Was Queen Cleopatra Black? Race explored as petition against Netflix docu-series goes viral online

Netflix's upcoming documentary on Queen Cleopatra has become the subject of debate and criticism on social media over the blackwashing of the legendary ruler of Egypt. In the upcoming documentary, Cleopatra is seen as a black ruler, and netizens are now highlighting the fact that the legendary ruler was of Greek origin and had no black connection.

Amidst the ongoing controversy around the Netflix documentary, Queen Cleopatra, an online petition against the same is now making the rounds on the internet. The petition, filed on change.org, has the title:

"Cancel “Queen Cleopatra” on Netflix for Falsifying History."

Started by Maha & Aikk, the online petition aims to collect 50,000 signatures. At the time of writing, it had already managed to get 49,319 signatures.

Online petition for cancelling Netflix documentary (Image via snip from change.org)

The petition states:

"She [Cleopatra] awas born in Alexanderia, Egypt, in the Ptolemaic dynasty to Greek descent. She was NOT black. This is in no way against black people, and is simply a wake-up call to preserve the history and the integrity of the Egyptians and the Greeks."

The petition concluded by saying that Egypt was never exclusively black or white, adding that while there are a number of African/Black civilizations, Egypt was/is not one of them.

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Queen Cleopatra, a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, was the last active ruler of Egypt

Queen Cleopatra was the Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt and was its last active ruler. She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty and was a descendant of its founder, Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian Greek general. Other than this, she was the companion of Alexander the Great.

Her native language was Koine Greek and she was the only Ptolemaic ruler who knew the Egyptian language.

As the trailer and poster for the upcoming documentary on Netflix dropped, several people were left wondering whether she was black. However, her historical background indicates that she was of Greek descent.

It is also worth noting that there have been several debates about Celopatra's race in the recent past. Some scholars have said that identifying her race is a very complex question.

Earlier, actor Gal Gadot received major backlash from social media users when an announcement in 2020 revealed that she was working on a movie project in which she was going to play the role of Cleopatra. At the time, netizens alleged that it was cultural whitewashing.

Several scholars have claimed that the queen was largely of Macedonian Greek ancestry, but some also wondered if she had additional ancestries.

A BBC documentary in 2009 hinted that Cleopatra might have been part North African. This was based largely on the examination of the headless skeleton of a female child in a 20 BCE tomb in Ephesus, together with old notes and photographs of the now-missing skull, hypothesized to be of Arsinoe IV, the half-sister of Cleopatra.

However, the claim was rejected by scholars, based on the remains being impossible to trace back to Arsinoe and the race of the remains being impossible to identify at all.

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Netizens are agitating over the allegedly incorrect representation

Social media users were not pleased after watching the trailer of the documentary and alleged that Netflix has inaccurately portrayed the historical figure.

Notably, this is not the first time a historical documentary has come under the radar of social media users over inaccurate representation.

In 2018, BBC was called out by netizens for casting the ancient Greek figures of Achilles, Patroclus, and Zeus with black actors. Some social media users said at the time that the BBC was blackwashing Greek myths to deprive Europeans of their culture and history.

The upcoming documentary is narrated and produced by Jada Pinkett Smith and is set to be released on Netflix on May 10. The documentary will focus on the legendary ruler's reign during the 1st century BC and her dynamic with infamous Roman generals Mark Anthony and Julius Caesar.