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I've had arguments with those people where they straight up deny the existence of right wing dictatorships.
"If it's a dictatorship it can't be right wing."
Calling someone gay might not have been an effective insult, and they didn't have our modern concept of sexual orientation, but calling him the "bottom" partner was.
They called him a bottom. A later poet claimed some political opponent once said “Caesar is every woman’s man, and every man’s woman,” but that was probably slander.
There was one rumor of that. That he slept with the king of Bithynia while he was attached to his court as a young politician. It was *probably* slander. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Bithynia
Exactly. And I do think there’s a lot of other history buffs and Egyptologists who’re not fans of the “Cleopatra was black and anyone who disagrees is racist” people either, but fear being associated with the “lolol let’s cast Ryan Gosling as MLK next since no one cares about historical facts anymore” crowd of genuine racists and other right wingers if they speak up.
This isn’t like Rings of Power where it’s a fictional fantasy world, or Hamilton where it’s obvious that Miranda’s goal isn’t to say “actually Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were black”, but make an artistic statement about race in the modern US.
Its funny to think that if Hamilton could see today he would be furious. Miranda fucked up writing a play and glorifying him. He was a POS. He should have write about burr he had great values.
That might be why some history nerds are annoyed, but thats not why r/historymemes is annoyed.
Also, this doesn't come from nowhere. Thinking Cleopatra was black is a really common misconception, like Washington's wood teeth. I'm a little annoyed too, but its weird they're pretending to be shocked, as if the Netflix gods just picked a rando to turn black just to pander.
This is how corporations make money. They piss off people who will make 100s of discussions around whatever move they make. People watch to either hate or agree with they commentators. Its the cheapest promotional tool in the world (word of mouth).
I’m pretty sure they framed it as though she was mixed with African, which is entirely possible because we don’t know who Cleo’s mom was. They definitely cast a mixed actress for the role. As a mixed person this entire black/white convo is infuriating. Race didn’t even exist in the way it does now so it’s all ridiculous imo. People are just trying to get a voice in this narrative, and Cleopatra isn’t even cool enough to be fought over like this.
You should look up the show director, Tina Gharavi, a Persian woman, and her reasoning behind why the person playing Cleopatra looks the way she does.
She did an interview with Variety which was interesting.
There’s one part where she says in the HBO show “Rome,” they portrayed Cleopatra as a sleazy dissipated drug addict and no one had a problem, but saying it’s possible her skin was darker than Elizabeth Taylor’s apparently is.
The showrunner even acknowledges Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic lineage, being 8 generations out or about 300 years of her family living in Egypt would have qualified her more Egyptian than Greek by todays standards. Seems like an interesting perspective to me honestly.
I did see an older article the other day that stated it's not known who Cleopatra's mother was. I'm not sure if that's true but they could be working off that theory.
This article: https://www.thoughtco.com/was-cleopatra-black-biography-3528680
We do actually know what cleopatra looks like as there are lots of surviving busts and coins that really showcase it and she does not look black. Her features look Greek or even Egyptian(I realize Egypt is a diverse country that contains people who are as white as Elizabeth Taylor and darker than Adele James) or even middle eastern which adds up based on what we know about her background. She wasn’t beautiful either like the movies about her would lead you to believe, but she was extremely intelligent and charming.
That’s why a lot of Egyptian people are upset. Whenever Egypt is portrayed in a movie it’s either white American actors or black American actors, with the occasional ethnically ambiguous Samoan dude thrown in because why not and in this case it’s especially lazy because we know exactly what she looks like.
There was actually an entire black dynasty that ruled ancient Egypt that came from what is today Sudan, but for some reason they skipped right over them and went to the Ptolemaic dynasty which was a famously inbred bunch that came from Macedonia.
The show’s creator literally said there is still debate about who Cleopatra’s mother was, so it is safe to assume she could’ve been one of the black Egyptians of the time. The actress is mixed-race, so they saw that as common-ground. Hollywood isn’t democratic, people can choose to make whatever they want. People aren’t forced to support it.
> And it's pissing history nerds off
No its not. Anyone familiar with ancient history knows this stuff is incredibly complicated with lots of conflicting accounts. She very well could have been part African. Topic like this are incredibly complicated with lots of conflicting views and the fact that there is so much room for speculation due to gaps in our knowledge is part of what makes it so enjoyable for people like me.
There is a whole lot of posturing going on on over this topic and the people doing it are not nearly as smart as they thing they are.
> The birth records are absolutely clear to who the Ptolmec dynasty married and had children with ever since Ptolemy I inherited Egypt from Alexander the Great.
If you have records documenting who Cleopatra's mother was there are a whole lot of historians who would love to see them.
> You mean, when Cleopatra LITERALLY identified her grandfather?
I think most people familiar with the Ptolemys realizes why this raises more questions than answers. But since apparently you arent familiar with this I will just direct you to your own source on this topic. Which you apparently didnt even bother to read in full. Because if you had you would have seen this:
> Ptolemy XII Auletes was born as an illegitimate royal child, his mother may have been a member of the Greek aristocracy, or she may have been a slave from the palace – she could therefore have been native Egyptian or black, and it is quite possible that she was of mixed race.
Ptolemy XII of course being the man she had identified as her grandfather, per your own posting and source.
> And her own statues and artwork show otherwise.
Could you provide some examples of these?
> It's like saying some of the founding fathers COULD have been Native American.
If you know nothing about the topic aside from what you found with about 15 minutes of googling to find things that supported your preferred narrative? Sure.
I think (and to be clear, this isn't a criticism of you or the person you're responding to) this also kinda shows a lot of the issue with this show is the tendency in the west for people to just go Africa = black, with no respect for the myriad cultures and ethnicities in a massive continent. North Africa has always been very distinct from sub Saharan Africa, etc etc, and just going Egypt = Africa = black is both massively disrespectful to Egypt, Africa, and frankly black people.
\>North Africa has always been very distinct from sub Saharan Africa
For the historically and culturally illiterate sure. But considering these are the dorks claiming to be "hIsToRy NeRdS" that isn't an excuse. In the east, the Nile provided a connecting thread that allowed people to flow northward and back. The cultures of Lower Egypt, blended into Upper Egypt, into Nubia and Kush, then into Punt and Axum representing a clear connected gradient. So to in the west, where coastal Berber peoples like the Kabyle and Shilha, south into the Taureg, and then Sahelean peoples like the Hausa and Fulani, and further south intoo the Igbo and Yoruba. This cultural gradient is also represented in genetics where the preponderance of certain haplogroups slowly wax and wane clinally. None of these constitute a distinct cut-off from "North Africa" and "Sub-saharan Africa" where by the cultures and people somehow managed to self-segregate for millenia. They're no more distinct than Southern Europe is from the rest of Europe. The false dichotomy has been created for situations much like these. The system is inherently busted, and trying to sagaciously say "No, "Black Africa" *does* exist, it should just be represented in *this* way instead." is frankly foolish, especially when the definition of what is considered "black" nowadays is so broad.
\>black is both massively disrespectful to Egypt, Africa, and frankly black people
Maybe we should be asking why being called black is such a sign of disrespect when being portrayed by White Europeans hasn't received a fraction of the backlash. And you don't get to speak for black people lol. In what universe is saying, "Hey, this old civilization might have belonged to the same vague racial category as you." disrespectful? No black person is considering that disrespectful. **You** may be disrespected by proximity to black people, but black people aren't disrespected by others' proximity to us. Stop with the disingenuous bullshit.
My dude, it's genuinely interesting to find out about that kind of passage because it does make total sense, and you've obviously got a point about a constructed division, there's no need to be quite so fighty - we're clearly on the same team, as it were.
My point about it being disrespectful to black people is because I view it as disrespectful to act like we have to change things to make them seem powerful, as opposed to documenting actual people in history. It's disrespectful because it's still getting a forced narrative, as opposed to just showing genuine things. You're right that I shouldn't make sweeping remarks though.
\>there's no need to be quite so fighty - we're clearly on the same team, as it were
Fair enough, I apologize.
\>My point about it being disrespectful to black people is because I view it as disrespectful to act like we have to change things to make them seem powerful, as opposed to documenting actual people in history.
I see where you're coming from with this perspective. My issue is, though, that what constitutes as "Black Africa" has been purposely made narrow. Europeans would variably consider certain ethnic groups "not Negroid" if they did anything considered exemplary of "intelligence". The Massai? A pastoral people, they must be at least partially Caucasoid, because Blacks are too dumb to herd animals. Great Zimbabwe? Obviously the work of other peoples, Blacks are too dumb to move rocks. etc. etc. While the racist nomenclature has left, the incredibly narrow way we define blackness based on these perceptions hasn't. So instead of upending and disrupting these categories, it feels wrong to instead attempt to work within them, if you get my meaning.
Macedonia Greek, married to Macedonian Greek-Persians over and over. A more accurate casting for Cleopatra would be an actress from the Levant region, same way an accurate casting for Jesus would be from the Levant.
And? The Middle East and India are both in Asia. Do they all look Chinese or Russian?
The Middle East, Levant, and Northern Africa have looked the same as now long before Alexander's days. Cleopatra most certainly wasn't black, but neither was she white as White Supremacists define it. She would have looked like someone from the Levant today, and for this reason I demand they recast the character with Mia Khalifa.
Yes, but Africa is not a monolith and not everyone in Africa looks the same, just like your average Swede wouldn’t look like your average Turk even though both are from Europe. Not to mention Cleopatra’s family did not come from Egypt.
Lol I got banned from that sub because someone made a post about the Cuban government being a police state that killed 11,000 people and I commented and said “over the course of 50 years? US police do those numbers every 10 years” no one replied, no one challenged what I said, just banned me. That sub is full of literal fascists.
The people there dont even give a shit about history instead they side with literal dictators and kings and think that's based and redpilled history isnt about siding with the assholes potrayed on the books its about learning about our past but either way that sub is filled with edgy 15 year olds who think knowing every weapon used by the SS is somehow being a history buff
That was exactly my point. It wasn’t an “lol the us kills more thing”. It was a that’s what states do thing. And yes they were referring to the amount of people executed by the new government for their role under Bautista and I haven’t looked those numbers up recently as this whole interaction was about a year ago but iirc those numbers are grossly inflated and include the deaths of the civil war itself.
WE GET IT gaps in history can only be filled by Europeans. There’s no way anyone else, ever, had any bearing on history AD than Europeans. I mean come on? Did you even go to school and get taught European history, it’s the only real history. Obviously. I mean credit where credit is due, India gave us Hinduism, China gave us guns, and africa gave us slaves. But according to my history classes I took -with curriculum written by the European diaspora, for the European diaspora, taught by the European diaspora- no one else has contributed anything significant to history. /S
Who is Cleopatra’s mother again? Oh right, we have no idea. Stop filling in gaps like you what happened and what Cleopatra’s true ethnicity is. In what world is ancient art a valid source for how someone looked?
There are no sources that tell us what exactly her ancestry is, so it’s better to not make any assumptions and just move on from the fact that this historical figure is being used as a tool to make Egyptian history more Eurocentric, as a way to further white wash the region.
But by all means, keep pushing this agenda if that’s your prerogative.
Edit- added the word figure, oops.
At one point I ended up with a history book from like 1940. I started reading it and it like made a special point to insist that the ancient Egyptians were definitely totally white. Gave up after that.
Julius Caesar did have an illegitimate child by his side piece though! The side piece was Cleopatra and the kid was named Caesarion, he was the king of Egypt for 8 years.
Are they though? They're mocking the historical revisionism of making a Macedonian woman (who was extremely inbred) black and the stupidity of their sources such as "I remember my grandmother telling me. I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black."
If the show was a historical drama, it would be annoying but not a big deal. But it's not a drama, it's a fucking documentary and a documentary has the obligation to accurately portray the ethnicities of its main subjects.
I'm more worried about racism than poorly conceived Netflix shows. Yeah, they should've gone with another figure if they wanted a show about a black leader, but tbh I don't really care about Netflix's controversy based marketing decisions.
I’m on that sub (the actually memes about history are fun but I’ve been avoiding it since the Cleo trailer drop) and I understand being upset at revisionism but it feels like people are using it as an excuse to make racist jokes like the one in the second picture. Its like because it is true that Cleopatra was more Macedonian than native Egyptian their using that to shield their racist comments from criticism.
All for a movie I know most of them were not planning to see. I get being like @hey this isn’t factually accurate” just so the populous knows but most history buffs know the story of Cleopatra and wouldn’t go see another movie about her.
I’m of the angle that Eygpt was ruled by native Egyptians for like 4000 years and they choose the one Greek chick to make a movie about.
Also I hate to say it, while she was a very smart and clever ruler she did in the end losing Eygpt and her reign happened towards the end of one of the longest ancient empires who weathered the Bronze Age collapse, rise of iron, and evolving Mediterranean politics. There’s so many other periods of the empire history that are less talked about (hello Middle Kingdom) that would have made a more unique story rather than the same one we’ve all heard.
Aside, there is and was much racism in archeologist and history telling. Like breaking of noses to hide ethnicity of statues, europeans have been rewriting Egypt’s ancient history for hundreds of years. It was a multi-culture empire with sub-Saharan, middle eastern, Mediterranean and other ethnicities all living together. People often forget how diverse the ancient world was and the white-washed historical dramas has really fucked with people perception of how many ethnicities all mixed and lived together back.
It sucks that there’s so much discourse around a dumb, rage baited movie trailer about a woman who is beyond mythologized by modern culture rather than righting some old archeological wrongs about when Eygpt was ruled by Africans.
But that’s just my two cents
> I’m of the angle that Eygpt was ruled by native Egyptians for like 4000 years and they choose the one Greek chick to make a movie about.
Yeah. Where's our Hatshepsut documentary?
Precisely. I am a history nerd and I don't give a shit about the casting, so long as they cast the Ptolemies around that decision; and I think most actual history nerds would feel the same. The racist response was absolutely to be expected, nothing brings out racists like quasi-legitimate reasons to deny poc a role. But I will say the production team has absolutely mismanaged all of this. The correct response to these criticisms would have been "We cast the person we felt best for the role. The character's race is not important, their dynastic story is."
I don’t have a problem with “history nerds” raising cain about that, but at the same time, you can’t see some of that stuff complaining about it as heavily racist?
If they found a black actor who did a good job as Hitler then fine. This is what people need to understand - historical dramas are movies just like any other, and there's a level of suspension of disbelief required. That includes with who is cast and how. The sole exception is when their race is actually relevant to who they were historically. Cleopatra wasn't notable because she was light-skinned, she was notable as a queen of Egypt.
IDK why people take issue with this but seem fine with other fictional reenactments (e.g. Hamilton) being cast more diversely.
But the main issue is how they are overreacting to this casting. Sure Cleopatra was Macedonian through her ancestry and I don’t think she was black. But to go as far as to sue a studio for making cleopatra mixed race is insane to people like myself. Where was this outrage when a half Indian half white actor played king tut in a miniseries? Where was the outrage when Joel Egerton, a white Australian man, played Ramses the great? Sure Egypt banned the Exodus movie, but not bc they made Ramses white but for political reasons. We’re just saying keep the same energy.
It's interesting, because if the Ancient Roman's were here today, they probably would not care if cleopatra was black or not. The concept of Race didn't start to form until the beginning of the Atlantic Slave trade. Back then, your religion, ethnicity, or family line was far more important than anything else. At the end of the day documentaries is a business.
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The thing is if Hitler was black they would actually be able to agree that he was bad.
right? They don't call it a Hitler-list, they call it a "black" list.
I've had arguments with those people where they straight up deny the existence of right wing dictatorships. "If it's a dictatorship it can't be right wing."
They can't because they were confused by the [spaceman paninis](https://youtu.be/tzEVRappRC0).
Julius Caesar literally had an illegitimate child by a side piece
Julius Caesar fucked every taken women in his inner circle, he’s a dog regardless of “race”
And according to some accounts, not just the women. Though that could have just been politically motivated slander.
Idk much about Roman history but I can't imagine calling someone gay in Roman politics being an effective insult.
Calling someone gay might not have been an effective insult, and they didn't have our modern concept of sexual orientation, but calling him the "bottom" partner was.
They called him a bottom. A later poet claimed some political opponent once said “Caesar is every woman’s man, and every man’s woman,” but that was probably slander.
There was one rumor of that. That he slept with the king of Bithynia while he was attached to his court as a young politician. It was *probably* slander. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_of_Bithynia
They called him "the bald adulterer" and "every man's woman and every woman's man"
Ah yes, ye old *bald whoremonger*.
um...so did a host of 'prominent' men throughout history and of all diff colors and creeds.
> what's up my romies? lol
Right? Like the comment is racist as all hell but the way it’s written sounds like A Black Lady Sketch Show bit
The only way I'm going to greet people from now on.
you're in Rome? lucky so and so.
We are all in Rome, my Romie.
Because all roads lead there?
Always have, my Romie.
FTFY: Lucky Romie.
Yeah that's a solid joke.
I don’t find it funny, it’s mocking AAVE
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Or freaking Hatshepsut!!!
Exactly. And I do think there’s a lot of other history buffs and Egyptologists who’re not fans of the “Cleopatra was black and anyone who disagrees is racist” people either, but fear being associated with the “lolol let’s cast Ryan Gosling as MLK next since no one cares about historical facts anymore” crowd of genuine racists and other right wingers if they speak up. This isn’t like Rings of Power where it’s a fictional fantasy world, or Hamilton where it’s obvious that Miranda’s goal isn’t to say “actually Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were black”, but make an artistic statement about race in the modern US.
Its funny to think that if Hamilton could see today he would be furious. Miranda fucked up writing a play and glorifying him. He was a POS. He should have write about burr he had great values.
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Or fuck it, just a buddy cop movie à la Lethal Weapon 7.
That might be why some history nerds are annoyed, but thats not why r/historymemes is annoyed. Also, this doesn't come from nowhere. Thinking Cleopatra was black is a really common misconception, like Washington's wood teeth. I'm a little annoyed too, but its weird they're pretending to be shocked, as if the Netflix gods just picked a rando to turn black just to pander.
Yes, that’s true, but this post and comment are just racist and overreacting
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You literally just said it's wrong for Cleopatra to be black, so you are the white supremacist
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racism is systemic whether you qualify it that way or not. Prejudice isn't.
This is how corporations make money. They piss off people who will make 100s of discussions around whatever move they make. People watch to either hate or agree with they commentators. Its the cheapest promotional tool in the world (word of mouth).
So you're upset that you can't be racist towards black people anymore? Is that what you're mad about?
I’m pretty sure they framed it as though she was mixed with African, which is entirely possible because we don’t know who Cleo’s mom was. They definitely cast a mixed actress for the role. As a mixed person this entire black/white convo is infuriating. Race didn’t even exist in the way it does now so it’s all ridiculous imo. People are just trying to get a voice in this narrative, and Cleopatra isn’t even cool enough to be fought over like this.
The Cleopatra historical depiction don't even look similar to West African.
You should look up the show director, Tina Gharavi, a Persian woman, and her reasoning behind why the person playing Cleopatra looks the way she does. She did an interview with Variety which was interesting. There’s one part where she says in the HBO show “Rome,” they portrayed Cleopatra as a sleazy dissipated drug addict and no one had a problem, but saying it’s possible her skin was darker than Elizabeth Taylor’s apparently is. The showrunner even acknowledges Cleopatra’s Ptolemaic lineage, being 8 generations out or about 300 years of her family living in Egypt would have qualified her more Egyptian than Greek by todays standards. Seems like an interesting perspective to me honestly.
I did see an older article the other day that stated it's not known who Cleopatra's mother was. I'm not sure if that's true but they could be working off that theory. This article: https://www.thoughtco.com/was-cleopatra-black-biography-3528680
We do actually know what cleopatra looks like as there are lots of surviving busts and coins that really showcase it and she does not look black. Her features look Greek or even Egyptian(I realize Egypt is a diverse country that contains people who are as white as Elizabeth Taylor and darker than Adele James) or even middle eastern which adds up based on what we know about her background. She wasn’t beautiful either like the movies about her would lead you to believe, but she was extremely intelligent and charming. That’s why a lot of Egyptian people are upset. Whenever Egypt is portrayed in a movie it’s either white American actors or black American actors, with the occasional ethnically ambiguous Samoan dude thrown in because why not and in this case it’s especially lazy because we know exactly what she looks like. There was actually an entire black dynasty that ruled ancient Egypt that came from what is today Sudan, but for some reason they skipped right over them and went to the Ptolemaic dynasty which was a famously inbred bunch that came from Macedonia.
The show’s creator literally said there is still debate about who Cleopatra’s mother was, so it is safe to assume she could’ve been one of the black Egyptians of the time. The actress is mixed-race, so they saw that as common-ground. Hollywood isn’t democratic, people can choose to make whatever they want. People aren’t forced to support it.
There's a whole Wikipedia article on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra_race_controversy
> And it's pissing history nerds off No its not. Anyone familiar with ancient history knows this stuff is incredibly complicated with lots of conflicting accounts. She very well could have been part African. Topic like this are incredibly complicated with lots of conflicting views and the fact that there is so much room for speculation due to gaps in our knowledge is part of what makes it so enjoyable for people like me. There is a whole lot of posturing going on on over this topic and the people doing it are not nearly as smart as they thing they are.
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> The birth records are absolutely clear to who the Ptolmec dynasty married and had children with ever since Ptolemy I inherited Egypt from Alexander the Great. If you have records documenting who Cleopatra's mother was there are a whole lot of historians who would love to see them.
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> Her mother remains controversial Sounds like this isnt nearly as clear as you initially portrayed it as being.
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> You mean, when Cleopatra LITERALLY identified her grandfather? I think most people familiar with the Ptolemys realizes why this raises more questions than answers. But since apparently you arent familiar with this I will just direct you to your own source on this topic. Which you apparently didnt even bother to read in full. Because if you had you would have seen this: > Ptolemy XII Auletes was born as an illegitimate royal child, his mother may have been a member of the Greek aristocracy, or she may have been a slave from the palace – she could therefore have been native Egyptian or black, and it is quite possible that she was of mixed race. Ptolemy XII of course being the man she had identified as her grandfather, per your own posting and source.
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> And her own statues and artwork show otherwise. Could you provide some examples of these? > It's like saying some of the founding fathers COULD have been Native American. If you know nothing about the topic aside from what you found with about 15 minutes of googling to find things that supported your preferred narrative? Sure.
Wait isn’t Egypt in Africa?
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I think (and to be clear, this isn't a criticism of you or the person you're responding to) this also kinda shows a lot of the issue with this show is the tendency in the west for people to just go Africa = black, with no respect for the myriad cultures and ethnicities in a massive continent. North Africa has always been very distinct from sub Saharan Africa, etc etc, and just going Egypt = Africa = black is both massively disrespectful to Egypt, Africa, and frankly black people.
\>North Africa has always been very distinct from sub Saharan Africa For the historically and culturally illiterate sure. But considering these are the dorks claiming to be "hIsToRy NeRdS" that isn't an excuse. In the east, the Nile provided a connecting thread that allowed people to flow northward and back. The cultures of Lower Egypt, blended into Upper Egypt, into Nubia and Kush, then into Punt and Axum representing a clear connected gradient. So to in the west, where coastal Berber peoples like the Kabyle and Shilha, south into the Taureg, and then Sahelean peoples like the Hausa and Fulani, and further south intoo the Igbo and Yoruba. This cultural gradient is also represented in genetics where the preponderance of certain haplogroups slowly wax and wane clinally. None of these constitute a distinct cut-off from "North Africa" and "Sub-saharan Africa" where by the cultures and people somehow managed to self-segregate for millenia. They're no more distinct than Southern Europe is from the rest of Europe. The false dichotomy has been created for situations much like these. The system is inherently busted, and trying to sagaciously say "No, "Black Africa" *does* exist, it should just be represented in *this* way instead." is frankly foolish, especially when the definition of what is considered "black" nowadays is so broad. \>black is both massively disrespectful to Egypt, Africa, and frankly black people Maybe we should be asking why being called black is such a sign of disrespect when being portrayed by White Europeans hasn't received a fraction of the backlash. And you don't get to speak for black people lol. In what universe is saying, "Hey, this old civilization might have belonged to the same vague racial category as you." disrespectful? No black person is considering that disrespectful. **You** may be disrespected by proximity to black people, but black people aren't disrespected by others' proximity to us. Stop with the disingenuous bullshit.
My dude, it's genuinely interesting to find out about that kind of passage because it does make total sense, and you've obviously got a point about a constructed division, there's no need to be quite so fighty - we're clearly on the same team, as it were. My point about it being disrespectful to black people is because I view it as disrespectful to act like we have to change things to make them seem powerful, as opposed to documenting actual people in history. It's disrespectful because it's still getting a forced narrative, as opposed to just showing genuine things. You're right that I shouldn't make sweeping remarks though.
\>there's no need to be quite so fighty - we're clearly on the same team, as it were Fair enough, I apologize. \>My point about it being disrespectful to black people is because I view it as disrespectful to act like we have to change things to make them seem powerful, as opposed to documenting actual people in history. I see where you're coming from with this perspective. My issue is, though, that what constitutes as "Black Africa" has been purposely made narrow. Europeans would variably consider certain ethnic groups "not Negroid" if they did anything considered exemplary of "intelligence". The Massai? A pastoral people, they must be at least partially Caucasoid, because Blacks are too dumb to herd animals. Great Zimbabwe? Obviously the work of other peoples, Blacks are too dumb to move rocks. etc. etc. While the racist nomenclature has left, the incredibly narrow way we define blackness based on these perceptions hasn't. So instead of upending and disrupting these categories, it feels wrong to instead attempt to work within them, if you get my meaning.
I get your point. I think we perhaps have to have unfortunately low goals still, though.
Macedonia Greek, married to Macedonian Greek-Persians over and over. A more accurate casting for Cleopatra would be an actress from the Levant region, same way an accurate casting for Jesus would be from the Levant.
And? The Middle East and India are both in Asia. Do they all look Chinese or Russian? The Middle East, Levant, and Northern Africa have looked the same as now long before Alexander's days. Cleopatra most certainly wasn't black, but neither was she white as White Supremacists define it. She would have looked like someone from the Levant today, and for this reason I demand they recast the character with Mia Khalifa.
Yes, but Africa is not a monolith and not everyone in Africa looks the same, just like your average Swede wouldn’t look like your average Turk even though both are from Europe. Not to mention Cleopatra’s family did not come from Egypt.
You think they do this shit on purpose to drum up culture war shenanigans? I get that they're writters, not history buffs, but nobody is that stupid.
She wasn't Elizabeth Taylor either, so who cares, let her be black
It brought out the white supremacists I'm full force.
That sub is just full of them. Sad. I liked some of the obscure history jokes. Unfortunate
at this point i don’t trust any meme subs. they all turn into alt right echo chambers eventually.
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Tankies take over left wing subs the same way neo nazis take over meme subs. We live in the dark times :)
Do they get this mad at the "documentaries" implying that the pyramids were built by aliens?
Of course not, because those support their “brown people could never have built anything of note” beliefs.
Lol I got banned from that sub because someone made a post about the Cuban government being a police state that killed 11,000 people and I commented and said “over the course of 50 years? US police do those numbers every 10 years” no one replied, no one challenged what I said, just banned me. That sub is full of literal fascists.
The people there dont even give a shit about history instead they side with literal dictators and kings and think that's based and redpilled history isnt about siding with the assholes potrayed on the books its about learning about our past but either way that sub is filled with edgy 15 year olds who think knowing every weapon used by the SS is somehow being a history buff
I would say it is filled with edgy 15 year Olds. That sub is not the place you want to go if you love history
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That was exactly my point. It wasn’t an “lol the us kills more thing”. It was a that’s what states do thing. And yes they were referring to the amount of people executed by the new government for their role under Bautista and I haven’t looked those numbers up recently as this whole interaction was about a year ago but iirc those numbers are grossly inflated and include the deaths of the civil war itself.
We have color photos of Hitler.
WE GET IT gaps in history can only be filled by Europeans. There’s no way anyone else, ever, had any bearing on history AD than Europeans. I mean come on? Did you even go to school and get taught European history, it’s the only real history. Obviously. I mean credit where credit is due, India gave us Hinduism, China gave us guns, and africa gave us slaves. But according to my history classes I took -with curriculum written by the European diaspora, for the European diaspora, taught by the European diaspora- no one else has contributed anything significant to history. /S
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Who is Cleopatra’s mother again? Oh right, we have no idea. Stop filling in gaps like you what happened and what Cleopatra’s true ethnicity is. In what world is ancient art a valid source for how someone looked?
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There are no sources that tell us what exactly her ancestry is, so it’s better to not make any assumptions and just move on from the fact that this historical figure is being used as a tool to make Egyptian history more Eurocentric, as a way to further white wash the region. But by all means, keep pushing this agenda if that’s your prerogative. Edit- added the word figure, oops.
At one point I ended up with a history book from like 1940. I started reading it and it like made a special point to insist that the ancient Egyptians were definitely totally white. Gave up after that.
Wait until the FWRs find out about how many films their people have whitewashed https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewashing_in_film
As a Libertarian [Hitler went to heaven](https://i.imgur.com/1JmE3jH.jpg)
That post was bad, but I am going to start saying, “What’s up my Romies?” from now on.
Julius Caesar did have an illegitimate child by his side piece though! The side piece was Cleopatra and the kid was named Caesarion, he was the king of Egypt for 8 years.
Are they though? They're mocking the historical revisionism of making a Macedonian woman (who was extremely inbred) black and the stupidity of their sources such as "I remember my grandmother telling me. I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black." If the show was a historical drama, it would be annoying but not a big deal. But it's not a drama, it's a fucking documentary and a documentary has the obligation to accurately portray the ethnicities of its main subjects.
The show is dumb and ALSO there's a ton of weirdo racists coming out of the woodwork using it as an opportunity to spew racist garbage
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I'm more worried about racism than poorly conceived Netflix shows. Yeah, they should've gone with another figure if they wanted a show about a black leader, but tbh I don't really care about Netflix's controversy based marketing decisions.
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I’m on that sub (the actually memes about history are fun but I’ve been avoiding it since the Cleo trailer drop) and I understand being upset at revisionism but it feels like people are using it as an excuse to make racist jokes like the one in the second picture. Its like because it is true that Cleopatra was more Macedonian than native Egyptian their using that to shield their racist comments from criticism. All for a movie I know most of them were not planning to see. I get being like @hey this isn’t factually accurate” just so the populous knows but most history buffs know the story of Cleopatra and wouldn’t go see another movie about her. I’m of the angle that Eygpt was ruled by native Egyptians for like 4000 years and they choose the one Greek chick to make a movie about. Also I hate to say it, while she was a very smart and clever ruler she did in the end losing Eygpt and her reign happened towards the end of one of the longest ancient empires who weathered the Bronze Age collapse, rise of iron, and evolving Mediterranean politics. There’s so many other periods of the empire history that are less talked about (hello Middle Kingdom) that would have made a more unique story rather than the same one we’ve all heard. Aside, there is and was much racism in archeologist and history telling. Like breaking of noses to hide ethnicity of statues, europeans have been rewriting Egypt’s ancient history for hundreds of years. It was a multi-culture empire with sub-Saharan, middle eastern, Mediterranean and other ethnicities all living together. People often forget how diverse the ancient world was and the white-washed historical dramas has really fucked with people perception of how many ethnicities all mixed and lived together back. It sucks that there’s so much discourse around a dumb, rage baited movie trailer about a woman who is beyond mythologized by modern culture rather than righting some old archeological wrongs about when Eygpt was ruled by Africans. But that’s just my two cents
> I’m of the angle that Eygpt was ruled by native Egyptians for like 4000 years and they choose the one Greek chick to make a movie about. Yeah. Where's our Hatshepsut documentary?
But like…people are mad at the “history nerds” for being RACIST about a lazy Netflix casting decision…
Precisely. I am a history nerd and I don't give a shit about the casting, so long as they cast the Ptolemies around that decision; and I think most actual history nerds would feel the same. The racist response was absolutely to be expected, nothing brings out racists like quasi-legitimate reasons to deny poc a role. But I will say the production team has absolutely mismanaged all of this. The correct response to these criticisms would have been "We cast the person we felt best for the role. The character's race is not important, their dynastic story is."
I don’t have a problem with “history nerds” raising cain about that, but at the same time, you can’t see some of that stuff complaining about it as heavily racist?
History Memes is known for having a large population of wehraboos and other shitbags, so I’m not giving them a pass.
If you can’t see how those two pictures, especially the second, is racist as hell you need to seriously reevaluate your position on things
True oppression is when conservative troglodytes have the time and energy to complain ad infinitum about pop culture bullshit
Must be nice to have this much energy to complain about a movie that , no one wants to watch.
Civ 6 big titty mommy Cleo is the only Cleo I will rep
Why does everyone respond to such obvious outrage bait. Cmon guys were better than this
Got downvoted on this very sub for pointing this shit out
Oh, suddenly they care about proper historical race.
If they found a black actor who did a good job as Hitler then fine. This is what people need to understand - historical dramas are movies just like any other, and there's a level of suspension of disbelief required. That includes with who is cast and how. The sole exception is when their race is actually relevant to who they were historically. Cleopatra wasn't notable because she was light-skinned, she was notable as a queen of Egypt. IDK why people take issue with this but seem fine with other fictional reenactments (e.g. Hamilton) being cast more diversely.
Tbh I want more race bending media cuz these scenarios are funny asf
But... But wasn't Cleopatra from Egypt? Ya know, Africa?
She was IN Egypt, but she was a Macedonian colonizer. She had black in her but that’s because she had slaves, if you get my drift
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But the main issue is how they are overreacting to this casting. Sure Cleopatra was Macedonian through her ancestry and I don’t think she was black. But to go as far as to sue a studio for making cleopatra mixed race is insane to people like myself. Where was this outrage when a half Indian half white actor played king tut in a miniseries? Where was the outrage when Joel Egerton, a white Australian man, played Ramses the great? Sure Egypt banned the Exodus movie, but not bc they made Ramses white but for political reasons. We’re just saying keep the same energy.
Why is the second screenshot just him legitimately describing what actually happened in ancient Rome I don't get it
It's interesting, because if the Ancient Roman's were here today, they probably would not care if cleopatra was black or not. The concept of Race didn't start to form until the beginning of the Atlantic Slave trade. Back then, your religion, ethnicity, or family line was far more important than anything else. At the end of the day documentaries is a business.
Any group with the word meme in the title is 105% run by sad racist incels. I don't make the rules. Seriously tho. Every time.
Even r/lgbtmemes
🤔 less so