*An Egyptian lawyer is seeking to ban Netflix in the country because a Black actress portrays Cleopatra in “African Queens: Queen Cleopatra,” a documentary set to debut on the platform in May.
Egyptian lawyer Mahmoud Al-Sedary claims the show violates media laws in Egypt, so he has filed a complaint with the public prosecutor, Insider reports. In the film, UK actress Adele James, who is dark-skinned, portrays the historic queen — and the Egyptians will not stand for this. British actress Elizabeth Taylor famously played Cleopatra in 1963.
Al-Sedary said Netflix “promotes Afrocentric thinking … which includes slogans and writings aimed at distorting and erasing the Egyptian identity,” the BBC reports.
Cleopatra, according to Zahi Hawass, was light-skinned because of her Greek origins.
READ MORE: Kevin Hart’s Egypt Show Cancelled After Protest Over His ‘Afrocentric’ Views
“Netflix is trying to provoke confusion by spreading false and deceptive facts that the origin of the Egyptian civilization is Black,” he said, per the BBC’s translation.
Per Insider, Egyptologist and archaeologist Dr. Wojciech Ejsmond told the outlet that “there is a general consensus amongst scholars that [she] was not Black.”
He added, “Her father was a Ptolemaic king and the family came from Macedonia — so they were something like Greeks,” Ejsmond said.
The upcoming 4-part Cleopatra documentary is produced by Jada Pinket Smith. As SandraRose.com reports, Netflix has turned off the comments on the official trailer — watch it via the YouTube clip above.
Per SandraRose.com, conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro made a podcast about the biopic. “The rule in Hollywood nowadays is that any character can be played by a Black person, but no Black character can ever be played by anyone else,” Shapiro said.
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