"Cleopatra" is the number one trending topic that sends my Classics major ass running for the hills lmao. Not today!

This is a particularly cursed iteration of the Cleopatra debate because the actress in this case has people doing race science about Jews in the trending tag. Great website lol

It's worth asking why other women rulers of Egypt — Hatshepsut in particular — rarely get biopics and Cleopatra gets a zillion. Based on the contemporary accounts I think casting white women as Cleopatra VII makes sense, but the fact that it makes sense should raise questions!

Anyway, I'd like to see a Hatshepsut movie. I feel like Sophie Okonedo could grab an Oscar for that one.

Hollywood loves Cleopatra for the same reason Shakespeare did: she was the (most likely) white queen of Egypt. The ancients didn't regard race phenotypically that way, but she was a Greek imperialist who adopted Egyptian garb and customs. It's ~exotic but not TOO foreign.

She was also famously not very pretty, which I think would be interesting to actually see in one of these biopics if they're going to make a million of them. The ancient historians note that she was shockingly sexually charismatic despite being kind of homely.

She was also a ginger, fwiw. She wore the braided wig in part because it was the fashion for Egyptian nobility but also because her red hair really made her stand out in court!

anyway this movie sounds dire lol

I liked Lyndsay Marshal's portrayal on HBO's Rome, even if she was also too pretty probably. They made her look a little odd.