• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

badblue

Gold Member
Why not you know....make a show about actual African queens that did indeed exist and that very few know about?
Well, that's what Jada Pinkett-Smith's African Queens series set out to do. They just fucked it out the gate with the Cleopatra controversy so no one really knows that the first one came out or that Cleopatra is the second of the series. Now that it's known they are more then willing to change history (in a documentary), I doubt there's going to be a 3rd.

African Queens is a 2023 documentary series focusing on female monarchs, airing on the streaming service Netflix. The series is produced and narrated by Jada Pinkett Smith and features dramatized fictional re-enactments as well as interviews with experts. The first season covers Njinga, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, and is directed by Ethosheia Hylton. The second season focuses on Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, Pharaoh Cleopatra, and is directed by Tina Gharavi.
 

YCoCg

Member
“We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens,”
The irony of her saying this when one of the most popular and well rated Netflix shows is Bridgerton which features a black queen who JUST got a prequel series that's also well rated and liked seems like she's playing ignorance.
 

BlackTron

Gold Member
No way they are making money from these type of controversies. That won't save the terrible show.

It's stakeholder capitalism at play. They care more about sending a message than profits, because they still have money to burn apparently.
Oh I never meant to imply the money was pouring in from the show directly, but sending that message does fit into the wider culture war which (they think) benefits them on the 4D chess board, including monetarily.

I don't think it will benefit them that much in the end, but it does harm society while they have fun trying/thinking it does.
 

Labolas

Member
iu
 

StreetsofBeige

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.
Respect and learn from your elders..... but only if they arent a dumbass.
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
Going ahead with their own historically accurate show by the look of it.

This idea that people should identify with the general continent they live in or hail from is weird.
People generally don’t identify as European or Asian but with the country they come from.
 
Last edited:
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.



aaaa.jpg

LOL What in the actual fuck?

And these scores...good grief. Never seen anything lower than this.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Last edited:

AmuroChan

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.

Nah, it was definitely done on purpose to make a statement. The Egyptian government literally told Netflix that she's not black.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Well, that's what Jada Pinkett-Smith's African Queens series set out to do. They just fucked it out the gate with the Cleopatra controversy so no one really knows that the first one came out or that Cleopatra is the second of the series. Now that it's known they are more then willing to change history (in a documentary), I doubt there's going to be a 3rd.
See, this is actually a pretty neat idea, and then as you mentioned they fuck it up by racially appropriating Cleopatra.
 

CGNoire

Member
It wouldn't surprise me to actually see this in an attempt to push equity over history. We have already seen it in "historically based" stuff to add women into areas they never operated (the best of these at least try to find an actual historical character to extrapolate from) or add ethnic diversity where there was none. No doubt future historians will dub this practice some catchy name and it will date productions kinda like how vivid technicolor does now and use it as a marker for broader societal changes.

As I've said before, the real tragedy of this stuff isn't just that it is attempting to change perceptions of history, but that is a lazy crutch to push the same tired stories OVER and OVER instead of finding new stories of periods and events that HAD the diversity necessary. Don't make a viking raiding party all on one longboat look like an Ark that sampled someone from every place on the planet, just set your show in a place that naturally had a multicultural presence.

This new show just makes me think of this
QKlmSI1.jpg


though to be honest I no longer remember which girl was actually Cleopatra (2525).
The second from the right.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Not to derail this thread but for the first time on the news I heard "Food insecurity" ; referring to "famine".
The anchor said "Insécurité alimentaire" (Frenchie from Montreal over here).

Next we rename zombies as the "Living impaired"...

Nothing surprises me anymore 🙄

That makes you the “Surprise Impaired”. Very sad affliction.

Netflix will be with you shortly for your six part series.

…and thanks for the gold again, you madman 🤣
 

Roufianos

Member
Pathetic. Greeks already have to deal with the formerly Bulgarian population of North Macedonia making claim to Alexander and co, now the African Americans have come after them.

Completely disrespectful to the Egyptians too. Even if she was mixed, which she wouldn't, there's no reason to believe she'd have looked much different from modern Egyptians, who aren't black.
 
Last edited:

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
Not to derail this thread but for the first time on the news I heard "Food insecurity" ; referring to "famine".
The anchor said "Insécurité alimentaire" (Frenchie from Montreal over here).

Next we rename zombies as the "Living impaired"...

Nothing surprises me anymore 🙄
In France you alternate between "personne handicapée" et "personne à mobilité réduite" depending on the day of the week.
 

Tams

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.
Not malicious, just racist.

Fucking lol. I love it when woke people end up being prejudice.
 

Hayabusa83

Banned
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.


Cleopatra herself wasn't even "Egyptian", she was a Macedonian, part of the Ptolemaic Dynasty established by Ptolemy the Great after the disintegration of Alexander the Great's Empire.
 

VenomousCoffee

Gold Member
Not to derail this thread but for the first time on the news I heard "Food insecurity" ; referring to "famine".
The anchor said "Insécurité alimentaire" (Frenchie from Montreal over here).

Next we rename zombies as the "Living impaired"...

Nothing surprises me anymore 🙄
This seems extra-bad, as I'd interpret the terms to refer to two different things. I'd assume "famine" refers to a widespread problem (drought, etc.) that causes an entire region to have a food shortage, while "food insecure" would refer to some socially caused problem that keeps some from having enough food while others have plenty (poverty, etc.).
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Not to derail this thread but for the first time on the news I heard "Food insecurity" ; referring to "famine".
The anchor said "Insécurité alimentaire" (Frenchie from Montreal over here).

Next we rename zombies as the "Living impaired"...

Nothing surprises me anymore 🙄
These clowns are all "truth insecure."
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
The idea of Cleopatra being black made Jada Pinkett-Smith feel good about herself. That's the only thing that matters in current_year:


“We don’t often get to see or hear stories about Black queens,” Jada Pinkett-Smith shares in a statement. “And that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them!”

“Cleopatra is a queen who many know about, but not in her truth,” Smith continues. “She’s been displayed as overtly sexual, excessive, and corrupt, yet she was a strategist, an intellect, a commanding force of nature, who fought to protect her kingdom… and her heritage is highly debated. This season will dive deeper into her history and re-assesses this fascinating part of her story.”

If she wanted to make a docu-series about African Queens .. especially a badass and prominent African Queen, she could have gone with Aminatu aka Amina or Kandake Amanirenas...

Egypt isn't the only African nation worthy of talking about the history.

BTW, there are black people in northern Africa... It's not just Egypt in North Africa. Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on Earth
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
If she wanted to make a docu-series about African Queens .. especially a badass and prominent African Queen, she could have gone with Aminatu aka Amina or Kandake Amanirenas...

Egypt isn't the only African nation worthy of talking about the history.
Agreed. There is a crazy attraction to Egypt but it's far from the only place of interest. It's always gonna be a tough sell though, given the odd names and the farther away from a european connection you get, the less well known the story. Just the demographics of marketing a sub-saharan african story to 13% of the population versus a european one to 70%+ make it challenging. Something like Showmax, with the "Blood Psalms" fantasy show and stuff like that, is where I'm looking to see a real breakout hit come from (that will then get a more palatable to America remake).

BTW, there are black people in northern Africa... It's not just Egypt in North Africa. Africa is the most genetically diverse continent on Earth
I think it's generally understood that while there are many blacks in northern africa NOW, this wasn't as much the case before folks could easily sail south past the Sahara. Generations of a Mediterranean oriented trade network led to far more southern Europe/North African/middle eastern mixing (via migration, slavery, conquest) than any sub-saharan population mixing in appreciable numbers until the Trans-Saharan Slave trade caused a massive diaspora of those populations into the arab world, followed of course by the Trans-atlantic slave trade.
 

winjer

Gold Member
I think it's generally understood that while there are many blacks in northern africa NOW, this wasn't as much the case before folks could easily sail south past the Sahara. Generations of a Mediterranean oriented trade network led to far more southern Europe/North African/middle eastern mixing (via migration, slavery, conquest) than any sub-saharan population mixing in appreciable numbers until the Trans-Saharan Slave trade caused a massive diaspora of those populations into the arab world, followed of course by the Trans-atlantic slave trade.

Don't forget the Ottoman empire. During it's existence, they had up to 30 million slaves.
Not only African, but also Europeans and even Asian.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
I was always partial to the chick that played Aphrodite.

I think it was her bubbly and bouncies!
aphrodite-ares.gif

alexandra-tydings-aphrodite.gif


Sad that the actor who played Ares was killed by a freak accident. Young too.

I knew I was in for an episode i would find super interesting when Aphrodite showed up. Such a pretty woman.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
Don't forget the Ottoman empire. During it's existence, they had up to 30 million slaves.
Not only African, but also Europeans and even Asian.
I was reading or listening to some commentator the other day and he said more whites and Europeans throughout history were put into slavery than black Africans. The Greeks alone had tons and tons of slaves from every nation. The Greeks even considered a slave as a piece of furniture and not a person. The romans enslaved everyone too, they did not care about nationality.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
I was reading or listening to some commentator the other day and he said more whites and Europeans throughout history were put into slavery than black Africans. The Greeks alone had tons and tons of slaves from every nation. The Greeks even considered a slave as a piece of furniture and not a person. The romans enslaved everyone too, they did not care about nationality.
The very word "Slave" supposedly comes from Slav, who were all white folks.

But no need to play a "who was the most enslaved" game, it was all bad, it's STILL all bad, and we don't have to revolve everything around it.
 
Top Bottom