TBH: I don't want to see another White Woman play an Egyptian

I need to be blunt and upfront with you.

I don’t want to see another White Woman playing an Egyptian.
Recently, a rumor from the gossip rags has started swirling the internets saying that Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga are in the running to play Cleopatra in an upcoming film.


via GIPHY

Why, in the year of our Lord 2019, are we still making White Women play this role? Why? Why, God, why?

I know, I know, Cleopatra came from the line of Ptolemys, Macedonian, and wasn’t fully “Egyptian” if you will. That being said, seeing her as a European with beads and lapis on is just so damn tired.
We already have the relic of the film of Elizabeth Taylor playing Cleopatra (while it was cinematically beautiful but historically inaccurate.) Why do we need another whitewashed version of African History?

Because, lest we forget, Egypt is in Africa. Egyptians are Africans. Don't give me that rhetoric of "Egypt is in the middle east. As Khaled Beydoun says "Once and for all. Egypt is in Africa..."

And I definitely don't want to see a white woman in Fenty Foundation 300+ or otherwise blackfaced in order to play the role of an ancient Egyptian queen (don't we get enough of that from the Kardashians and Jenners?)

I need everyone to embrace the truth of the matter: Ancient Egyptians were brown people, not tanned or "exotic" looking white people. How do we know? Well for starters, what color did Egyptians make themselves? Brown. More times than not, they painted themselves BROWN. And we know they had white paint. Because their clothes are often white. If Egyptians, who were brilliant enough to have built the pyramids in such a way that we STILL cannot figure out, were indeed Sigourney Weaver, Katy Perry, Elizabeth Taylor white, would they have not painted themselves that way? Short answer: They didn't, because they were not white.

Another thought: Instead of dancing around on the same tired story of Cleopatra, maybe we should dive into other stories? (Maybe the only reason we are even this into Cleopatra is that of her association with whiteness in that of Julius Caesar and Marc Antony, and maybe less as a queen in her own right? Again just a thought.)

Like maybe Nefertiti (not the botched one from the TODAY show a year ago, but the real Nefertiti) wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten and mother of 6 children, including King Tutankhamun, a woman of power and authority, often painted as driving a chariot or in battle with an enemy.

Hatshepsut, a master builder who addressed major crises in Egypt and accepted unprecedented power for a woman at that time.

What about Sobekneferu, the proclaimed first Female King of Egypt. Or Merytneith or Khentykaues I or Netjerkare or any other Egyptian Queen?

What about Queen Nandi, mother of Shaka Zulu, the most well known of Zulu kingdom’s Kings.
What about Queen Aminatu, a warrior queen who increased the borders of Zazzau, ensuring that her kingdom became the center of the North-South Saharan trade and East-West Sudan trade.

What about Makeda, the Biblical Queen of Sheba who survived a tumultuous marriage to the real-life Serpent king Awre. The Tea is Makeda is believed to have killed the Serpent King and was crowned the Queen of Axum. Makeda is also said to have had a son with King Solomon (yep, THE Solomon) named Menelik I (or Ebna la-Hakim), meaning ‘son of the wise’, who became the first Imperial ruler of Ethiopia and the first of the Aksûmite Kings. Various historians say Makeda and her son brought back the biblical Ark of the Covenant to Axum. Through those Kings came the lineage of great East African and Nubian kings.

How amazing would it be to see any of these other queens, played by actresses like Angela Bassett, Lupita N'yongo, Kerry Washington, Yara Shahidi, Logan Browning, or Danai Guirira? And have the movie directed by Ryan Coogler, Ava Duvernay, or anyone of that caliber. But we haven't seen anything with a full black cast about a place in Africa do well recently *coughs Black Panther cough* or any of our stories *cough Girls Trip, Get Out, Fences, I could keep going cough*.

If this rumor is true, it means that White Hollywood is simply ignoring all of the proven success of letting people of color tell their own stories, the wealth of Black and Brown talent, being historically accurate, and good common sense just for the sake of whitewashing an already pretty tired story.

Hence, why I, and I am pretty sure you, don't want to see another White Woman play an Egyptian.