Cleopatra

[pc-guy]

Wonder if the Egyptian government sued these young ladies?

the name Cleopatra isnt a trade mark or protected name resevred for Egypt. However Cleopatra the last pharaoh is part of their history/culture and probably form large part of their cultural identity and drives their tourism.

If someone portayed Henry VIII as an obeste black male and pretended this is historically accurate, i think pretty much everyone would have agreed it is wrong.

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

Can you please rephrase? I’m not following what you are saying here. Specifically:

‘Both characters’ - which two characters?

‘One representation overshadows another’ - sorry, I simply don’t follow.

Happy to address this but I don’t quite get what you are asking. Thanks.

So in your quoted post you state

What I have said is that under represented persons in leading roles are (to a degree) more entitled to be protective of their existing representation. This applies equally and to all groups (not just races).

Why do they (under represented people) need to be protective of their existing representation? Is there some sort of harm or damage that occurs when a character (books/films/games etc..) is race swapped that necessitates the need to be protective?
I infer from your statement that some sort of harm or damage occurs (with regards to representation/public perception) when a race swap occurs, hence the need for under represented groups to be protective.


Which leads to my next point, the part you wanted me to rephrase.

Lets say we have a hollywood character that for the sake of this discussion is black and they are race swapped to be white.

Do these race swapped characters (The black and white version) stand side by side as equals with regards to public perception/representation?

If the answer is yes they do stand side by side, then what are people being protective about? The representation/public perception of the original black character hasn't been diminished.

If the answer is no that tells me that the original character has been overshadowed (or vice versa) by their race swapped counterpart which has had a negative affect on public perception/representation of the black character (or vice versa).

 

[Nitefly]

Why do they (under represented people) need to be protective of their existing representation?

They do not ‘need to be’. I am merely conscious that such persons may be more inclined to be ‘relatively more protective of their existing representation’, so they are not under-represented even further.

If such persons actually were more protective, then I would not dismiss this as being unreasonable.

Is there some sort of harm or damage that occurs when a character (books/films/games etc..) is race swapped that necessitates the need to be protective?

See my comment here:

The best actor or actress should get the role. They are acting. I am completely unbothered by race swapping conceptually and I think there is no reason to limit casting to a particular race. This goes all ways and extends beyond race.

That should answer your question but to make it expressly clear, I am largely unbothered by ‘race swapping’ conceptually. I do not think that there is inherently some sort of ‘harm or damage that is done’ when ‘race swapping’ has occurred. That is my rule of thumb.

There are, as I went on to say, two collateral points (which may be exceptions to that rule of thumb):

- It may be ‘harmful’ to the presentation of historical events to ‘race swap’ when the race of a historical character was integral to their story. The examples I gave were Martin Luther King (a black man) and Earl Warren (a white man). Both acted in times of very serious racial tension and their own race was integral to the importance of their actions. So this goes against the rule of thumb.

- Aside from ‘race swapping’, there is an issue of representation and diversity in the media. In all walks of life, those who are already underrepresented will understandably want to improve their representation and will definitely not want to lose what little representation they have. It is therefore understandable that persons from such groups are, to a limited degree, entitled to use their existing lack of representation to say “I would really rather you did not race swap this character as it will diminish our representation.”

This idea extends beyond race. Imagine a work social committee which had 10 members and 9 were female, just one was male. The work force is a 50:50 split. If the single male member was leaving the company and someone else was being appointed, then it’s understandable that some from the male workforce might say: “hey - I’d really rather a male member was appointed so that our representation doesn’t diminish.” <- this is not an unreasonable thing to say.

Lets say we have a hollywood character that for the sake of this discussion is black and they are race swapped to be white.

Do these race swapped characters (The black and white version) stand side by side as equals with regards to public perception/representation?

If the answer is yes they do stand side by side, then what are people being protective about? The representation/public perception of the original black character hasn't been diminished.

If the answer is no that tells me that the original character has been overshadowed (or vice versa) by their race swapped counterpart which has had a negative affect on public perception/representation of the black character (or vice versa).

I must admit, I’m still not sure what you are getting at with this, but perhaps my statements above have clarified my thoughts on this topic for you?

Both versions of that character (white / black) can stand on their own merits and be successful interpretations of that character. There is nothing bad with the ‘race swapping’ itself, inherently.

However, if this was a leading character, and there were very few leading black characters in that show that were present (and indeed the media landscape), and overall that swap caused a reduction in the already under-represented number of black persons in leading roles, then I can foresee some people saying: “hey - we are now even more underrepresented, this is a shame” and I think it would be understandable for some people to resent this change for that reason.

 

[Junglist]

At which point do you just result to banging your head against the wall? You've explained your position, articulately, several times over. At some point you just have to accept those who don't understand what you're trying to say don't want to understand your position

 

[Nitefly]

At which point do you just result to banging your head against the wall? You've explained your position, articulately, several times over. At some point you just have to accept those who don't understand what you're trying to say don't want to understand your position

Yes - I did contemplate adding a comment along the lines of “… I will now leave it there” but I didn’t want to come across as curt / dismissive.

I have now truly exhausted my position and my lengthy and repetitive posts are also choking the thread… so I will indeed now ‘leave it there’. Apologies to all for my own participation in perpetuating the same conversation!

 

[VincentHanna]

What they really want to hear is:

"I am racist against whites (despite being white) and want black people to "tuk er jerbs!"

 

[Chuk_Chuk]

That should answer your question but to make it expressly clear, I am largely unbothered by ‘race swapping’ conceptually. I do not think that there is inherently some sort of ‘harm or damage that is done’ when ‘race swapping’ has occurred. That is my rule of thumb.

those who are already underrepresented will understandably want to improve their representation and will definitely not want to lose what little representation they have

Just to confirm, you do not believe that race swapping causes any damage but understand others may feel differently? Am I understanding this correctly?

- It may be ‘harmful’ to the presentation of historical events to ‘race swap’ when the race of a historical character was integral to their story. The examples I gave were Martin Luther King (a black man) and Earl Warren (a white man). Both acted in times of very serious racial tension and it their own race was integral to the importance of their actions. So this goes against the rule of thumb.

I don't understand how you have reached this viewpoint for historical events. If someone made a film about feudal Japan is it okay for the Emperor to be White? Should Napolean Bonaparte be played by a black man? Maybe a story on the wright brothers should have two Indian brothers? It might as well be a fantasy story then, in which case yes do what you want.

- there is an issue of representation and diversity in the media.

Based on your previous post, I'm assuming you don't believe there is an Issue and that you are talking about what other people think? Because it seems to me that the Skin colour of characters is mostly irrelevant in your eyes.

This idea extends beyond race. Imagine a work social committee which had 10 members and 9 were female, just one was male. The work force is a 50:50 split. If the single male member was leaving the company and someone else was being appointed, then it’s understandable that some from the male workforce might say: “hey - I’d really rather a male member was appointed so that our representation doesn’t diminish.” <- this is not an unreasonable thing to say.

Side note: This is a bad example because in your own words it is not a zero sum game in the world of film.

Both versions of that character (white / black) can stand on their own merits and be successful interpretations of that character.

However, if this was a leading character, and there were very few leading black characters in that show that were present (and indeed the media landscape), and overall that swap caused a reduction in the already under-represented number of black persons in leading roles, then I can foresee some people saying: “hey - we are now even more underrepresented, this is a shame” and I think it would be understandable for some people to resent this change for that reason.

So this fictional persons viewpoint you are describing in this post (because from what I gather you do not agree with this viewpoint). Do they believe that both characters can stand on their own merit?
Because if both characters can truly stand on their own merit there is no reduction in representation. There is now an extra role for white people to play but that doesn't take away the role that exists for black people as that character stands on their own merit.

 

[Darujhistan]

What they really want to hear is:

"I am racist against whites (despite being white) and want black people to "tuk er jerbs!"

You laugh but amazon put that very scene in ROP, without a trace of irony...

 

[ianh]

Yes - I did contemplate adding a comment along the lines of “… I will now leave it there” but I didn’t want to come across as curt / dismissive.

I have now truly exhausted my position and my lengthy and repetitive posts are also choking the thread… so I will indeed now ‘leave it there’. Apologies to all for my own participation in perpetuating the same conversation!

I think your statements have come across very differently to how you've intended them to, hence the large amount of repetitive explanations you have continually had to go through. In a thread where the "correctness" of allowing historical figures to have their race swapped is the specific talking point, when you make a statement like ".......under-represented minorities are more entitled to......" people will automatically assume you are talking about race of the actor (the entire subject of the discussion) being whats makes them a minority (which it does in this case), as you didn't clarify that you meant "minorities" in the much larger sense of the word - i.e. anything which makes a person a minority, not just the single subject of this discussion - and that led to lots of " one race can, one race can't" confusion when you didn't actually mean "race" specifically as the characteristic of a minority.

However, now I think I understand your post more, I still disagree with your basic premise that one group should be "more entitled to....." anything, because saying one group is "more entitled to" something than another group, just because of their status as a minority (irrespective of what characteristic makes them a minority), is still discrimination to me when I think we should be aiming to treat everyone equally, irrespective of their status.

However, thats just my opinion.

 

[C Kent]

The thing with any historical underrepresentation in movies and /or tv shows is that audiences are going to want to relate to what they see on screen (often alluded to with any race swap of a white character to a 'minority' by folks here) but considering the ethnic makeup of the west has been 80-90% white then of course execs are going to sell their film and maximize potential profit by catering to the larger demographic. Now I'm not saying a good 50/60/70 years ago there weren't any racial reasons also at play but fundamentally it was all about the £££ - which is why you had the rise of the blaxploitation movies which catered to black audiences, featuring predominantly black actors in all roles (well apart from the occasional bad guy that was white ).

Regardless of any perceived historical 'injustice' in screen media, the solution isn't overrepresentation which is the current accepted course by some people. As ianh says above, implementing discriminatory policies to achieve quotas that aren't representative of the real world is no better than any racial reasons for the underrepresentation of the past.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

I kind of get the Bridgerton England thing, pseudo fantasy period drama with modern rather than historically accurate diversity. People of all ethnicities might want to see themselves represented in stories in that setting. Enola Holmes is another one in that kind of setting.

Cleopatra apprently sells itself as a docu drama and can reasonably be expected to be more historically accurate and it fails on this point. The makers problem is they chose a premise of African Queens for their series to highlight the on trend intersectional heroine and were happy to ride roughshod over historical accuracy, somewaht tolerable for out and out fiction not tolerable for supposed docu-drama. Their other problem is history is not littered with well known sub-Saharan African Queens on which to base a series so they stole the best known African Queen it's just she was Greek or Arab in heritage.

Its tied up with US black politics theres another view that Nefertiti was black as well (she wasn't, theres a bust of her that survives) but its part of a movement to add relevence to black history that major players in history were black even though they ostensibly weren't. Apparently the modern Egyptians are none too happy with this adapatation either they feel it misrepresents their history

 

[Bigpig]

Americans are thick enough to believe she was black.

That’s the whole point in the documentary.

No point of having page after page of arguments.

 

[SpellowHouse]

Its tied up with US black politics theres another view that Nefertiti was black as well (she wasn't, theres a bust of her that survives) but its part of a movement to add relevence to black history that major players in history were black even though they ostensibly weren't. Apparently the modern Egyptians are none too happy with this adapatation either they feel it misrepresents their history

It's like much of history. There are pointers but no actual documentation. It doesn't explicitly state anywhere that Cleopatra was not black, but there are a ton of indicators that she was not.

The idiot that started all of this was a guy called Hilke Thür. He concluded that a skeleton found in 1926 was Cleopatra's sister and was part African. Both assumptions are based on very poor evidence. There were no markings on the tomb where the body was found, the age was not consistent with Cleopatra's sister, and the only evidence she was mixed race was based on measurements of a now missing skull. DNA is impossible because the skeleton is too contaminated. Even if she was mixed race, this does not mean that Cleopatra was.

To counter this, there is a wealth of information to suggest she was not mixed race.

By all accounts, HBO got it spot on in their series Rome....

 

[Gray2233]

I can't wait to settle down for my next Korean or Chinese historic dramas where the lead roles are white.

Actually I can wait, I'd not waste my time.

Cleopatra was the descendant of a heavily inbred ptolemaic dynasty. She was Greek, the chances of her looking like a black African woman are next to zero. I haven't read this entire thread and don't intend to, but I will comment on the fact that the show very much claims that she was a particular flavour of African and it riled up an entire country enough to seek legal action.

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

But my old gran said she was definitely black. And that's far more accurate than any real history ever could be.

 

[aardvark]

Cleopatra's sister and was part African

there's also the conception that for stupid americans African = black, which is not true at all.
Cleopatra was an 'african queen' as she was born in Egypt, but some people seem to think thats the same as 'black' despite there being no evidence.

 

[Nitefly]

@Chuk_Chuk thanks for revisiting and engaging with my posts. As mentioned above I have rehearsed my position on this a number of times in the thread so I won't dive into your comments in great detail, but I will say that when it comes to deciding whether somebody's race is 'significant' or 'incidental' to their 'story/character', it obviously depends on a huge amount of wider context. With that said, having a browse of someone's wikipedia entry and seeing the extent that their race is mentioned might be a good indicator. If race is not mentioned, or is barely mentioned, then that suggests (although does not 'confirm') that said persons race is more 'incidental' than 'significant'.

*snip*

However, now I think I understand your post more, I still disagree with your basic premise that one group should be "more entitled to....." anything, because saying one group is "more entitled to" something than another group, just because of their status as a minority (irrespective of what characteristic makes them a minority), is still discrimination to me when I think we should be aiming to treat everyone equally, irrespective of their status.

However, thats just my opinion.

@ianh likewise, thanks for revisiting and engaging with my posts. I acknowledge could perhaps have framed the point that I originally made in a better way.

What you've said here (the bit in the quote) is interesting and I do want to address it - sorry @Junglist and others

To my mind, I think it is instead generally much better to apply a rule of "every person should be treated the same if they are in the same situation." This is blind to incidental matters, retains fairness of outcome but captures the reality that different people have different circumstances.

For example, you would expect that out of those attending A&E, all people with truly immediately life threatening conditions are prioritised in the queue, rather than everyone having to wait 'first come first served'.

With that in mind and referring back to the language of your post, I am not suggesting that people should be treated differently "just because of their status as a minority". What is material is that some groups are underrepresented. This does not entitle 'positive discrimination' and I would agree that positive discrimination is often clumsy and, as you say, discrimination. But on the other hand I do think it's fair for underrepresented people to speak out that they are underrepresented and it should be understandable (to people that are generally 'well represented' i.e. me, a white male) as to why the underrepresented might be more sensitive on these issues.

As for how to 'fix' underrepresentation, I don't have answers/suggestions, but I think everyone will agree that it should ideally be addressed organically over time and without 'positive discrimination'. This would require true equality of opportunity.

I'll close off by saying that I have not once in this thread defended Netflix's Cleopatra show. The emphasis (in its promotion) on Cleopatra's racial identity seems a little clumsy. At the same time, I have no issue with a black / mixed-race person representing Cleopatra in this docu-drama. In this promotional trailer, all is well from my perspective - no negative comments from me - until the part starting around 1:20 contemplating her race end and ending with "my grandmother said that Cleopatra was black" (or something along these lines). Why is this given such emphasis in the trailer? I do get that people identify with and aspire to historical figures - this is fine and an interesting topic in itself - but this tone of this emphasis (bang up front in the promotional material) does, perhaps unintentionally, have a whiff of modern day identity politics and I'm not surprised that it has provoked a negative reaction.

 

[ianh]

With that in mind and referring back to the language of your post, I am not suggesting that people should be treated differently "just because of their status as a minority". What is material is that some groups are underrepresented. This does not entitle 'positive discrimination' and I would agree that positive discrimination is often clumsy and, as you say, discrimination.

Thanks for the clarification there, I agree with you on this point.

But on the other hand I do think it's fair for underrepresented people to speak out that they are underrepresented and it should be understandable (to people that are generally 'well represented' i.e. me, a white male) as to why the underrepresented might be more sensitive on these issues.

I absolutely agree here too, I think that no-one should be denied the right to speak out based on some immutable characteristic and I would encourage anyone under-represented to make people aware of this when they feel left out. Unfortunately, giving everyone a voice generally tends to mean we're going to hear the "bad" out there (and there always is some) as well as the "good", so I think its up to us to help amplify the "good" and conversely let the "bad" die away due to the lack of attention it craves.

As for how to 'fix' underrepresentation, I don't have answers/suggestions, but I think everyone will agree that it should ideally be addressed organically over time and without 'positive discrimination'. This would require true equality of opportunity.

Again, 100% agree here. I think "we" don't cope well with abrupt changes, whilst I think generational change which ends up in the same place eventually, but causes less "upheaval" (maybe a poor choice of words) getting there, has a far more stable end result.

As an aside, now I've got a much better understanding of the point your are making, I'd just like to apologise for my earlier post where I thought you were saying something which I thought was racist, which I can now see is not accurate at all.

 

[Nitefly]

@ianh no worries and thanks for taking the time to engage

 

[Darujhistan]