Everyone is super passionate about Cleopatra this morning and I think you're all right!!!

Cleo WAS pretty much 100% Greek and Gal is a great casting!

But also it would be super nice if we got some historical epics about less-known queens like Shajar al-Durr or Nefertiti!!!

The problem isn't whitewashing, it's that the parts of history we know best, what sells at the box office, are those parts of history that our (white supremacist) culture has enshrined. Cleo is the only Egyptian queen we really know, bc of her relationship to powerful white men.

And realistically I think the only solution is to start making smaller movies, or making other sorts of art (hello, fiction) about those less-famous people. Start changing the narrative. Movies too big to fail aren't where the change starts.

And this is the big ray of hope I keep seeing in all those news items asking if big budget cinema is a casualty of COVID. Maybe it's a stupid hope to have, but maybe smaller budgets and niche audiences will actually help film take risks again.