MOVIE NEWS – In the Netflix movie Queen Cleopatra, we can see the black actress Adele James in the role of Cleopatra, which caused a serious outrage in Egypt. The director, Tina Gharavi, also spoke on the issue.

Tina Gharavi, the director of Iranian Persian origin, responded to the criticism in a long article published in Variety. According to him, Hollywood has so far not portrayed the pharaoh very authentically. Gharavi thinks that although it is not certain that Cleopatra was black, she could not have been as white as her previous impersonators, such as Elizabeth Taylor.

The director recalls that as a child he saw the 1963 film Cleopatra starring Taylor, and even then he felt that something was wrong because of the color of his skin. According to Gharavi, Cleopatra was Egyptian, no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston. During her research, she realized that a black actress playing Cleopatra would be a political act, and previous botched portrayals only reinforced her need to fix it.

According to historians, Adele James, who was chosen after the casting, probably looked more like Cleopatra than Elizabeth Taylor. Gharavi aims to present the story humanely and with its nuances. According to the director, some people in Egypt think that Cleopatra’s whiteness gives her value, which is why she is needed.

Gharavi adds that even while filming, there was an online hate campaign against him in Egypt, and he was accused of “blackwashing” Cleopatra and stealing their history. According to Gharavi’s final thoughts, we don’t know if the Egyptian empress was black, but she certainly wasn’t as white as Elizabeth Taylor.

Source: Variety