“A government-owned Egyptian broadcaster has responded the casting of a Black actress to play Cleopatra in the Netflix docudrama series “African Queens,” which streams from May 10, by announcing production of its own big-budget Cleopatra doc.
“The fact that Britain’s Adele James, who is of mixed heritage, plays the first-century Egyptian ruler as a queen with African roots in the Netflix original produced by Jada Pinkett Smith has been sparking an uproar in Egypt.
“Ever since the trailer dropped last month local academics and others are claiming that Cleopatra, who was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and belonged to a Greek-speaking dynasty, was of European descent and not Black.”
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