The Black Cleopatra Controversy: Netflix's Queen Cleopatra Under Fire.
The controversy over the casting of a Black actress as Cleopatra in Netflix's "Queen Cleopatra" series has been dismissed as "fear of a Black Cleopatra" by two university professors in a guest essay for the New York Times. They argue that debates over Cleopatra's race miss the point of her cultural impact and that current notions of race are recent inventions that do not necessarily speak to how people of Cleopatra's day saw the world or themselves. They also cite a Cleopatra expert who argues that Cleopatra was culturally Black and that reclaiming her as Black highlights the history of oppression of Black women.