Current Events > White supremacy is da cause for Cleopatra's terrible audience score

(+) Yeah! (+)

BurmesePenguin posted...

Cleopatra also wasn't of Egyptian stock.

No (though some things point to her grandma maybe being Egyptian). The point is the constant inaccurate portrayal of our culture for decades. We are fed up with it. Every other culture has gotten support when theyve spoke up against this but Egypt remains a playground for Hollywood and were told were the racist ones if we say anything about it.

Also my family is Copt. A culture that started maybe 100 years or so after the reign of Cleopatra. We are the closest thing to Ancient Egyptians. Our language is very similar to Greek. Most of us look Mediterranean/light skinned. We look similar to Lebanese, Jordanian, Palestinians, Israelis, etc. DNA done on mummies also point to a genetic makeup similar to those countries.

lolife67 posted...

See this is the odd thing to me and another issue. You say "Middle Easterners" and not "Africans." Why do Egyptians want to separate themselves from Africa?

Middle East isn't a continent.

lolife67 posted...

We aren't talking cultural influences, though. We're talking location.

And wildly failing at basic geography. Look up Sinai.

And I'd say that separating themselves from Africa is definitely tied to white supremacy/colonisation mindsets, i.e. anti-blackness.

Equating the entire continent of Africa to blackness is oversimplifying the histories and ethnic makeup of these countries. You're doing exactly what I was describing.

ArtiRock posted...

What kind of crazy bullshit are you on?

Egypt doesn't "bleed into" the Middle-East, it's in the Middle-East.
Egypt is also on the continents of Africa AND Asia.It's all of those things.

Giving someone shit for saying Egypt is in the Middle East shows your ignorance.

Hornezz posted...

And wildly failing at basic geography. Look up Sinai.

Um, I did which is why I asked the question. You think that sparsely populated peninsula makes up the bulk of Egypt? Lol talk about failing.

Hornezz posted...

Equating the entire continent of Africa to blackness is oversimplifying the histories and ethnic makeup of these countries. You're doing exactly what I was describing

I'm not but it is what a lot of Egyptians do, which is why they tend to refer to themselves as Middle Eastern, as opposed to Africans. That's actually what started this discussion, btw.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Middle East isn't a continent.

I'm aware, which doesn't answer my question.

lolife67 posted...

Um, I did which is why I asked the question. You think that sparsely populated peninsula makes up the bulk of Egypt? Lol talk about failing.

BurmesePenguin posted: Egypt is a transcontinental country. Part of it is in Asia.
You posted: Not according to actual maps.

Nobody said anything about population numbers.

Pikachuchupika posted...

Imagine her wearing the Cleopatra garb. Hot damn

The 2001 docudrama The Mummy was an important life affirming awakening for me.

lolife67 posted...

I'm aware, which doesn't answer my question.

Why does saying you are part of (thing which isn't a continent) mean you're trying to distance yourself from (a continent)?

If the Greek say they are Mediterranean literally nobody on the planet would interpret that as "trying to distance themselves from Europe"

Hornezz posted...

Egypt doesn't "bleed into" the Middle-East, it's in the Middle-East.
Egypt is also on the continents of Africa AND Asia.It's all of those things.

Giving someone s*** for saying Egypt is in the Middle East shows your ignorance.

No. It does in fact. Portions of it are into the middle East. But it's mostly in Africa. That's not even discussable. That's what I'm talking about. The phrase "bleeds into" means that part of it goes into Asia.

I have no idea what you're even talking about here. It just sounds like you want to throw insults but can't think of one.

ArtiRock posted...

No. It does in fact. Portions of it are into the middle East. But it's mostly in Africa.

Please tell me you're trolling.

ArtiRock posted...

I have no idea what you're even talking about here.

It shows.

What a weird hang up. Egyptians are both North African and Middle Eastern. We (and other Arab Americans) have been asking for a MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) option on the US census for years. Nothing wrong with identifying with either one.

Hornezz posted...

Please tell me you're trolling.

Most people will say that Egypt is part of the Middle East, but that doesn't mean all of it is. Don't know how that constitutes trolling. Hence why it's such a commonly asked question if Egypt is actually considered Middle Eastern.

Hornezz posted...

It shows.

That still doesn't make sense.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Why does saying you are part of (thing which isn't a continent) mean you're trying to distance yourself from (a continent)?

If the Greek say they are Mediterranean literally nobody on the planet would interpret that as "trying to distance themselves from Europe"

What portion of Greece is in the Mediterranean? Because Sinai only makes up about 6% of Egypt.

ArtiRock posted...

No. It does in fact. Portions of it are into the middle East. But it's mostly in Africa.

Didn't someone already tell you that the middle-east isn't a continent?

Also I use middle eastern here because thats how most Americans identify us, which is the makeup of this board. In my private circle we often refer ourselves as African as well. We talk about our love of Africa. We watch the African Cup of Nations where Egypt plays. Some of my family will put African American on the census because they dont identify as White. Two of cousins here married black men and we welcomed them with open arms. We had an Egyptian-Nigerian wedding that was fun as shit.

Its a gaming forum, some people are putting way too much thought into dumb shit.

deoxxys posted...

I imagine that's because not everybody knows about armaments historical accuracy but even your average Joe knows the Romans weren't black.

Which shows that the problem people have isn't about historical accuracy but because people with dark skin are portrayed in what is perceived as a white space since everything else be damned except one single element. And that's not even commenting on the whole Romans weren't black when identities in the ancient world were a lot more fluid than modern ones. Culture, customs, language shared a much more important role in determining identities than physical appearance, i.e. skin color. Even something as simple as the way you drank your wine was a way of determining identity. For example the people of Western Greece weren't considered to be Hellenes but "barbarians" by writers like Thukydides because of practices like carrying weapons in public space which was a big no-no to the Greeks, but down the line Strabo describes these people as Greeks. We see in documents people changing their name depending on the context so people could move within certain Identies depending on the context. Kleopatra VII, for example, could be Macedonian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc depending on the context because identities in the past were a lot more fluid and less rigid and not based off physical appearance or solely parental lineage. To quote Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy:

I should probably start with my standard statement on the misapplication of modern racial and ethnic identities to the ancient world and this answers part of the next question as well. To ask whether someone was black or white or Black or White is anachronistic and says more about modern political investments than attempting to understand antiquity on its own terms. As I wrote on the Society of Classical Studies facebook page: I am getting at the issue of lineage and descent as the thing that makes one Egyptian or Greek or Roman. We know that one could be any of these things in antiquity by adoption, citizenship, descent, or cultural practice. We know that some people who called themselves Greeks did not think people of Macedonian descent (Ptolemies!) were Greek. We know the Ptolemies intermarried at least twice with Syrian-Macedonian-Greek families. We know Romans defined themselves through citizenship and Cleopatra may have gained it. We know Egyptians accepted her as pharaoh and considered her Egyptian. Our modern ethno-national or bioracial ideas did not define identity in antiquity, so how is it anything but modern ideology or anachronism to limit ancient identities to our specific model of parental birth?

People that we might perceive as black were also present in antiquity. They are depicted in both art and literature. From Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals book 1 part 18:

Further, children are like their more remote ancestors from whom nothing has come, for the resemblances recur at an interval of many generations, as in the case of the woman in Elis who had intercourse with the Aethiop; her daughter was not an Aethiop but the son of that daughter was.

Elis is located in Greece and there's another where he mentions this in Sicily but I can't recall where. Point is the Eastern Mediterranean was very connected, people moved all over the place and this also includes individuals with black skin. Nothing would've barred these people from being Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, etc because our conceptualization of identities being tied to skin color wasn't a thing for the ancients. A man with black skin who spoke Greek, drank his wine the Greek way and didn't carry weapons in public was more of a Hellene than someone with white skin who carried weapons in public and drank unmixed wine.

So in reality this whole issues is rooted in white supremacist anti-black views, not historical accuracy which is used a vehicle to spread these views. It happened with the BBC cartoon, it happened with the show Troy casting black actors, and while Netflix stirred shit up the massive backlash is in part undeniably fueled by racism, and as shown even video games taking place in the past have this happen even when they're not strictly historical, even if they want to present themselves with an air of authenticity, because they portray black people despite the glaring historical inaccuracies.

For further reading I recommend:
https://isisnaucratis.medium.com/cleopatra-vii-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-f749b66c552c

lolife67 posted...

What portion of Greece is in the Mediterranean? Because Sinai only makes up about 6% of Egypt.

I think the problem that's happening here is people aren't understanding what's wrong here.

Person A: You can't have a black woman be Cleo.
Person B: Why? She's a ruler of Egypt and a lot of it was from Africa.
Person A: Because she descended from Macedonians.
Person B: But we don't know what her mother's heritage was, so maybe it was Egyptian.
Person A: Even if that's true, she shouldn't be black, because Egyptians are middle Eastern.

That's why people are hung up on this so much and giving "???" Responses. Because what's happening is that somehow there's a weird implication that a person with "black" (you know African) can't be Cleo because she's not African (when there's a possibility she could be mixed anyways). I can understand "I want a Macedonian to play her" or "I want Egyptians to play her." Both of those make sense. If you're going for a documentary, you should try to get people that are of the same culture / geographical area. Mentioning that a person of generalized African descent cannot play her for race reasons is stupid because Egyptians inhabit the continent of Africa. Even worse is that the actress was of mixed descent (possibly like Cleo anyway), but the focus isn't on the lack true geographical representation. But because she's "black."

BurmesePenguin posted...

Didn't someone already tell you that the middle-east isn't a continent?

That doesn't change anything that I said. Why are you guys so hung up on the fact that someone would think it's a continent? Throwing bullshit to stick isn't an argument.

But you made up the last line of Person A for the sole purpose of starting this argument.

BurmesePenguin posted...

But you made up the last line of Person A for the sole purpose of starting this argument.

No. I didn't. That's the issue. Because people are upset that she's "black." Which doesn't make any damn sense when the actor is mixed heritage for starters, and people act like Cleo just can't be "black."

What you made up is that I thought the Middle East was a continent. Again, that's like accusing someone of saying that they think Latin America is a continent.

HannibalBarca3 posted...

Which shows that the problem people have isn't about historical accuracy but because people with dark skin are portrayed in what is perceived as a white space since everything else be damned except one single element. And that's not even commenting on the whole Romans weren't black when identities in the ancient world were a lot more fluid than modern ones. Culture, customs, language shared a much more important role in determining identities than physical appearance, i.e. skin color. Even something as simple as the way you drank your wine was a way of determining identity. For example the people of Western Greece weren't considered to be Hellenes but "barbarians" by writers like Thukydides because of practices like carrying weapons in public space which was a big no-no to the Greeks, but down the line Strabo describes these people as Greeks. We see in documents people changing their name depending on the context so people could move within certain Identies depending on the context. Kleopatra VII, for example, could be Macedonian, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc depending on the context because identities in the past were a lot more fluid and less rigid and not based off physical appearance or solely parental lineage. To quote Dr. Rebecca Futo Kennedy:

People that we might perceive as black were also present in antiquity. They are depicted in both art and literature. From Aristotle's On the Generation of Animals book 1 part 18:

Elis is located in Greece and there's another where he mentions this in Sicily but I can't recall where. Point is the Eastern Mediterranean was very connected, people moved all over the place and this also includes individuals with black skin. Nothing would've barred these people from being Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, etc because our conceptualization of identities being tied to skin color wasn't a thing for the ancients. A man with black skin who spoke Greek, drank his wine the Greek way and didn't carry weapons in public was more of a Hellene than someone with white skin who carried weapons in public and drank unmixed wine.

So in reality this whole issues is rooted in white supremacist anti-black views, not historical accuracy which is used a vehicle to spread these views. It happened with the BBC cartoon, it happened with the show Troy casting black actors, and while Netflix stirred shit up the massive backlash is in part undeniably fueled by racism, and as shown even video games taking place in the past have this happen even when they're not strictly historical, even if they want to present themselves with an air of authenticity, because they portray black people despite the glaring historical inaccuracies.

For further reading I recommend:
https://isisnaucratis.medium.com/cleopatra-vii-the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-f749b66c552c

Well posted.

ArtiRock posted...

I think the problem that's happening here is people aren't understanding what's wrong here.

Person A: You can't have a black woman be Cleo.
Person B: Why? She's a ruler of Egypt and a lot of it was from Africa.
Person A: Because she descended from Macedonians.
Person B: But we don't know what her mother's heritage was, so maybe it was Egyptian.
Person A: Even if that's true, she shouldn't be black, because Egyptians are middle Eastern.

That's why people are hung up on this so much and giving "???" Responses. Because what's happening is that somehow there's a weird implication that a person with "black" (you know African) can't be Cleo because she's not African (when there's a possibility she could be mixed anyways). I can understand "I want a Macedonian to play her" or "I want Egyptians to play her." Both of those make sense. If you're going for a documentary, you should try to get people that are of the same culture / geographical area. Mentioning that a person of generalized African descent cannot play her for race reasons is stupid because Egyptians inhabit the continent of Africa. Even worse is that the actress was of mixed descent (possibly like Cleo anyway), but the focus isn't on the lack true geographical representation. But because she's "black."

Exactly!

Goddam White Supremacy at it again, he can't keep getting away with it!

At least someone was able to get a picture of him this time
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/8/0/AAP4uWAAEfOg.jpg

ArtiRock posted...

That doesn't change anything that I said. Why are you guys so hung up on the fact that someone would think it's a continent? Throwing bullshit to stick isn't an argument.

The middle east, not being a continent, overlaps with other continents, because that's a thing not-continents can do. One of those continents it overlaps with is Africa. Whether you call the people in Egypt today African or Middle Eastern they are both correct. Saying one does not imply a disassociation from the other.

ArtiRock posted...

That's a bad counterpoint. Because the whole reason MLK even had to do anything was because it was a civil rights movement fight. It's entirely about race.

And once again, I reiterate that the actress was MIXED heritage. This key point just keeps getting missed and sidestepped.

Mixed heritage but she wasn't black lol. Like if the entire country of Egypt think it's wrong and incorrectly portrays their history, then I have to trust their point of view over your terrible hot takes.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The middle east, not being a continent, overlaps with other continents, because that's a thing not-continents can do. One of those continents it overlaps with is Africa. Whether you call the people in Egypt today African or Middle Eastern they are both correct. Saying one does not imply a disassociation from the other.

Yeah, except you're still missing the point. Texas, in the US, has a lot of people that are Latin. They speak Spanish primarily but live in the US. Texas bleeds into Latin America pretty easily from a cultural perspective. That does not mean that Texas as a whole is Latin American, much less the entirety of the US. The disassociation is the usage of Yo_D_oY. "She's not black." Which misses the point that Africans they are a different flavor of tanned, Egyptians are no exception. Because people often use "African" and "Black" interchangeably. She's mixed. Period.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AACpnzAAEfOw.jpg

Cleo_II posted...

Also I use middle eastern here because thats how most Americans identify us, which is the makeup of this board. In my private circle we often refer ourselves as African as well. We talk about our love of Africa. We watch the African Cup of Nations where Egypt plays. Some of my family will put African American on the census because they dont identify as White. Two of cousins here married black men and we welcomed them with open arms. We had an Egyptian-Nigerian wedding that was fun as shit.

Its a gaming forum, some people are putting way too much thought into dumb shit.

Notice how everything you've been saying has been getting completely ignored the entire time. Checks out.

People (Americans) will desperately try to claim racism or white supremacy even when multiple entire countries literally say the show is simply wrong. But as Americans, it sure is easy to fallback on America being right, as usual.

ArtiRock posted...

Right, that's how you can tell it's a racial component to it. If you're from the continent from Africa, you are African. Period. It doesn't matter if it falls in the "middle East." It's still African. Egyptians are still African.

People from North America are North Americans, not Americans.

VFalcone posted...

Notice how everything you've been saying has been getting completely ignored the entire time. Checks out.

People (Americans) will desperately try to claim racism or white supremacy even when multiple entire countries literally say the show is simply wrong. But as Americans, it sure is easy to fallback on America being right, as usual.

It's because people like to cry racism for anything.

Cleopatra was Greek, it's very hard to imagine that she had any sub-Saharan African ancestry given history: hundreds of years prior Esarhaddon pushed the Ethiopians out of Egypt, about 200 years later Cambyses pushed the Ethiopians even further south and Egypt was never not ruled by Indo-Europeans until Cleopatra (and after)

What I am taking away from topic is that film producers control the narrative on history.

This is good news in a way. It means all those little kids in red states are still going to learn about slavery.

CobraGT posted...

What I am taking away from topic is that film producers control the narrative on history.

This is good news in a way. It means all those little kids in red states are still going to learn about slavery.

You know they don't hide slavery from us right? We always learn about the civil war and how slavery was bad. I think it's almost impossible in this day and age to be ignorant of slavery living in America.

My school also taught us lots about how badly Native Americans were treated and we even watched a series on it.

Plenty of the states in the Bible belt also beat you over the head with books and films about The Holocaust from middle school to highschool. Specifically Christian schools since Christians believe Jews were God's chosen people and see it as a parallel to martyrdom.

I have heard second hand that some schools teach the Northern Aggression instead of the Civil War.

VFalcone posted...

Notice how everything you've been saying has been getting completely ignored the entire time. Checks out.

This lmao, you have an actual Egyptian ITT with documented bloodlines going waaayyy back giving an excellent explanation filled with facts, but the muppets here are too busy bickering about flat out wrong opinions

BignutzisBack posted...

This lmao, you have an actual Egyptian ITT with documented bloodlines going waaayyy back giving an excellent explanation filled with facts, but the muppets here are too busy bickering about flat out wrong opinions

So if I can trace ancestry back to the American Revolution, then this means I am more qualified to talk about US history than

All those who cannot In particular peeps from other countries?

Cleopatra was Black, Jada Pinkett Smith did the right thing, dont care about how those "viewers" scored it. They went after Kevin Hart for telling Black kids to know their history as well, so f*** those triggered snowflakes. They can kick rocks. She was Black, end of story

CobraGT posted...

I have heard second hand that some schools teach the Northern Aggression instead of the Civil War.

Second hand? Sounds incredibly legit.

RCP3_04 posted...

Cleopatra was Black, Jada Pinkett Smith did the right thing, dont care about how those "viewers" scored it. They went after Kevin Hart for telling Black kids to know their history as well, so f*** those triggered snowflakes. They can kick rocks. She was Black, end of story

Lol.

Hornezz posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AACpnzAAEfOw.jpg

Why are these girls so mean?

RCP3_04 posted...

Cleopatra was Black, Jada Pinkett Smith did the right thing, dont care about how those "viewers" scored it. They went after Kevin Hart for telling Black kids to know their history as well, so f*** those triggered snowflakes. They can kick rocks. She was Black, end of story

Ok. Show your proof she was black

CobraGT posted...

So if I can trace ancestry back to the American Revolution, then this means I am more qualified to talk about US history than

If you are American and you actually know your American history, since you're American, and can even trace your ancestry back to the revolution then yes. You have every right to correct China if they try to say Paul Revere was Chinese.

Revelation34 posted...

Second hand? Sounds incredibly legit.

Lol.

The stuff you consider legit is third hand. 'M I rite?

CobraGT posted...

The stuff you consider legit is third hand. 'M I rite?

That doesn't exist. The only correct information is first hand.

Christian Bale played Moses ffs

Revelation34 posted...

That doesn't exist. The only correct information is first hand.

And first hand accounts exist. Yes? *lol*

CobraGT posted...

And first hand accounts exist. Yes? *lol*

If it's told to somebody else then it becomes second hand.