What's really fun is being black and trying to convince your hotep acquaintances that she WAS white.
Nah, nothing like that. But the fact that Egypt is in Africa + historical malfeasance = whatever the last guy with a dashiki on youtube said being the absolute truth. What's even more fun is being into pre flood civilization theories and trying to float the idea that maybe our batch of Egyptians (from the last 5000 years or so) just kinda found em already built. I might just be the crazy one on that though, but still.........
Nice. Definitely a fun bunch. Best to avoid serious conversations with. And do NOT make fun. Many are ex-cons and do not appreciate you poking at their beliefs. An extreme bunch indeed. Oh, and there are cases to be made for Shakespeare and Beethoven being black. The rest - perhaps not so much. And even this guy says Cleopatra was white though.
Beethoven absolutely fucking doubt.
Shakespeare, that's interesting, some people say he was not even a real person, so if you wanted to write plays and were black at that time, you'd use a fake persona. But even that is a fringe theory.
Actually, physical descriptions of Beethoven from reputable peers paint him as a decidedly non-white person. And the Shakespear thing is taken a bit more seriously than that. Google Amelia Bassano. A black female crypto-jew at that. Interesting story.
Gal Gadot was born in Palestine, which is right next to Egypt. I don't see what the fuss is about
But she went to kill Palestinians... I don't know enough history to have an opinion, but I can imagine Egyptians are pissed.
Like the concept of race has any validity to try and apply to people thousands of years ago
The entire film industry is shit anyway, whether you have BIPOC playing characters or not seems to matter little to the wellbeing of the majority of people of colour
Representation matters. Not nearly as much as material conditions, but it matters.
In general representation is important, but the film industry is a disgusting propaganda machine such that I would wonder whether representation is actually harmful to the long term interests of nonwhite communities in the same way that nonwhite police are used to overpolice neighbourhoods?
Just ask fans of any formerly underground music genre how nice it is to finally be recognised by mainstream corporate culture, now that your favourite artists are being used to sell cars.
This. I can't, in good conscience, root for more representation of anyone in mass media as it is, for the most part, strictly a propaganda arm of the state. That they feel more non white faces are needed should be more unsettling than empowering.
Like the concept of race has any validity to try and apply to people thousands of years ago
It barely has validity right now.
A Congolese man and an Irish woman will produce children that are considered an entirely separate caste from their progenitors. Swarthy Italians and Leisurely Latino are routinely confused by the Teutonic Texan as of the same breed, despite being born an ocean apart. Sino-phobia drives violence against Koreans and Vietnamese and Indonesians alike. Islamophobia drives violence against the Sikhs. It's all based on knee-jerk visual queues and has nothing to do with lineage, ethnicity, behavior, or belief.
The entire film industry is shit anyway
Undeniable.
So I listened to the pod’s episode on 300 and man did these guys miss a lot of stuff that makes the film even more cringy. For example, the guy who plays Xerxes wasn’t even played by a black actor. The dude was fucking Brazilian. Like they made a tan man even darker so that they had the ability to deny the racism the film implies. I always thought it was Peter Mensah who played Xerxes since he was on the film too. I know there’s more that I looked up when I did a simple google search of the actors. Also big surprise, there is no one in the Spartan army who is of Greek origin. They are all British or Australian. There’s more stuff that I think is funny but all it takes is a simple google search for the movie.
300 is a shit movie. It glorifies the Spartans (who were an absolute garbage society even without the institutional child rape) and has colored the popular view of the Achaemenid Persians (who were cool as hell) with ridiculous, dehumanizing fantasy elements.
Yep. Filmed when Cheney was plotting to invade Iran too. The head villain is coded as queer/androgynous ...and ...are these fucking Uruk-hai fighting for the Persians? WTF??
Well the Ptolomys also never learned Egyptian, the primary language of the people they ruled. Their court and aristocratic class all learned Greek and spoke to the pharaohs in Greek . So while they didn't have the same ideas of race, Cleopatra very much thought of her subjects as having a separate, foreign, and inferiors culture. Is that reasonable to say?
Cleopatra very much thought of her subjects as having a separate, foreign, and inferiors culture
Cleopatra was special for learning Egyptian and participating in Egyptian religious rituals, and publicly identifying herself with the goddess Isis (wrong Isis, NSA!). She did so because the court officials usurped her power by elevating her manipulateable underage brother ahead of her. So, unlike the earlier Ptolemies, she did embrace being Egyptian in order to strengthen her own position. In the end, the only reason she won was because of Caesar's intervention.
You can always use Iset, the Egyptian version of the goddess' name to fly under the radar of your personally appointed FBI agent
The argument seems to be that maybe Cleopatra wasn’t white on her mother’s side. But the ptolemies were infamous practitioners of inbreeding
The Ptolemies were doing sibling-/cousin-fucking since the Selucids, so it seems weird they would break it just this once for the king to have a child with the daughter of a priest of Ptah for unclear reasons. Ptolemaic kings didn't learn Egyptian and strongly retained a Hellenic identity - hell, intermarriage was illegal between Egyptians and Greeks in Ptolemaic Alexandria. Cleopatra's professed ability to speak Aramaic, Egyptian, Ethiopian, Latin, Parthian, Syriac and other regional languages and her closeness to Rome are seen as standouts as examples of her ambition to break the patterns of the moribund Ptolemaic kingdom.
(Closing hot take: Tomyris, who lead the Scythians to defeat one of the great ancient empire-builders, or Amage, literally a slay kween girlboss, would be a lot cooler story and those haven't really been done before.)
Real talk though, the "Judeo-Christian civilization" concepts entire purpose is to launder Israelis into being considered "white" Europeans
I mean this distinction doesn't matter because race isn't real. AFAIK the Jews regardless of specific ethnic background were never considered "white" in the racial context before WWII.
Like, this would just be another version of « Jesus was a caucasian male with long blond hair »?
To quote Virgil: « Source for this claim? ». Never heard that before, and know nothing about the History of the term that would back that up.
Yeah the whole outrage about Godot playing her was pretty embarrassing. There is a real problem with white actors playing bipoc characters. But yeah this ain't it.
Look i don’t get the issue. Having an Israeli play the last leader of a dynasty of European Conquerers of a middle eastern country That held their power with intimidation, military, and it’s connection to the dominate power of the time seems really REALLY on the nose in the best way.
Bespoke: Cleopatra was a time traveling Israeli soldier. Gal Gadot is playing her future self when she travels into the past and has to use her acting skills from this Cleopatra role to pretend to really be Cleopatra (who was wicked witched under her time machine)
Woke: Cleopatra was Greek and therefore white
Stavros should play Cleopatra.
Broke: Hamilton
Woke: that Atlanta episode where they blackwashed Justin Bieber
Idk, if we remove her views and her being part of the IDF, I see absolutely no problem with her playing Cleopatra...
