Cleopatra was unquestionably mixed, and I've seen lots of mixed women in Minnesota who look like Adele James, the actress in the series.
Now, when the King Tut series ran a few years ago, and we (Black people) complained about a white-looking actor playing the unequivocally Black boy king, Eurocentrics were tight-lipped on the matter; not to mention the white actors who have incessantly played the Black people of Ancient Egypt (Kemet).
Greeks and Romans, mind you, were mixed too. The Greeks had emerged from the Minoans and Mycenaean cultures, and the Romans began as a colony of the Etruscans, Black people.
Just as the status quo has been deliberately errant in their depictions of King Tut, nowadays, you'd better believe they've faked the elderly looking bland representation they've claimed is Cleopatra, since the 1950s.
That's a good move by Jada Smith. You'd better believe had they green-lighted the tentative film with Angelina Jolie, that's been talked about, 80% of the cast would have been white people -- Smith's casting seems to be highly European-looking, too, on the trailer. Reminds me of the casting of Halle Berry's movie Solomon & Sheba.
Smith's production people made a decision to depict Cleopatra as darker than white producers would have depicted her. Interestingly, Jada Pinkett Smith has the phenotype that would be great in any upcoming movie on Cleopatra.
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