Netflix in new controversy over the documentary ‘Queen Cleopatra’.

The company made public six days ago a small preview of this new documentary about "Queen Cleopatra" and the reviews have not stopped piling up since then and allfor having chosen an actress of color to play this Egyptian queen known worldwide for being the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty of Ancient Egypt.

Netflix has already received a formal complaint from lawyer Mahmoud al-Semary, according to the BBC, for violating Egyptian media laws and, in addition to, attempting to "erase Egyptian identity." He has criticized the promotion of such "Afrocentric" thought content and has further called for a ban on access to the content platform from Egypt. The prestigious Zahi Hawass, former minister of antiquities of the North African country and Egyptologist, has directly stated that it is "completely false" that the pharaoh born in Alexandria in 69 BC was black: "Cleopatra was Greek, which means that she was light-skinned, not black".

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The director of the documentary has defended in an article published in Variety, stating that "The known facts are that her Greek/Macedonian family, the Ptolemaic lineage, intermarried with the Seleucid dynasty of West Africa and remained in Egypt for 300 years. Cleopatra, in fact, was eight generations from these Ptolemaic ancestors, which makes it unlikely that she had a white complexion. After 300 years, surely we can safely say that Cleopatra was Egyptian. She was no more Greek or Macedonian than Rita Wilson or Jennifer Aniston, second generation Greek origins. Why does it bother so much that Cleopatra is black? And why do some people need Cleopatra to be white?"

Gharavi says: "But then, was Cleopatra black? We don't know for sure, but we can be sure she was not white like Elizabeth Taylor".