"Your Docuseries, Our Queen": Al-Dostour Poll Exposes Netflix's Lies

Cleopatra 

She is our queen. We know her inside out, and her history is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness since its inception. In an integral part of our minds, she is rubbing shoulders with the great pharaonic queens such as Hatshepsut, Nefertiti, Nefertari, Isis, and others who lived on Earth or in our imagination.

On the other side of the world, some do not know Cleopatra and are unaware that we know her like the back of our hand. Those people thought they would be elevating their value and publicity by producing a “documentary” series about the great queen, but they have just dug their own grave and suffered the consequences of their malicious deeds, and as the Egyptian proverb says, they’ve “gotten off on the wrong foot”.

The issue began with Jada Smith, wife of world-renowned actor Will Smith, producing a new documentary series for Netflix dubbed “Queen Cleopatra”. The married couple is both strong supporters and vocal proponent of "Afrocentrism", an approach to studying world history that aims to highlight the role of black Africans and attribute the ancient Pharaonic civilization to black-skinned Africans. Hence, in their view, Cleopatra must be “black”.

Producers of the Blackwashed Cleopatra documentary series, along with the streaming platform, have been influenced by the participating guests and scholars’ viewpoints. The docuseries' trailer features claims that Cleopatra was black, with one historian asserting that she had “curly hair”, and another saying: “I remember my grandmother saying to me: I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black”. Netflix believed the claims of the guest's grandmother, while it disbelieved and denied all history books, common sense and logic, insisting that the role of the iconic Egyptian queen should go to black actress Adele James, and as such, the forgery campaign has begun.

“Al-Dostour” conducted a quick survey exploring the general public’s view of the new Netflix series about Queen Cleopatra, in hopes that its results send a message that Egyptians are aware of the malicious aims the streaming platform is trying to achieve behind the screen. Such awareness has prompted Netflix to change the film’s description/classification from “documentary” to “docudrama”, but this is not enough. If you want to deal with or address the civilization and history of our ancient Egypt in any of your artwork pieces in the future, you can do so on condition, which can be summarized in the following points:

• We know and understand our history well, so don't try to tamper with it.
• We are not racists; some of our rulers are/were dark-skinned, and many of our stars and high-profile figures in various fields are/were black. But, we are against forgery and falsification of history.
• How can we believe any information or facts featured in a series whose preview constitutes a forgery by depicting the Egyptian ruler Cleopatra as Black?
• We subscribed to your platform when we deem it a portal for artwork, but we've left it when it has begun to speak lies.
• If you want to deal with our history, we have many actors and actresses who can help you enhance the quality of your production. The documentary that will be produced by the newly-launched channel "Al-Watha'eqeya" (The Documentary), will be a good example here.
• We have the tools and vision to represent our history, and will soon respond to your series in practical terms via the "Al-Watha'eqeya" channel.
• We appreciate your efforts and your massive production capabilities, but we will not watch your series.
• The above-mentioned is not just a platitude, but rather messages conveyed by a sample of the Egyptian public who responded to al-Dostour's poll, whose detailed results are outlined below.