Posted on 06/18/2010 7:21:52 AM PDT by chesley
She hasn't even been officially confirmed as having the role, but Angelina Jolie is already receiving criticism over her possible portrayal of the legendary Queen of the Nile.
Jolie, who turned 35 last week, is caught up in a racially charged debate over whether the role should have been played by a black woman
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1287505/Race-row-erupts-casting-Angelina-Jolie-Cleopatra.html#ixzz0rDMI1hT4
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Racially charged? It's a freak'n MOVIE for God's sake.
Does this mean I can’t cast Denzel Washington as Hitler in my upcoming WWII epic?
She was a Macedonian Greek and was indeed white.
Macedonian, but no need to nit-pick, really.
ping
Race is a complete boondoggle. It means nothing. It's just a stick used to beat white people.
I think that, at that time, the Egyptian royal family claimed some descent from Alexander... what ever that means.
There was a lot of Greek influence in ancient Egypt, although it was not reflected in the art and sculpture.
You are correct
she was descended from one of Alexander the Greats heirs known as Ptolemny (sp?). Most of Alexandrai was actually of Greek descent.
Let the LIBERALS have their race wars.
I’ll sit back and eat my popcorn.
Hey, maybe Michele could play the role of the BLACK woman.
LOL!!!!
Let the LIBERALS have their race wars.
I’ll sit back and eat my popcorn.
Hey, maybe Michele could play the role of the BLACK woman.
LOL!!!!
Yes, she was a member of the Greek Ptolemy dynasty.
This is too funny.
Ptolemy wasn’t an heir to ATG, he was one of his generals.
Oh, NO!
BLACK people are all little angels.
A WHITE person must play the EVIL or STUPID role.
Yes. More Mediterranean though.
This seems to be a really stupid hang up with blacks in the U.S. whom were brought up with some myth that Egypt was inhabited with nothing but black-skinned people.
Reminder: Blacks in the U.S. are predominantly descended from WEST AFRICANS. Egyptians are not, nor have they ever been west Africans.
NOT GUILTY
Humm, was there a problem when Liz Taylor played Cleo?
“Wasn’t Cleopatra ethnically Greek, i.e., a white woman?”
What’s wrong with you? Why are you letting pesky facts get in the way of a good liberal rant?
“Egypt’s Alexandria-based rulers, including Cleopatra, were ethnically Greek, descended from Alexander the Great’s general Ptolemy I Soter.”
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/cleopatra.html#ixzz0rDO1UDop
I don’t recall there being much controversy over Elizabeth Taylor depicting Cleopatra back in the 1960’s. But I guess our racial consciousness hadn’t been sufficiently elevated at the time, as this was many years before Jesse Jackson and others succeeded in spreading white guilt across the liberal elites.
Hollywood cast a black man to play a Norse god in the new Thor movie. What’s the problem here?
Yep. A member of the Ptolmaic ruling family of Egypt, descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals.
Cleopatra was a Macedonian Greek.
It existed, but such race baiting black supremacists who said things like white people (white devils) were an African science experiment gone wrong were rightly ignored.
Over the next 25 years, they got departments at our universities to spread their hate in "sociology" courses.
Yes. Enough history hadn't been rewritten yet and some public schools still taught history.
“The Egyptians have never been black.’
Not true, the Eegyptians of Upper Egypt were from present day northern Ethiopia. There are many images from ancient Egypt that portray black Egyptians.
Mario Peebles said that the key thing to remember was that Jesus was a black man. I thought the key thing to remember was the Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins.
Maybe the Black community is mixing her up with Miss Cleo!
Didn’t you know that Macedonians were really West Africans in disguise?
That's a myth I'm perfectly willing to perpetuate up to the point that modern Jews demand reparations from blacks for their ancestor's bondage ;-)
Yes, she was descended from Alexander’s general Ptolomey, who was Macedonian.
“Racially charged? It’s a freak’n MOVIE for God’s sake.”
Don’t forget that Hollywood is Leftist, Liberal, Loony Land where academics is forbidden and affirmative action takes the fore in any decision making.
I see from the article that they are ‘no longer taking comments’.
I’ll bet there were some doozies.
OK, I'm a engineer, not a linguist or a historian, but my BS meter is very sensitive, and his "evidence" was extremely thin.
Probably true but I'd bet that the black population in America was just as peeved as with this new casting choice. The fact is that in the early sixties there were absolutely no nationwide (or powerful local) outlets for the collective black voice. I suspect that it is this restricted access to public media that is at the root of the perceived absence of discontent.
Man, what a bunch of racists.
Indeed, for reference there are several classical historians to consult. They chronicled Antony’s love affair with her, and uh, if she had been “nubian” (the term Romans used for black people of africa)it would have been noted. This is right up there with the “egyptian” period of hip hop. ridiculous.
Actually, the myth that all good things done in Egypt were done by people with black skin did not exist back then. I think it was the early 1970’s when blacks started saying that all important people in history were secretly negroes. Jesus was black. Socrates was black. Beethoven was black. It goes on and on. When Elizabeth Taylor starred in “Cleopatra” this sort of thinking had not yet been dreamed up.
This is one of those really strange situations where all the evidence says one thing yet there are serious people who think she was Black. If you do a search on the internet you will be surprised how prevalent the “Cleopatra was Black” theory is.
As near as I can tell, the proof they cite is that one of Cleopatra’s Grandparents is unknown so she must be Black. The fact that Egyptians were not Black and the Ptolomys tended to marry their own kin seem to not mean a thing.
Since there is something like a one in a million chance that she has a tiny amount of Black blood then she must be Black.
The world is going insane.
BTW, there is mention of her looks in ancient writings and none of them say she was Black. I am sure one person described her as having light brown hair.
“Ignorance used to be something people tried to hide, not put out there for everybody to see.”
But ignorance is the highest form of flattery!
Chesley, Hush, you are stating the historically accurate fact that is politically incorrect these days. PC demands that everyone believe that the Greek Egyptian queen was black.
Likewise, Hannibal would not have been black either, just because he was from Africa. He was from North Africa and was of Semitic descent. This does not stop present-day blacks from claiming that Hannibal and later, Cleopatra were black.
This reminds me of when American blacks went to Somalia and tried to get a “my black brother” thing going with the locals. Turns out the locals didn’t consider themselves black and didn’t like being called black.
“I see from the article that they are ‘no longer taking comments’. I’ll bet there were some doozies.”
There were! I’m surprised Essence kept the article up...they really took a shellacking.
“Yep, pure blooded descendant of Ptolemy, one of Alexander’s generals.”
Not true, for some reason they don’t know who Cleopatra’s mother was. She had a half sister whose mother was Ethiopian.
Cleopatra was a Ptolomy of Macedonian decent from the “Caucusues” and thus a Caucasian.
There are some scholars who say that Ptolemy was the illegitimate son of Philip II of Macedon through his concubine, Arsinoe. Macedonians regarded Ptolemy as Philip’s son. So Cleopatra, whose father was a Ptolemy descendant, was Macedonian/Greek and definitely not black.
The problem is people saw Cleopatra and none of them described her a Black or even resembling Black people.
BTW, Ethiopia back then was not the same as now and even now they don’t claim to be Black.
The fact is that Cleopatra was not Black period.
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