There are more than a few disputes related to Cleopatra VII, the Cleopatra who was, for a time, Queen of Egypt, was involved with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony after him, and killed herself rather than become the prisoner, or trophy, of the victorious Octavian, to be known as Augustus.  The one I address is one which has arisen in response to the depiction of her as black in a documentary series to be shown on Netflix.

This has served to anger various Egyptians and Greeks, and, as seems inevitable, denizens of the right or alt-right or far-right of whatever the case may be, eager to assert that she wasn't black.  In the case of Egyptians and Greeks, a certain nationalism may be a cause of their ire.  In the case of others, outrage has become a way of life, and this will be one of many to come.

What we know of how Cleopatra looked is relatively limited.  We know that it's very likely she didn't look like Elizabeth Taylor or Vivian Leigh, two women who pretended to be her thanks to Hollywood and whoever it was did the casting for the movie version of George Bernard Shaw's play.  What we know otherwise we know based on coins and busts that have survived since antiquity.  Those don't provide any evidence regarding skin color.  The busts are white, of course; but so are all statutes which remain from ancient times, because the paint on them has worn away.  

This post features a painting which appears in what's called the House of Marcus Fabius Rufus in Pompeii.  It's believed to be a portrait of Cleopatra in the guise of Venus Genetrix, the founding goddess of the Julii, the family of Julius Caesar, based on a statute of her raised by Caesar at the time of the dedication of a temple of the goddess in 46 B.C.E.  If the evidence is accurate, it may be the only contemporaneous depiction of Cleopatra which exists.

Most, including I believe most scholars, would not be surprised if this is the case.  She was a Queen of the Ptolemaic dynasty founded by the general, friend, and possibly half-brother of Alexander the Great which ruled Egypt for approximately two hundred years.  Ptolemy was a Macedonian.  He was not black.  There's no evidence any member of that dynasty was a black person.  We don't know in any detail all of the sexual relations of the Ptolemies over the years, and certainly anything is possible, but royal marriages and status being what they were, it's likely that royal Macedonians wanted Macedonian offspring, or Macedonian/Greek offspring.  But it seems that the Ptolemies intermarried with the Seleucids, other successors to Alexander ruling in what is now Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and other parts of the Mideast, who it seems married high-born nobiles of the former Persian Empire now and then.  So, it's possible Cleopatra was of a shared ancestry in that respect, at least.

Why does any of this matter?  These days actors of color play characters who were white or likely white fairly regularly.  It's odd when one sees black actors play Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, both slave owners, as was the case when I saw a production of Hamilton in Chicago.  Something about that seems peculiar, to me at least.  But a show is a show.  Everybody needs work.  Nobody believes George and Tom were black; nobody expects that people will think they weren't white.  Why should this cause offense?

One might point out that the idea of white actors playing characters who aren't white, or are of mixed race, has been considered offensive.  When Jonathan Pryce played the half-French, half-Vietnamese Engineer in Miss Saigon it was claimed that it was insulting for a white actor to be made up as a half-Asian.  Was the make up the cause for offense?  If a white actor had played that character without being made up as Asian or part-Asian, would that have made everything fine?

In the case of Miss Saigon, it also was a show.  Clearly, it's the fact that a white actor was playing a character not entirely white which made a difference, though.

May a white actor play a black fictional character without causing offense?  I would guess not.  What if a white actor played a historical figure who was black?  Frederick Douglass, for example.  Or Shaka Zulu.  It wouldn't end well.

Perhaps this may be attributed to the fact that whites have had their way, and still have their way, at the expense of others and it's insulting when they pretend to be one of those whites have taken advantage of over the years.  Less insulting, perhaps, than when one of those who were taken advantage of pretend to be one of those taking advantage.

Is a puzzlement, as a Russian actor pretending to be King of Siam was made to say.  Did Yul come under attack for his portrayal over so many years?  I can't recall.

I'm not one to express outrage over such a thing as this.  I'm not outraged or offended, but think it's inappropriate.  For me, there's a problem when the word "documentary" is used to describe persons or events which are not supported by facts.  Documentaries are supposed to deal with factual events.  Documentaries are not supposed to be fiction.   If you make a documentary, you should believe that what you depict is fact or has a factual basis.  If it isn't, you shouldn't call it a documentary.