Netflix gave the Jada Pinkett Smith documentary the thumbs up, and now they are taking more than a beating.
The controversy started when it was learned that Adele James, a black actress, was cast in the lead role of the documentary about the last Egyptian Queen Cleopatra.
The Egyptian government was furious, and lawsuits were launched.
The creator of the series, Tina Gharvi, defended the casting choice:
“Why shouldn’t Cleopatra be a melanated sister? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white? Her proximity to whiteness seems to give her value, and for some Egyptians it seems to really matter. After much hand-wringing and countless auditions, we found in Adele James an actor who could convey not only Cleopatra’s beauty, but also her strength. What the historians can confirm is that it is more likely that Cleopatra looked like Adele than Elizabeth Taylor ever did.”
Elizabeth Taylor was cast as Cleopatra in 1963 when the world wasn’t so politically correct.
Now the documentary has hit a new record as the lowest-rated movie ever.
From the Dailywire:
The documentary currently has a 2% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which Forbes says is the lowest in history.
The “average Tomatometer,” which calculates how many critics rate it favorably, stands at 10%.
Here’s how bad that is: The worst film on the movie rating site, Ballistic: Ecks Vs Sever,” in 2002 has a 0% rating on the Tomatometer, but a 20% favorable rating by the audience. Another stinker, “One Missed Call” from 2008, also has a 0% Tomatometer but a 20% audience score. And the Nicholas Cage bomb, “Left Behind,” from 2014 got 0% from the critics but 22% from the audience.
A subsidiary of Egypt’s state-affiliated United Media Services has announced they will create a high-end doc about the true story of Queen Cleopatra, which will be based on the “utmost levels of research and accuracy.”
Historical experts in Egypt stated that if the movie was not labeled a documentary about Cleopatra, they wouldn’t have had an issue with it.
Accurate. (Great show btw!) https://t.co/C5OpKQr5V1
— Gavin Mario Wax 🇺🇸 🗽🍊 (@GavinWax) May 16, 2023
Now, the show has caused international fallout because the Egyptians take their history very seriously.
When Tina Gharavi, wrote her defense in an op-ed she did touch on one hot-button issue that goes back thousands of years to poke at the country.
“I have asked Egyptians to see themselves as Africans, and they are furious at me for that.”
That is fighting words and a controversy that goes back thousands of years.
