Does it matter that Netflix will premiere, on May 10, a “docudrama” depicting Cleopatra VII Philopator as black?
She was, after all, a direct descendent of a Macedonian general — and pal of Alexander the Great — “Ptolemy the Savior.”
European, in other words. White.
Anthony Brian Logan, a conservative African-American YouTube commentator, notes Netflix’s woke race-swapping as habit, a trend — which he takes as a “meme” and a “joke” — with the most egregious recent example being Anne Bolyn being portrayed as a “sub-Saharan African woman.” Mr. Logan argues that this “is the equivalent of casting Tom Hanks to play Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Cannot we have movies “that make some kind of sense”?
The answer may be No; the reason, not at all mysterious.
After all, race hustlers and ideologues have been spewing out misinformation about ancient Africa for a long time, trying to get ignorant, public-school-educated Americans to think of “the dark continent” as a place of one race.
I’m sure many people, reading the above, might wonder if the Ptolemies might not have inter-married native Egyptians. Well, the Egyptians weren’t sub-Saharan blacks, either. They were basically lighter-skinned Mediterranean types.
But, as Anthony Brian Logan observes, previews of the upcoming series have darkened up some images, suggesting that the producers (one of whom is Will Smith’s notorious wife, Jada Pinkett Smith) may be messing with us. Nevertheless, the big issue remains the “underlying effort to try to change historical fact.”
“Who controls the past controls the future,” Orwell wrote. “Who controls the present controls the past.”
Race isn’t really the issue. It’s lying. For political reasons.
And yes, it matters.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder and DALL-E2
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4 replies on “Queen’s Color Guard”
Some people truly don’t much care about ethnic recastings, but a great many people profess not to care and mock others for caring, only to get their own backs up in the face of recasting in one direction as opposed to another.
Cleopatra cannot be understood except as a ruler who rôle-played as More Ægyptian than Thou exactly because she was descended from Greek conquerors.
Save your old films and books.
They may be all that is left of reality in the not too distant future.
Most docudramas are not truly historical. We have no way of knowing precisely what conditions were like that long ago. Writers and producers want to tell a story. It may be based on a single historical figure or event, but it also contains fictional characters, like many of our war movies.
We can’t compare it to casting Tom Hanks as MLK because we have actual footage of these two men, who are modern day figures. Don’t Ethiopian Christians have statues and pictures depicting Christ as black?
Referring to Orwell was most appropriate. For me the term “doublethink” comes to mind when we are encouraged to delude ourselves and treach known falsehoods to our children. That generally has not turned out well.