Adele James, the actress who depicts Cleopatra in Netflix's latest show about the Egyptian queen, has responded to the "fundamentally racist" backlash she has received over the role.
The show has caused controversy after opting to depict Cleopatra as Black, something that many Egyptians have taken issue with, including one lawyer who even took legal action.
As reported by BBC News, the lawyer from Egypt has filed a complaint against Netflix, accusing them of violating media laws and attempting to "erase the Egyptian identity".
After the trailer for the show dropped, Netflix was forced to turn off comments after receiving heavy backlash for the casting choices.
Watch the trailer below:But whatever your thoughts on Cleopatra's heritage, targeting a person with racist abuse is always unacceptable - but James has been subjected to exactly that.
During an appearance on Steph's Packed Lunch - a Channel 4 show in the UK - the 27-year-old actress described some of the abuse that she had received as a result of her taking on the role.
"It would be naïve of me to say that I didn’t expect anything at all, but I didn’t expect the scale of it," James confessed.
"And I think it’s distressing for anybody to receive any level of abuse, let alone the scale and the nature of what I’ve received, which is fundamentally racist, all of it," she added.
James believes that people are focussing on the wrong aspect of the documentary series, as she stated: "Yes, we don’t know where her mother was from or her paternal grandmother, but also the show is about so much more than the question mark over her race.
"If you watch it is a very small part of the conversation really, this is about the fullness of who this woman was and she was a human being and she shouldn’t be reduced to her race any more than I should or anybody should."
Cleopatra's heritage has always been the subject of debate, but it is widely believed that she was born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 69 BC and came from a Greek-speaking dynasty with Macedonian lineage.
As per the Smithsonian, Cleopatra VII ruled Egypt for 21 years where she had a tight relationship with the Roman dictator Julius Caeser.
John Patridge, who plays Caeser in the documentary, said: "I don’t hear anybody saying that Julius Caesar is a homosexual from Manchester. We’re just actors at the end of the day, and sometimes our morality gets called into play, we’re jobbing actors."
Speaking on The Wayne Ayers Podcast, James furthered her comments: "Blackwashing isn’t a thing, is it?"
She continued: "I find it sad that people are either so self-loathing or so threatened by Blackness that they feel the need to do that, to separate Egypt from the rest of the continent."
Jada Pinkett Smith, who narrates the documentary and is also credited as an executive producer, said: "We don't often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them!"
African Queens: Queen Cleopatra is available to watch on Netflix now.
