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Netflix’s ‘Queen Cleopatra’ Appears to Have the Worst Audience Score in TV History

Dural

Member
This was looking pretty shitty, but damn that's some low scores even from the pros.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...audience-score-in-tv-history/?sh=5f4424be5391

However, the show has done something I didn’t think was even possible. It has not just the lowest audience score in Netflix history, it has essentially the lowest audience score possible on Rotten Tomatoes, a 1%. Not a 10%, a 1%. (Update: It just ticked up to 2%. Still an unprecedented low)


There aren’t many critic reviews in, but those are low as well, with the show sitting at a 13%. But those audience scores? I’ve never seen anything like this. Not with bad shows. Not with politically controversial shows prone to review bombing. Never this bad, not in Netflix history. Honesty, I think not even in TV history, at least with this many reviews in (over a thousand).


I’ve previously written about series with low Netflix review scores. The last time I broached this topic was when Netflix’s now-cancelled Resident Evil adaptation scored a 22% with fans, one of the lowest I’d ever seen on the service. That was low compared to other high profile Netflix misses, Jupiter’s Legacy with 73%, Space Force with 77%, Haters Back Off with 76%, Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness with 39%. Fans usually rate things higher than critics, even bad shows, and the point being, a 1% audience score seems borderline mathematically impossible, even with the controversy the film has attracted.
 

SJRB

Gold Member
It's almost as if tarnishing a part of history by blackwashing a hugely important figure based on some random grandma's "testimony" and calling it a documentary doesn't sit well with people. They made a show so fucking bad and untruthful the actual Egyptian government had to step up to debunk the show's nonsense. That's some next level failing on Netflix's part.

I'm still 50/50 on Netflix doing this on purpose to generate outrage and rage views.



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OmegaSupreme

advanced basic bitch
It's almost as if tarnishing a part of history by blackwashing a hugely important figure based on some random grandma's "testimony" and calling it a documentary doesn't sit well with people. They made a show so fucking bad and untruthful the actual Egyptian government had to step up to debunk the show's nonsense. That's some next level failing on Netflix's part.

I'm still 50/50 on Netflix doing this on purpose to generate outrage and rage views.



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Yeah, but what would the Egyptians and 99.9 percent of historians know. Clearly, they are all working for the man.
 

Lasha

Member
Wow, never heard of Afrocentrism. That's wild.

It's basically nation of Islam stuff. I used to read a lot of extremist publications for my job. Afrocentrism/ NoI stuff is like light reading after digging through an issue of Dabiq.
 

badblue

Gold Member
All because they cast a black actress in the lead role of Cleopatra. Queen Cleo herself was said to be of Greek/Macedonian heritage so I'm doubtful she looked black, but I don't think it was malicious on the part of the casting director, they simply saw Egypt = Africa = Black.

It was 100% a choice done by the Director to have Cleopatra portrayed by a black woman.

“After 300 years, surely, we can safely say Cleopatra was Egyptian. She was no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston. Both are one generation from Greece,” filmmaker Tina Gharavi wrote in an essay for Variety. “Doing the research, I realized what a political act it would be to see Cleopatra portrayed by a Black actress. For me, the idea that people had gotten it so incredibly wrong before — historically, from Theda Bara to Monica Bellucci, and recently, with Angelina Jolie and Gal Gadot in the running to play her — meant we had to get it even more right.”
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
All because they cast a black actress in the lead role of Cleopatra. Queen Cleo herself was said to be of Greek/Macedonian heritage so I'm doubtful she looked black, but I don't think it was malicious on the part of the casting director, they simply saw Egypt = Africa = Black.
That makes no sense. Not everyone in Africa is Black. That's like saying a director making a movie based on India = Asia = casts Korean person.

It's obvious it was done on purpose as some kind of alternate universe pandering movie series.

There isn't one person on Earth who equates Egyptian looking people the same and being interchangeable with Black people.
 
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At the end of the day, scores these low actually help drive viewership because people want to see what the controversy is about. For Netflix, they'd much rather have this outcome compared to receiving mildly poor reviews.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
At the end of the day, scores these low actually help drive viewership because people want to see what the controversy is about. For Netflix, they'd much rather have this outcome compared to receiving mildly poor reviews.
I doubt Netflix is playing 4D chess being that clever with Cleopatra. If it was an insane and gross Tom Green comedy show then shock factor viewership is a goal. But not for this kind of series.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Shouldn’t you do basic fact checking before doing a period piece? I know General Knowledge is something US is severely lacking but come on…
To be fair, never doubt the education of the US school system. Youre going to get people who dont even know Canada is north and Mexico is south. Many wont even know there's 50 states. Sometimes you hear 52, which they some reason mix up with a deck of cards as if it's the same count.
 

Dural

Member
That makes no sense. Not everyone in Africa is Black. That's like saying a director making a movie based on India = Asia = casts Korean person.

It's obvious it was done on purpose as some kind of alternate universe pandering movie series.

There isn't one person on Earth who equates Egyptian looking people the same and being interchangeable with Black people.

A lot of people seem to talk about Africa as if it's one big homogenous country rather than a continent with many different countries, cultures, and people.
 
I doubt Netflix is playing 4D chess being that clever with Cleopatra. If it was an insane and gross Tom Green comedy show then shock factor viewership is a goal. But not for this kind of series.
I wasn't suggesting that Netflix's objective was to produce a bad show so apologize if my comment came across that way. What I meant to say that if you're going to have a bad show, it might as well be the worst because that seems to help drive views. At least it seemed to help with Velma.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
It was 100% a choice done by the Director to have Cleopatra portrayed by a black woman.

I'm going to have to weigh in here against that director as somebody who has to study Cleopatra VII at degree level, plus own a number of history books on this woman (Adrian Goldsworthy wrote a fantastic book if anybody is interested.

True. Cleopatra was far removed from Macedonia by many generations. However, the Ptolemaic dynasty practiced incest with siblings marrying each other to keep the bloodline pure. Although nobody watched her parents get it on, we can be pretty confident that her mother was Cleopatra V and her father was Ptolemy XII.

Egyptians of this era weren't all sub Saharan black either. They would have looked for the most part as they do today. Egypt and especially the city of Alexandria was also a multicultural society, with Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Aksumites and Jews etc living together. However, they didn't live together in harmony. For the most part they stuck to their own groups and didn't get on. So, to suggest Cleopatra was black because Egypt is in Africa doesn't make any sense. It shows a lack of understanding of the era.

Finally, here is a bust of Cleopatra made of Cleopatra in the 1st century BC when she visited Rome. This is probably the best we'll ever get to knowing what Cleopatra looked like.

2fr7pwQ.jpg


Finally, if Cleopatra was an illegitimate it would have almost certainly been part of Roman propaganda.

TL;DR: the director is clueless
 
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Lasha

Member
Glad to see the tide is turning against revisionist his

I'm going to have to weigh in here against that director as somebody who has to study Cleopatra VII at degree level, plus own a number of history books on this woman (Adrian Goldsworthy wrote a fantastic book if anybody is interested.

True. Cleopatra was far removed from Macedonia by many generations. However, the Ptolemaic dynasty practiced incest with siblings marrying each other to keep the bloodline pure. Although nobody watched her parents get it on, we can be pretty confident that her mother was Cleopatra V and her father was Ptolemy XII.

Egyptians of this era weren't all sub Saharan black either. They would have looked for the most part as they do today. Egypt and especially the city of Alexandria was also a multicultural society, with Egyptians, Greeks, Phoenicians, Aksumites and Jews etc living together. However, they didn't live together in harmony. For the most part they stuck to their own groups and didn't get on. So, to suggest Cleopatra was black because Egypt is in Africa doesn't make any sense. It shows a lack of understanding of the era.

Finally, here is a busy of Cleopatra made of Cleopatra in the 1st century BC when she visited Rome. This is probably the best we'll ever get to knowing what Cleopatra looked like.

2fr7pwQ.jpg


Finally, if Cleopatra was an illegitimate it would have almost certainly been part of Roman propaganda.

TL;DR: the director is clueless

This man fucks with antiquity!
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
All because they cast a black actress in the lead role of Cleopatra. Queen Cleo herself was said to be of Greek/Macedonian heritage so I'm doubtful she looked black, but I don't think it was malicious on the part of the casting director, they simply saw Egypt = Africa = Black.
Maybe not malice, but it was about the dumbest thing anyone could ever do in terms of showing you know nothing about the subject you are talking about.
 

winjer

Gold Member
The people that make this kind of shows are not really for diversity. And they are really not for promoting African culture and history.
They keep doing mostly European stories, culture, personalities and historical events. While putting some African actor or actress in a role to fill a diversity quota.
Asides from Shaka Zulu, they won't do a show about a piece of African culture or an African historical event.
In reality, the people that are doing these shows are extremely racist, as they don't find the history and culture of sub Saharan Africa, worth telling.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Honestly, sounds like the race swap nonsense was just the tip of the crap iceberg. The rest of the sounds apparently to be garbage too. Just an all around terrible production that is attempting to use controversy to sell itself which is never a good sign, although seems to be increasingly the playbook that the big media groups are going with yet keep failing to accept just doesn't work.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I think this pretty much resumes the society we're living. Total disrespect for history and science.
Just waiting to see how egyptians will deal with this.
It is the modern day thing to do. Funny how any race swap decisions never seem to involve Latino, Mid-easterners, Indian, Native Indian or Asians.

Even worse is that it's labeled as a "docudrama" trying to convince the masses it's accurate info.

Typically, documentary based media are true events and people. The director may mess around with editing to form a narrative (like Michael Moore splicing scenes in the wrong order), but at least the people are true who they are.

Here, the series is purposely messing with race and historic characters to create some kind of alternate universe Cleopatra.

It would be like BBC photoshopping soldiers and generals in their World at War series editting white soldiers to be black.
 
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