Colour Blind Casting

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I recently read an article reporting that some people are in high dudgeon over Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra in an upcoming film. This is mostly based on the unfounded and unproven notion that Cleopatra was a woman of colour.

Clearly, there are some roles where the ethnic appearance of the actor should reflect that of the historical figure that they’re portraying (this is why you never see a Japanese playing Abraham Lincoln, for example, or an Irishman playing Nelson Mandela), but I think this flap over Gadot is nonsense.

Boru

[ignoramus]

Last time I checked Israel was in Arab land. I'd love her to play Cleopatra! (But what's her super power?)

[downbeatplumb]

I recently read an article reporting that some people are in high dudgeon over Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra in an upcoming film. This is mostly based on the unfounded and unproven notion that Cleopatra was a woman of colour.

Clearly, there are some roles where the ethnic appearance of the actor should reflect that of the historical figure that they’re portraying (this is why you never see a Japanese playing Abraham Lincoln, for example, or an Irishman playing Nelson Mandela), but I think this flap over Gadot is nonsense.

Boru

I'm in two minds about this, I can see that in a perfect world a competent actor should be able to play any part. But Anachronistic colour casting makes the past look nicer than it was and destroys ruins accuracy of the representation of the past. The main offenders seems to be british productions where they have things like polynesians cast as medieval maidens or a japanese lawyer in victorian london. No matter how accurate the rest of the production is or the quality of the acting it takes me out of the reality and grates.

Gal Gadot though would not be impossible as Cleopatra who was after all a Ptolemy of Greek origin.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Last time I checked Israel was in Arab land. I'd love her to play Cleopatra! (But what's her super power?)

Seducing Roman generals.

Boru

[ignoramus]

Last time I checked Israel was in Arab land. I'd love her to play Cleopatra! (But what's her super power?)

Seducing Roman generals.

Boru

In English!

[onlinebiker]

As good an actor as he is - I don't think Will Smith would be a good first choice for lead in "The Elvis Presley Story".


But if he did get cast - you would HAVE to watch it.....

[Rev. Rye]

The Ptolemaic dynasty was of Greek origin. And by the time they got to Cleopatra VII (the famous one), their family tree was basically a stump with no outside DNA in her bloodline for over a century before she was born (Cleopatra I died 107 years before Cleopatra VII was even born):



She might have been a bit darker than the average Greek (What with the bit of Syrian and Libyan ancestry provided by Cleopatra I and Berenice II), but not by much. If they were making a movie about, say, Hatshepsut and casting Gal Gadot, this outrage would have more merit, but they aren’t, so it doesn’t.

[Anomalocaris]

I recently read an article reporting that some people are in high dudgeon over Gal Gadot being cast as Cleopatra in an upcoming film. This is mostly based on the unfounded and unproven notion that Cleopatra was a woman of colour.

Clearly, there are some roles where the ethnic appearance of the actor should reflect that of the historical figure that they’re portraying (this is why you never see a Japanese playing Abraham Lincoln, for example, or an Irishman playing Nelson Mandela), but I think this flap over Gadot is nonsense.

Boru

Obviously Gal Godot unfairly appropriated the role from an actress who shared the cleopatra’s inbred ancestry.

Even worse, she lacked the hooked nose and round face seen on cleopatra’s own coins.

I think there are kinds of historic play or film in which visual authenticity of characters Would be important.   But others where pursuit of such authenticity stands in the way of applying the best available acting talent to reflect the Inner thoughts, moods, and predilections of the characters the film or play focuses on reflecting.   The well reviewed broadway play “Hamilton” is a good example of latter.   So a Japanese certainly should not be barred from playing Lincoln nor a Irish playing Mandela.  It depends on the structure and intent of the rest of the film or play.

[Rev. Rye]

Even worse, she lacked the hooked nose and round face seen on cleopatra’s own coins.

For what it’s worth, there’s a LOT of controversy about her features. The controversy over whether she was even all that attractive, as pushed by Augustan propaganda and perpetuated by a Plutarch, aside, there are several contemporary portraits with very radically different approaches: ones where she’s presented as the epitome of Greek femininity (not too hard to imagine why one would want that, honestly) and ones where she looks, well, like a cross-dresser (the latter basically as a way of signifying her power, acting as a [very much metaphorical and not literal] phallic symbol.) And, frankly, given the radically different approaches that could have both been easily exaggerated for propaganda, I’m not terribly convinced either one is accurate.

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And, frankly, if you want stories of great queens who were far more likely POC than Cleopatra, there’s actually quite a few other cases: I mentioned Hatshepsut earlier, Nefertiti’s probably more famous, and, a bit more obscure but likely more badass, Amanirenas, queen of Kush (modern-day Ethiopia), who beat back the Roman Empire in the early days of Augustus’ reign.