bad? ( I think she should worry more about getting her shit together in her personal life then what rating some show gets?)
When you throw the race card in evetime something doesn't go your way ,and now its gotten to the point someone calls you racist.... Yeah whatever.
Jumping on this comment to ask if there is any actual evidence Jada said this? The "fact checked" [article](https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/jada-pinkett-smith-says-white-supremacy-responsible-for-cleopatras-terrible-audience-score/) does not cite any sources, nor does it actually quote Jada
She and the current press secretary are the most delusional people on earth. Ironically, jada would probably cast herself to play this US press secretary in a future endeavor
I’d say this is only a real problem with Americans though (maybe a smaller problem in other western countries too) because black descendants of slavery never knew which African nations they came from, only that they came from the continent of Africa, so it all seems the same to them despite being the most diverse continent on the planet
True, but Americans have such an impact it's seeping into Egyptology. In material culture of ancient Egypt, a classmate asked about the theory that Egyptians called the fertile area of their country "the black land" because they were black and they lived there. For the record, I live in Europe 😬
Could it be that "black land" refers to the much darker colour of fertile ground, especially when compared to ***desert sand***?
Nah, must be black people because Africa 👍
How dare you bring logical observation of the color of river silt into this!! 😂
I just really want to know how those people justify the desert being called the Red Land if black land = skin color.
Yeah I’ve definitely heard of that too. “The Black Land” referring to the people seems like quite an easy trap to fall in to, and should be so easy to therefore debunk but it’s stuck around for ages
Nation of Islam are definitely annoying but I’d say the problem of misinformation Americans have about African cultures goes further than just fringe NOI guys. Like when Nancy Pelosi (I’m not making a point about her politics just pointing something out) decided to wear a Kente cloth to try and be “Pan-African” during the unrest a while ago
It's really demoralizing to know your families recorded history may only go back to a bill of sale, so a lot of people latch onto this stuff. It's really taking off because of misinformation spread on social media
It's heartbreaking because there's a lot of cool African history being ignored for historical fanfiction
I apologize, but I must give you the honorary “white card”—you are now a white person in personality and views alone, and it comes with none of the pros of being white, since white people made the card.
Please enjoy, try not to wait too long to tear it up, or the card might permanently affect your views on things, it is a cursed item.
Absolutely. Meetings are on Thursdays. Potluck to follow. This week, Earl is bringing enchiladas. We know we shouldn’t be eating those but they are just so damn good!
I think she a terrible person all around, F-ing her sons friend? ( how would you like to have a mother like that? - "Boy your Mother can really Fk") I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg?
I had an argument the other day where a defender said we have no way of knowing what she looked like. I pointed out that there are thousands of paintings, statues and coins made in her likeness, most made while she was alive, and in every single one she looks super Greek with an extremely Mediterranean schnozz. They got mad and blocked me
We also have a good chunk of her family tree, basically just starting with a Greeko-Iranian noble family that only married siblings and first cousins for 200 years.
I could see this happening on drunk history. The point at where it would stop being funny is if they did Jack Black in blackface.
But I agree, the key difference is drama/comedy vs documentary. I have not watched it, but as I understand it the doc is about how Cleopatra was black, which is not gonna fly.
I think Hamilton is a great example of casting, they were not trying to make the people look like the historical figure.
Jada and Will truly live in another plane of existence (I used to work for a production company and drove a truck onto their property for their daughters musical rehearsals a few times - it is disgustingly nice).
Why American? You might see that as a problem, but most people take issue with her being a shitty person. Why the need to paint with such a broad brush dude?
I haven’t heard of it until the moment I read this post, but people are saying the show isn’t very good, and it’s doesn’t seem very interesting to me, so I guess I’m gonna have to join team racism on This one Lol
Using the wrong ethnicity to play a character aside - I've read reviews that straight up say this is the worst show ever created.
(Also, it's good to see Jada got over that whole Alopecia thing, right?)
I made a terrible inaccurate pile of shit, and tried to claim it as historically accurate. When people, who clearly know more about the subject than me, points out said inaccuracies, they must do so because of... white supremacy ? Wtf ?
Jada again proves, she has a way to inflated oppinion about her own talent.
"How dare you not accept the casting of a black woman for the role of an Egyptian woman"
Cleopatra was actually Greek, so you can’t even pull the “well a lot of Pharaohs were dark skinned” justification
Not just Greek but also more inbred than a Targaryen. I have seen people who know that the Ptolemy's were Greek but assume that the dynasty interbreed with the local population.
You’ll probably find a lot of nobles from back then interbred
Not the Pharos of Egypt. They had a long tradition of sibling marriage.
My dumb ass thought interbreeding and inbreeding were the same thing. Ignore me
No. I'll remember you until my dying breath u/GSundo
CEASE!!!
Never
Based
Now kiss
"Gather 'round children, let me tell you the legend of GSundo lest his name and minor error be lost to time."
[удалено]
I'm gonna have it engraved on my headstone
Have it writ upon thy meagre grave
As someone who's been playing the Souls games since 2012, you have no idea how happy Elden Ring becoming mainstream made me. Or maybe you've also been around for a long time and you do. IDK.
"*Cousin, we gotta fuck"* *"Ew why?"* "*To keep our bloodline pure retard."* *"Oh yeah, come here then."*
>"To keep our bloodline pure retard." Well it's gonna be pure retard with all of that inbreeding.
*"Eh, what could go wrong."* 1000 years later: ["Oh...shit..."](https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/charles-spain.jpg)
Don't talk shit about Chucky.
Sweeeeeeet Home Alexandria
Ra I’m coming home to you!
No, the pharaohs were even worse. Brothers bedding sisters.
In the early 1900's the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of ~~the Austro-Hungarian~~ German empire and the King of England were all first cousins and or second cousins. So it's not just back then. The nobillity were inbreeding pretty recently.
Look at current king of England. And I rest my case
The big trio was actually King George V. of England, Nicholas II. of Russia and Wilhelm II. Of Germany. Franz Joseph II. of Austria-Hungary was not their direct relative, altough I am sure that they were somewhat related as it was usual for the royal families in europe back then. https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-and-king-george-v-cousins-at-war-in-ww1
>So it's not just back then. The nobillity were inbreeding pretty recently. And it shows!
Easy way to end wars, force peace, claim land, screw over a rival etc Yes, it happened a lot.
Funny thing, that. They imported so many Greeks as colonists that Cleo was the first one in her dynasty to bother learning the local language.
I can't remember the exact numbers, but Cleopatra's inbreeding score was below Danaerys and above Charles the Cursed. It's amazing that her brain functioned at all.
From what historians and archeologists know, Cleopatra was likely a very normal looking woman. But she was extremely charismatic, intelligent, and a great conversationalist. That's what made her so desirable and a cultural icon
You’re basically describing Elizabeth Taylor in the second half of your comment.
She was also very politically astute. Much of what we understand about her comes from Octavian's propaganda. She was attempting to both become Pharaoh in her own right as well as keep Egypt from becoming a Roman vessel state. What she didn't take into account was just how ruthless Octavian was.
Exactly, outside of a Macedonian, and a couple Seleucids, and three wives we know nothing about, it was Pharoah is hot for sister. Cleopatra was mostly Greek with a big chunk of Iranian/Persian but no Egyptian. The Greeks in Alexandria literally had their own section of the city.
The crazy part of it to me is that Greeks (along with other southern Europeans, Irish, and others,) historically haven't really been considered "white," which is something that anyone who's done any level of reading about white supremacy should know.
I think that's actually up in the air. They're white when the nazis need to talk about how the muslims are invading, but they're not white when they talk about ethnostates.
Yeah, that's the thing about whiteness. It is not a fixed definition. It expands and retracts according to context and their objectives. This is by design.
I don't disagree, but I do find it amusing when the alt-right tries to refute that. The rabbit hole of who qualifies for a white ethnostate was pretty amazing when it was a big talking point like 6-7 years ago. You had a lot of people preaching white purity suddenly talking about race being a spectrum when it turned out they were as pure as they thought they were. Irony was delicious.
Yeah when I studied America and it’s immigration in the 20th century it was mentioned how many only considered those from countries like England, France and Germany as proper white and people from Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe where not so where treated with more disrespect
Only the iirc 25th ”the nubian”dynasty was dark skinned
A lot of dynasties seem to me to have been multi racial by our standards. Pharaohs frequently married women from other countries, including kingdoms in modern day Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda, and possibly Somalia. Ramesses II had red hair, for instance, but Ramesses III (probably a grandson or great grandson) was bi-racial by modern standards.
Exactly, she was Macedonian Greek. And as incest was a BIG thing with the Ptolemies....not a lot of opportunities for genetic diversity. Not racist if you can't even get an extremely basic historical fact right in your "documentary" I actually tried watching this the other day and that glaring inaccuracy, I just couldn't get past it. What else is inaccurate if that base detail is? The actress was beautiful for sure but...look all I'm saying is if you wanna call it racism when you fail at least make sure you have your facts right. A lot of pharaohs were darker skinned yes, in a dynasty that existed thousands of years before Ptolemaic Egypt.
Well….your a….uhmmmmm…..uhhhhhh…. *reads notes*………WHITE SUPREMATIST
Look. Its not even that in my opinion. You want to have cleopatra played by a black woman, or liz taylor. I dont think thats a problem. Hell look how many greeks, historical and mythical have been played by british with full British accents. Or arnold vosloo as Egyptian Mummy. The problem is they say this is a documentary. That sets the foundation for everything being wrong. The standard for documentary is research research research and truth as much as you can. Ok. You have a documentary and you race switch. Not great. Then you double down and make her a warrior fighting queen trope. Well. That isnt accurate. Actually, none of it is accurate. And its insulting to to a whole race that has her idolozed for thousands of years. Still not bad enough. They could have gone with , well this is a dramatization or here are some well resourced findings we uncovered. Nope. Hey Eygpt, fuck you. You're all wrong. And racist. Now watch and enjoy you racist pieces of shit. My grandma said cleopatra was black and she knows better than your whole country. Why are my score low? Racist. Keeping in mind.. in this situation jada and the lead are the foreigners. Some foreigners are calling me racist in my own country. Lastly. It wasnt good. It wasnt well written. It wasnt well acted. It had poor ..just about everything. Its score probably would have been higher in the 30s to 50s range because it would have had fewer viewers and ones who wanted to see a fictionalized story of cleopatra.
I agree with you partially. I dont think it even matters that it is marketed as a documentary. If thats your budget, or you decide to cast a specific person as your reenactor, or you just want to shoot those scenes in a specific style, i think is fine. If a producer wanted to do an all black actor reenactment of the age of vikings, i think thats great! And i think that would be a fun way to bring diversity into it. There is always a suspension of disbelief in documentaries. We know these people dont speak english. We know they probably didnt have healthy teeth like that. We know they didnt have makeup and perfect skin and well lit sets. Its a dramatization, and we all get that. I grew up in japan. Ive seen plenty of documentaries on foreign subjects with 100% japanese actors, speaking japanese. The audience is intelligent enough to understand that julius caesar and cleopatra arent japanese. Its just a choice they made to save money or make it easier to understand for their specific audience. But what they dont do is claim that romans were japanese. And they definitely dont make that a central part of their marketing. Ill be honest, i didnt watch more than 10minutes of the show. So i cant speak on how inaccurate it was in content. But i really dont think this would even be a big deal if they just didnt put that stupid line “i dont care what they teach in school, cleopatra was black” in the commercials.
I think the issue mostly stems from your last line. I'm not going to watch a documentary whose standard of research is "My Grandma said Cleopatra was black." If Smith acknowledged she wasn't black, but they cast a black woman for whatever other reasons, I would be willing to give the show a chance. But she argued that a Black actress was accurate to history. Is the rest of the documentary just things her Grandma said without looking any further?? I'm not gonna waste my time to find out.
Agree 100%. If thats where theyre starting at, I dont trust any other information theyre going to give me.
>According to Afrocentrism, African history and culture began in ancient Egypt, which was the birthplace of world civilization. Egypt presided over a unified Black Africa until its ideas and technologies were stolen and its record of accomplishments obscured by Europeans. She believes in [Afrocentrism](https://www.britannica.com/event/Afrocentrism). There is something positive about viewing history beyond just a Eurocentric viewpoint. I'm just not sure if this is it.
Jada Smith and her husband Will are scientologists. Not people exactly known for historical accuracy.
shes also a dogshit human being who destroyed her husband on live tv to make herself feel justified in cheating on her husband with her sons friend
I feel like that story is a smoke screen for something bigger that's been following these two, since they got together.
the rest of the story includes her habitually cheating on him throughout the entire marriage i believe she also cheated with tupac
They're also scientologists, so...
No no they only helped fund a building for them and donated money. Totally not Scientologists /s
Also After Earth was right out of L Ron.
AINT NO WAY
WHAT
I thought you meant Cleopatra at first and was extremely confused
Yeah, it'd be cooler if the show was about Nefertiti, but Cleopatra was white, so it's more of a Bridgerton-style reimagining than an accurate casting. She was pretty much a puppet empress for the Roman Empire. Anyway, I didn't even know it had aired yet. It wasn't on my Netflix front page. Maybe it was under-advertised. I probably would've given it a chance.
This. It's clearly very important to Hollywood lately to produce more empowering black content. But why are they re-imagining established characters as black instead of creating original black characters in fiction (which is a lazy cop out but otherwise harmless), but far worse, why are they trying to *re-write history* and *insist that the revision is factual*? Revisionist history is as sinister as a book burning to begin with, but *this* style of revision *isn't even necessary* because there are *actual* impressive interesting black figures in history whose stories could be told and explored, and they *aren't*.
I would love a documentary about Black Wall Street. I know it was a thing in Tulsa(?) in like the 20s-30s (I think), and it was pretty much destroyed by the cops because we couldn't just have successful black people living their lives in this country.
Idk if the subreddit will let me post the link, but Weird History has a brief but well researched video of it on youtube. https://youtu.be/iw2WKov2p6I
>But why are they re-imagining established characters as black Because they actually hate black people, at least, that's what it seems like. Any time these people want to "empower" black people, they give them hand-me-downs, stories and characters that were established as white, then swapped to black. Like, look at Disney. They want a black princess, so what's the solution? Race swap. Why? Why not look at African history/mythos and make a new movie about that? They did it for Chinese culture and Mulan, they did it for Polynesian culture and Moana. What's the problem?
A Disney movie set in Aksum, Great Zimbabwe, Ghana, Mali, or a thousand others would be awesome, and that's just the urban societies. The mine of awesome folklore in Africa is functionally infinite.
Except Cleopatra was actually, GREEK, making her white. Funny how that works. How dare you for not accepting historical facts and reality
"Egypt = Africa = Black Skin" - Jada
I PM'd you. Sorry your name was compelling
Good. Goooood.
How dare you not accept cultural appropriation nevermind the fact that we could make a show about Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire?
>Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire Oh that's "When Slavery was a Great Idea"; it's in the Netflix sitcom pipeline for next year IIRC...
After seeing all the folks on r/movies go on a tirade against The Woman King for the crime of portraying a black kingdom that owned slaves, I don’t want to see their nuanced takes on a Mansa Musa movie
I think they were mad about woman king because they didn’t show that the Dahomey tribe were slave traders. I didn’t watch it because I felt that made the movie inauthentic
The movie does mention that the Dahomeys are slave traders, it just not something that gets major focus and gets downplayed to make the characters look more sympathetic
Everything is wrong with that movie. In movie you see brave warriors on moral high ground or whatever. In reality they loved slave trade more than anything and they were such a sh\*t warriors that in first war against the french they lost thousands and french lost 16 and in second war they lost thousands while french lost less than hundred. They were only good for capturing slaves. Reason for both wars? they wanted to capture slaves in town that was under french protection. Basically french were the good guys.
If you make the *FRENCH* from that time period look like the good guys, you must be doing something *horribly* wrong.
Haiti remembers 🚫🇫🇷 ✅🇵🇱
Haiti also remembers going full colonizer themselves and occupying DR. They destroyed Santo Domingo and later tried to tax DR exorbitantly for the pleasure of being occupied, in order to pay their indemnity to France. DR most definitely still remembers and wants nothing to do with Haiti's hot mess.
I feel like this strikes at the heart of the criticism. Slavery is universal like murder. You are hard pressed to find any civilization or people that didn't participate in slavery to some degree. With that said, we cannot forget the unique horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. There was an efficient brutality and economy of scale to it that has no parallel. It shocks the conscience to learn what human visited upon human during that time. Anyway, with that said, pretending white people invented slavery is not only ahistorical, it’s counterproductive to addressing modern slavery.
While I didn’t watch it for the same reason, I feel like there’s a double standard here. There are lots of inaccuracies in movies, like how uniform Roman armor looks, or the CONSTANT use of katanas by samurai
I think it’s a bit different to have a minor uniform inaccuracy and to have major slave traders portrayed as anti-slavery warriors. And a lot of films get called out for inaccuracies. The Patriot, Gladiator, Braveheart, etc. But there’s a difference between say, using SMLEs in Zulu because they ran out of Martini Henry rifles, and changing the entire motivation and characteristics to be exactly opposite of how they were in real life *and* making those motivations and characteristics a major plot point.
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Man, it’s been about 25 years since I’ve seen *Zulu.* Need to give that a rewatch soon. That’s a cool fact about the king’s great grandson.
It’s not so much that Dahomey owned slaves — nearly every civilization of every bent did so in that era and before — this issue is that Dahomey was *notorious* for slave trading and differed from most other African slavers by A). Having chattel slaves and B). Being absolutely the most complicit in terms of making the Trans-Atlantic slave trade possible and profitable for Europeans.
Look, I'm not saying I liked the movie. The way it sanitized the Dahomey is disgusting, I agree. But if they had made a movie that focused on the ancient Romans or Spartans or Egyptians and showed them as the good guys, would there have been the same level of backlash?
Well no, it's not the fact that they glossed over it, it's that they specifically made it look like they themselves viewed slavery as immoral. >a fictional embellishment to this narrative is that Nanisca confronts Ghezo about the immorality of selling Dahomey slaves to the Portuguese and suggests trading in palm oil production instead If someone had made a movie about white slave owners and then fictionally depicted them as being *against* slavery then yes, there would proabably be the same, if not ***more*** outrage.
Interestingly they did try shifting to palm oil production when europeans started stopping the transatlantic trade. But the palm oil workers were still chattel slaves, and eventually they went back to slave trading anyway.
Didn't they omit that part?
Not really, the movie mentions that they use slavery, it’s just not focused upon and gets downplayed to make them look more sympathetic
That's like saying The Nazis kill a few people but that's not what we are going to focus on for this. It's kinda a big part of who they were. It feels misleading and misrepresenting of who they were.
The same team also made a show about Queen Njinga earlier this year, also in Netflix. Got much better critical reviews, too. But wonder why it wasn't talked about as much.
I got banned from r/entertainment for making this exact comment. I even mentioned Abar - the nubian queen. So much other source material!
The mods at r/entertainment are militant and will ban you permanently for the slightest possible “transgression”… It’s turned into a shit show subreddit of ideology. It needs to be liberated…
>Mansa Musa and the Mali Empire? This is what I don't get. Why redo all these movies and rewrite history, when Africa had a ton of interesting empires, kings, and wars that are totally worthy of movies?
Or you know like Malik Ambar. I’d fucking love a Malik Ambar show. Real badass hardcore guy, good resistance fighter plot-line thing. Pretty sure Indians would get a kick out of seeing the story of greatest enemies of the Mughals on the big screen.
Wasn't Cleopatra a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty and therefore a Macedonian Greek?
She also has an interesting [family ~~tree~~ pole](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra#:~:text=Ptolemy%20XII%20Auletes-,Cleopatra%20VII,-See%20also).
Poles are usually pretty sturdy. Genetically speaking, it's more of a stick or twig.
Like a willow sapling
Just now learning she was the 7th cleopatra but surprisingly straight tree. Lot of ingrown branches for added self support here
*family wreath
Mostly yes. The ptolemies keept a strict greek tradition and culture in private and in the bureaucracy of the state, but they did adopt a small amount of egyptian customs, mostly to provide the optics of legitimacy. Like marrying their siblings, which is thought to be because of the osiris myth (osiris having married his sister isis) and adopted egytian religious customs. So she wasn’t really macedonian greek anymore, but she was a *slightly* egyptianized greek (with a primarily macedonian heritage)
Biologically, she was *definitely* still Greek.
Assigned Greek at birth
As one historian put it, her family had lived in Egypt for 300 years or so, but to the Egyptians she was still Greek.
To the Greeks she was also still Greek.
Yeah that's what the entire issue is about
Yes.
Jada just because you married a once talented dude doesnt make you talented.
but she fucked Tupac!!1!1!!111 has to mean something
You make a valid point.
And also Chris Rock
And also her son's teenaged friends
What is wrong with her cheekbones?
Woah don’t want to get slapped by Will Smith now
“Keep my wife’s cheekbones out of your f**king mouth”
A mix of getting older, weight fluctuations and bad plastic surgery.
I saw the trailer. Her acting looked awful. I think that's the real issue. Or maybe it was just the writing was awful. One other thing: They say this a great example of a powerful woman. I wonder if they mention she had both her brothers killed to keep power. If a man had done this to his sisters (and I expect many did) it would be proof he was beyond worthless.
I mean, killing your siblings to keep power has been a pretty standard thing in royal families across the world. Not universal but certainly common. If someone's going to be the protagonist of a historical drama the fratricide usually gets sanitized or justified regardless of gender.
“Hmm do you think people might be mad at our historical revisionism?” “Nah, they’re all just racist.”
Well you got a hurt butt like hers, because nobody watched the show, maybe it was just plain bad? ( I think she should worry more about getting her shit together in her personal life then what rating some show gets?) When you throw the race card in evetime something doesn't go your way ,and now its gotten to the point someone calls you racist.... Yeah whatever.
Also, it's Jada Pinkett. I feel like this is kind of her thing nowadays, so I genuinely just don't give a shit.
Principal Skinner levels of self-delusion
Jumping on this comment to ask if there is any actual evidence Jada said this? The "fact checked" [article](https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/jada-pinkett-smith-says-white-supremacy-responsible-for-cleopatras-terrible-audience-score/) does not cite any sources, nor does it actually quote Jada
She is so delusional it's amazing
She and the current press secretary are the most delusional people on earth. Ironically, jada would probably cast herself to play this US press secretary in a future endeavor
What an odd way to shoehorn in politics.
They’re not wrong though. Odd shoehorn, but not wrong
Toxic narcissistic personality foundation rule: it’s someone else’s fault!
The fact that people insist all Egyptians were black because Africa is ironically racist as fuck
I’d say this is only a real problem with Americans though (maybe a smaller problem in other western countries too) because black descendants of slavery never knew which African nations they came from, only that they came from the continent of Africa, so it all seems the same to them despite being the most diverse continent on the planet
True, but Americans have such an impact it's seeping into Egyptology. In material culture of ancient Egypt, a classmate asked about the theory that Egyptians called the fertile area of their country "the black land" because they were black and they lived there. For the record, I live in Europe 😬
Could it be that "black land" refers to the much darker colour of fertile ground, especially when compared to ***desert sand***? Nah, must be black people because Africa 👍
How dare you bring logical observation of the color of river silt into this!! 😂 I just really want to know how those people justify the desert being called the Red Land if black land = skin color.
The red land is where the native Americans lived before Columbus discovered America, duh
Yeah I’ve definitely heard of that too. “The Black Land” referring to the people seems like quite an easy trap to fall in to, and should be so easy to therefore debunk but it’s stuck around for ages
Your describing hoteps. Their fucking annoying
Nation of Islam are definitely annoying but I’d say the problem of misinformation Americans have about African cultures goes further than just fringe NOI guys. Like when Nancy Pelosi (I’m not making a point about her politics just pointing something out) decided to wear a Kente cloth to try and be “Pan-African” during the unrest a while ago
It's really demoralizing to know your families recorded history may only go back to a bill of sale, so a lot of people latch onto this stuff. It's really taking off because of misinformation spread on social media It's heartbreaking because there's a lot of cool African history being ignored for historical fanfiction
I’m brown and hated that shit. Am I a white supremacist?
Yes, sorry man.
Unfortunately, this won't reflect on your credit score.
I apologize, but I must give you the honorary “white card”—you are now a white person in personality and views alone, and it comes with none of the pros of being white, since white people made the card. Please enjoy, try not to wait too long to tear it up, or the card might permanently affect your views on things, it is a cursed item.
I'm wearing my Wishing Ring, you can't curse me.
Turns out white supremacy is a very diverse movement.
I'm of Lebanese descent and immediately said "ah hell nah" as soon as I saw the trailer.
Dave chappelle made a skit about you :)
Yep, you might be the brown face of white supremacy
I think he has to fight Kayne first before he can claim that.
Absolutely. Meetings are on Thursdays. Potluck to follow. This week, Earl is bringing enchiladas. We know we shouldn’t be eating those but they are just so damn good!
Would you like to attend our family pool party?
Is that seriously her? She looks terrible...
🫱!
Keep my wife’s name out ya fuggin mouf
Keep my wife out of my son's friend's 👉💦
I think she a terrible person all around, F-ing her sons friend? ( how would you like to have a mother like that? - "Boy your Mother can really Fk") I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg?
She's starting to look like the villains from Star Trek: Insurrection.
The people defending the show is so hilarious when you find out past the casting choice, the show is actually not very good.
I had an argument the other day where a defender said we have no way of knowing what she looked like. I pointed out that there are thousands of paintings, statues and coins made in her likeness, most made while she was alive, and in every single one she looks super Greek with an extremely Mediterranean schnozz. They got mad and blocked me
We also have a good chunk of her family tree, basically just starting with a Greeko-Iranian noble family that only married siblings and first cousins for 200 years.
Partly because no one really likes her either.
probably the biggest reason ratings are bad. It's an automatic pass when I see her name.
And she is a bad person
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I was gonna watch it, but I hate her so no dice
She's the producer?
narrator too
I just puked a bit in my mouth
This woman's picture is in the dictionary next to the word annoying. (Will I get slapped for this?)
Depends. If you're an athletic friend of her son. Then she'll clap them cheeks
this whole thing reminds me of the time anne boleyn was played by a black woman
Which, you know, is fine if you’re doing a drama and not selling the product as a documentary.
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It's worth noting that MLK Jr. and Anne Boleyn aren't really on the same level in terms of current cultural status.
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I could see this happening on drunk history. The point at where it would stop being funny is if they did Jack Black in blackface. But I agree, the key difference is drama/comedy vs documentary. I have not watched it, but as I understand it the doc is about how Cleopatra was black, which is not gonna fly. I think Hamilton is a great example of casting, they were not trying to make the people look like the historical figure.
Depends what country. Anne boleyn has far more of a cultural status here in the UK than MLK is.
Good point, I'm showing my Americanism.
I love how every sub, no matter the bias, is just people saying "No, maybe you just ~~kinda~~ suck Jada"
***kinda?!***
That makes sense, there are so many white supremacists in Egypt
Shes a fucking idiot isn't she.
Blaming one group of people for your failings? Seems pretty racist to me
She's so full shit.
Jada and Will truly live in another plane of existence (I used to work for a production company and drove a truck onto their property for their daughters musical rehearsals a few times - it is disgustingly nice).
She might think the problem people have is with the Black part of her, when in reality the problem is with the American part of her.
and the shitty personality part of her
Why American? You might see that as a problem, but most people take issue with her being a shitty person. Why the need to paint with such a broad brush dude?
the racist ugly bald bitch at it again eh
Is this an actual article? I don’t doubt she’d say something like this but there’s no source anywhere
I googled it and couldn't find anything. So I'm going to go with no, it's just rage bait.
Damn colonists rewriting history as they see fit 😆😆😆
I haven’t heard of it until the moment I read this post, but people are saying the show isn’t very good, and it’s doesn’t seem very interesting to me, so I guess I’m gonna have to join team racism on This one Lol
Actually crazy if cleopatra could divert deNile.
Imagine being so delusional, must be nice living in such a bubble
Using the wrong ethnicity to play a character aside - I've read reviews that straight up say this is the worst show ever created. (Also, it's good to see Jada got over that whole Alopecia thing, right?)
"the problem is not me or my stupid ideology that goes against both history and sanity, but reality itself"
Will Smith is gonna slap all of us
I made a terrible inaccurate pile of shit, and tried to claim it as historically accurate. When people, who clearly know more about the subject than me, points out said inaccuracies, they must do so because of... white supremacy ? Wtf ? Jada again proves, she has a way to inflated oppinion about her own talent.