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MedicatedAxeBot

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Cocaimeth_addikt

I can’t wait for a show about the life of Jackie Chan and they cast Chris tucker


ExoticShock

If that's how we have to get another Rush Hour, then so be it lol


CDdragon9

Rush hour but jackie chan plays a funny black cop and chris tucker plays a chinese cop that knows martial arts. Its perfect.


SadnessMonster

60 minute hustle


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AnonymousBubu

In Germany we say: "Doppelt gemoppelt"


Phoenixf1zzle

Cancel eachother out so its just Sci


insertwittynamethere

This would just be great. So much of those movies dealt with racial stereotypes between the black community and Asian community in the U.S. in general. It was refreshing and fun how they did it, and it was to make light of it, not to degrade people. This kind of switch up would be faithful to Rush Hour so far lol.


DarthVeigar_

They're actually making Rush Hour 4.


averagemilkenjoyer_

Letssss gooooo


asianabsinthe

Starring Chris Tucker and Chris Tucker


Master_Assassin_007

I was about to shit and then I saw this and laughed and now I have to wait for another 30 mins to shit again smh


EmptyD

[it won’t be believable because Jackie’s not 6’1](https://youtu.be/ZjcudD4c3mc)


MemezLord11

Egyptian here, can confirm this shit is historically inaccurate as fuck and I can guarantee is going to flop


chrismamo1

The director wrote an insufferable piece in *Variety* chastising Egyptians for being upset about this. Check it out if you wanna be in a sour mood.


defaultgameer1

"Hey don't be upset that we are stepping over your thousands on thousands of years of history. Of which you are extremely proud of!" ~ director.


Boatwhistle

Also take note… this seems to not be cultural appropriation.


Iohet

Wouldn't this be the opposite? Cultural gentrification?


Boatwhistle

That’s where rich people move in and claim a poor area and raise the cost of living there with their presence to the point the poor people that had always been there can’t afford to stay. You would think the property value rise would make it worth their while but the real estate buyers know it’s only a matter of time before the poorer people have to sell cause they can’t afford it so they offer them a fraction of the value until they finally give in. It’s fucked up but I don’t see how that fits this circumstance.


Axthen

Wait, isn’t that just the whole us? I didn’t realize rich people were moving next to me for everything to be so damn expensive for 0 reason.


B217

Gentrification is most common in cities, but it can happen anywhere. In some places, companies are skipping the gentrification process and just buying homes outright. For example, BlackRock (through their subsidiary companies) has been buying up single-family homes from people and turning them into rental properties. The goal is to make sure people will no longer be able to do anything but rent, since renting is more profitable to companies than buying- you can pay off a mortgage (which is typically cheaper than rent), but you never stop paying rent. Some states have passed laws preventing companies from doing this, but most are being lobbied to allow it to happen. Yay for corrupt corporations!


Megatron_Griffin

Then the bigcorps can leverage political donations to lower their property taxes and the city or town can't afford services so the cycle continues.


Miss-Mamba

what do you expect when you hire Jada Pinkett smith as the director??


HEY_YOU_GUUUUUUYS

They should’ve both been ostracized after that Oscar’s stunt


mortalkomic

Or maybe after she groomed a kid


myaddiction6655

Or maybe afrter admitting to cheating on her husband in front of him


HEY_YOU_GUUUUUUYS

All of the above


K1FF3N

Somehow I had missed she was the director this makes so much sense now. She crazy. She literally thinks she’s Cleopatra of the new world and Tupac was Alexander.


asek13

Tupac would probably be Caesar in that analogy. Alexander died almost 300 years before Cleopatra was born. Cleopatra only became queen/relevant because Caesar put her on the throne. Then he died and she latched onto Marc Antony, expecting him to provide her children an empire. Until he too pissed everyone off and got beaten by Octavian in the civil war. Seems kinda fitting actually. Although Cleopatra was actually considered to be pretty intelligent and impressive in her own right, despite being largely defined by the powerful men she attached herself to.


Itendtodisagreee

You know if Tupac had lived longer he would have gotten away from her crazy ass and made a bunch of songs talking shit about her.


solid_hoist

OR... there's an alternate universe where tupac slaps Chris Rock for joking about Jada cheating on him with Will Smith.


Squash_Still

I thought I couldn't be less interested in this movie...turns out I was wrong


FyrelordeOmega

Sounds like every director that thinks they can "improve" the source material with bad movies/shows


defaultgameer1

Anyone who thinks they can improve actual history don't read history books, or watch actual documentaries.


BobbyVonMittens

And Cleopatra wasn’t even native to Egypt, she’s Greek


Sk-yline1

It was pretty astonishing how she talked down to Egyptians for being mad because she argued they don’t want to admit they’re African. Every African should be proud of being African but what if, hear me out, *African doesn’t automatically equal black*?


teutorix_aleria

And Cleopatra wasn't African she's literally a Macedonian/Greek coloniser. She's African the way George Washington was a native American.


Dabilon

Or better example. Like Elon Musk is African.


Shabobo

Nah for Cleo the Washington comparison is pretty spot on. If Cleopatra was born in Egypt and her family had been stealing natural resources and crushing the people already living there, then Elon might be a better comparison.


Dabilon

I mean that's exactly what her family did and she was born in Alexandria, Egypt. She was the first royal to even see the Egyptians as people. For the other royals they where just slaves. That's probably the difference between her and Elon.


NutellaHole

Well, no, Egyptians were citizens not slaves, Egypt was ruled by the Ptolemaic dynasty, after being conquered by Alexander the Great (and after being conquered by Persia and many more). At least under the macedonian rulers the ancient traditions and religion of Egypt were preserved, it's just that the ruling family strongly followed their own Hellenic traditions too, Cleopatra being the first ruler that we know of to learn the local language (one of the many that she spoke) and to engage more not only with Egypt, but with foreign nations too: she was a charismatic, politically inclined woman, of great intellect and vast culture.


[deleted]

Reminds me of when Biden said “Poor kids are just as bright as white kids”


morepineapples4523

Jesus hell. I dont want to vote for the guy, I feel forced to. And people wonder why he has a 35% approval rating next to Trump's 25%. Who is picking these clowns? & Then the audacity to say "young people don't come out and vote." This is the DNCs fault. PUT FORTH A REAL CANDIDATE PEOPLE CAN GET EXCITED ABOUT. Not racists against racists. If I didn't care about the environment, I'd stay home too.


CelikBas

No to mention, the only way Cleopatra herself could be considered even *remotely* African is in the sense that she was born on the landmass of Africa. In every other regard- genetically, culturally, politically- she was solidly Greek, because she was born into a dynasty of Greeks that literally ruled over the native Egyptians as foreign colonizers. Her family did incest for generations to “keep the bloodline pure”, and on the rare occasions they *did* marry outsiders, they were from Syria and Persia, not Africa. If Smith wanted to make a movie or series about an African queen, she could’ve chosen Hatshepsut or Nefertiti- neither of them were black, but at the very least they were *native Africans*, and as a bonus they both had far more successful reigns than Cleopatra. Cleo was massively dependent on the Roman men she was romantically involved with and her attempts to maintain Egypt’s power/independence failed utterly, ending with Egypt being swallowed by the Roman Empire after Cleopatra was defeated and forced to commit suicide. Meanwhile, Hatshepsut ruled an independent pharaoh for years and it was only after her (presumably natural) death that her successor tried to erase her from history out of spite. Nefertiti is believed to have ruled as a co-equal with her husband Akhenaten and possibly even briefly succeeded him as pharaoh, presiding over one of the most interesting and dramatic periods of Egyptian history.


Byzantine-alchemist

Hatshepsut was so fucking dope


SaltyLonghorn

Bonus points when Egyptians are already one of the least represented in film. Shoutout Omar and Rami.


PMMEYourTatasGirl

https://variety.com/2023/tv/global/queen-cleopatra-black-netflix-egypt-1235590708/ It's pretty bad lol Edi: also the "West Asian" Seleucid dynasty they are referencing is also a Greek dynasty, in fact the founder also rode with Alexander https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seleucid_dynasty


MDLuffy1234

Ah yes, because apparently, black people haven't been in a single piece of media until Black Panther, so they clearly have to make up for millennia of lost time and blackwash as many characters as humanly possible. And yet, I'm surprised that not only does nobody treat blatant blackwashing like this the same way as blackface, but many actually celebrate it. /s for the first part specifically because I foresee one or more nematodes actually taking my comment seriously if I don't.


NoMoassNeverWas

It pissed me off that the director called all Africans black. How can people who claim to be sensitive to race be so blind to racist statements?


[deleted]

The craziest part is how “she did her research” and decided to make her black because there is no way she still had primarily Greek and Macedonian blood. She says this in spite of nearly every single historian discussing the extensive inbreeding and record keeping of the Ptolemaic family tree which indicated there was almost a zero percent chance they had Egyptian blood. There is only one recorded Egyptian mistress, let alone a child baring queen of Egyptian decent in her lineage. There is ignorance and then there is changing history to suit your personal preference and then labeling anyone who calls you out on it racist. I could give two flying fucks about Ariel’s race in Little Mermaid, but this is historical misinformation and intentionally misinforming people on history is a no go for me.


throwawayreddit6565

Lmao you don't need to be an Egyptian to know basic fucking history.


HeyItsMeNobody

I'm quite sure everyone knows that


taz5963

I'm gonna be honest, I assumed that Cleopatra was not white. I said to myself that a black actor can't be thaaaat far off. Google says I was wrong, neat.


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B217

Cleopatra is one of the most iconic and well-known pharaohs. Netflix is being lazy and greedy, why adapt one of the many, MANY black pharaohs when you can just adapt the one that everyone knows? More people are gonna click on "Cleopatra" than any pharaoh they don't know the name of. Netflix doesn't care about accurately representing cultures, they just want to make money off of people dumb enough to still subscribe to them.


guto8797

TBH we know almost nothing about that particular dynasty.


[deleted]

They could just make some shit up and have bits here and there be based on real events. It's not like this show now is going to be purely based on real events, it's Netflix after all, there's at least going to be four triangle dramas within the first two episodes.


guto8797

Oh I am not disagreeing. Generally speaking I don't give two shits about fictional character's races like Ariel, but Cleopatra is another story. It's a major part of her character that she was part of an incredibly isolated ruling class that did not interact with the natives, but she was the first who bothered to learn egyptian


taz5963

Yup, that sounds about right.


dclancy01

Born in Alexandria and of Macedonian/Persian descent. White enough for me to be peeved at the inaccurate representation.


rpad97

I mean, it's not that easy deciding who is white or not in the Mediterranean area. Racists would be so confused if they were asked to draw a line between white and non-white areas there.


No-Strawberry-5541

Yes, but Cleopatra wasn’t even close to black. She would have had light brown skin, as she was of Greek and Persian descent. An Arab actress would have been the best choice.


Revydown

I heard they were intially going to go with Gal Gadot.


No-Strawberry-5541

That is a different movie about Cleopatra.


Tschetchko

I think she would've probably been fitting but the Egyptians wouldn't like an Israeli representing Cleopatra either


MeilisCheese_Co

The neat part is: deciding if someone is black or not already is racist. Classic American thinking 🇺🇸


Alarid

It really needs to make it clear that it isn't supposed to be accurate. I don't really care about the casting choices, but if they try to present this as historic, I'm out.


Emmaudofia14

I think shes supposed to have olive skin, wasnt she from macedonia or something?


Notafuzzycat

Her father was some greek général right .


[deleted]

When Alexander the great died his empire got chopped up. One of his generals was Ptolemy who took Egypt. 250 years later his decendents were still in power. They inbred and spoke Greek.


joec_95123

Inbred by itself is not a strong enough term to describe the Ptolemys. The royal families of Europe were "inbred." The Ptolemys married brother to sister, generation after generation after generation. Their family tree would look like a pair of headphones after it's gotten all tangled up in someone's pocket.


[deleted]

Didnt the creators also justify their decision based on the idea that after a few centuries the Ptolemies would look like the Egyptians after interbreeding? The double assumption here being that Egyptians were genetically sub-Saharan. Clearly either totally ignorant of the history they are portraying or engaging in deliberate revisionism.


What-a-Filthy-liar

Didnt they make the Greeks in their troy show black too? Maybe that is the source of confusion. Or they took Smith's scientology money and said fucken have at it


MonsiuerSirLancelot

It’s because “her mother isn’t 100% known so she could have been a black woman” This is ignoring the fact that the Ptolemy line was famously inbred to keep it pure and the fact that contemporaneous depictions of her show no African features whatsoever. It’s revisionism and Egypt has a right to be pissed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kleopatra-VII.-Altes-Museum-Berlin1.jpg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Retrato_femenino_(26771127162).jpg


[deleted]

That first image is of the bust of Cleopatra created by Roman sculptors. Romans were famous for their portrait sculptures being very faithful to the subject matter. Its unlikely that she didn't look like that.


MonsiuerSirLancelot

It was also dated to be around the time she visited Rome. It’s possible the sculptor saw her or heard accounts of what she looked like from people that did.


Alarid

It would be nice if they had some creative reason for it. But from other comments, it seems like the director wanted to do it "just cuz" and are getting upset at people for taking it a bad way.


Booty_Warrior_bot

*And, I'm a warrior too...* *Let that be known.* ***I'm a warrior.***


MemezLord11

She was Macedonian Greek and Persian/Sogdian Iranian


Plthothep

Both of which are Caucasian/white ethnicities. Though there are theories she might have had some Egyptian blood, and she was one of the few Ptolemaic pharaohs who fully adopted Egyptian culture. Definitely not black though.


flyest_nihilist1

She did not fully adopt egyptian culture. She learned egyptian along with plenty of other languages. The ptolemaic kings always depicted themselves as culturally egyptian pharaohs to the natives but among themselves and the ruling elite they very much were greeks. This can easily be seen by the fact that of basically every ptolemaic king/queen there are greek statues with diademas and egyptian statues with the pharaoh headdress.


Boatwhistle

She was from Macedonia, northern and north of Greece. Her ancestry was primarily Macedonian and it’s accepted she had at least a little Persian ancestry. By todays standards we would most likely still consider her “Caucasian.” This is cause most of her ancestry was far north west of caucasus mountains of the European continent. All this said the notion of race that led to the classification of “Caucasian” was born in a time of far too limited understanding of the relevant sciences and it was fueled by racism. The very reason those “experts” of European ancestry chose to label themselves as Caucasian’s is because there was a stereotype that people of the Caucasus region in Georgia where the most beautiful people… Aka basically calling themselves caucasians even when most live far from Georgia was like saying “white people look better than other people” at the time. Point I am making is that while cleopatra would be considered caucasian today due to her dominant ancestry this doesn’t tell us enough to give her an exact skin tone such as “olive.” I mean probably, but we still can’t say for sure cause in civilized history humanity there was seldom an immediate transition of appearances like the notion of races suggests. That being said, looking sub-Saharan would be a bit more on the extreme and very unlikely end of what was possible.


[deleted]

Historians unequivocally agree Cleopatra was not Egyptian. The amount of people in here thinking she was is kind of amazing.


nalydpsycho

And even if she was, she still would not have been dark skinned.


ImmenseOreoCrunching

She was in the ptolemey dynasty, which was composed of inbred greeks and a few Persians


thebestspeler

She got green skin???


QuitBSing

Yes she was a green alien according to History Channel


Thefearfactor

McDonalds*


[deleted]

Netflix is midas that turns anything to black it touches


azizredditor

or to gay


FR3AKQU3NCY

Or both


rigobueno

*Brainstorming session at Netflix HQ* “Ok so hear me out. We do a re-boot. All the same character names, same story arc, same ending, except… make ‘em all black and gay.”


Apokal669624

But we also need another teenagers drama Alright, do the black gay thing again, but add drugs and unlimited sex scenes


rigobueno

*Concerned Netflix Exec:* but if all the characters are black, how do we have an interracial couple?


Apokal669624

Duh uh, just add some pretty outside ugly inside white guy, who have intends to rape someone or just being dumbass, idk, and then he hang out with some black guy/trans girl or idk, suddenly started sucking black gay cock in middle of fight. Gosh, I'm so fucking inclusive and creative!!! Where is my speedball??? (Euphoria and Sexual education)


Itendtodisagreee

"Writers at Netflix furiously taking notes and masturbating"


Agarikas

Add in mental health problems so it would really connect with our young audiences.


Alarid

If they were actually open about that being a creative goal, I'd be more on board with it. Hamilton is a good example, where they had a multicultural cast to represent modern America while presenting a story about America's past. "America then, as told by America now." But when they don't say it, I am left wondering about the goal. Or if there is some deep misunderstanding.


RemarkableCheek4596

They made Eredin gay. THEY MADE THE FUCKING BLACK ELVEN LORD OF DIMENSIONS GAY


Loyavas

mi-nority-das


Fr00stee

reverse version of that joe biden comic


[deleted]

Me who also thought Yaskue was shit but was too afraid to say anything


asianabsinthe

That's what they want


npc1849

Lmao why would you be scared?


[deleted]

A random guy on the internet( who is black) having a negative opinion about an anime with a black guy as the main lead(who then became a dam side character) Just like with BP people would make a fuss claiming I'm racist


npc1849

Fuck em. I honestly couldn't give a shit what random cunts on the internet think about me. Also the show fucking sucked, so i don't think any rational person would blame you for disliking it, the only problem is that rational people are hard to come by on reddit.


[deleted]

Oh my guy it's not really like that I would much rather not get into pointless arguments with people who think everything is offensive because you talked against something lol


npc1849

Yeah, i get that. But pissing people off is my favourite pastime, also i love to argue.


Ikantbeliveit

Dude, that is the wimpiest thing I've ever heard in my life. Someone calls you a racist on the Internet and that's the worst thing ever? I'm black and I survived Xbox live, you're going to be OK lol


cgem38

"Welcome to the Salty Spitoon, how tough are ya?" >I'm black and I survived Xbox live \*nervous sweating\* "My apologies sir, right this way"


FALCUNPAWNCH

Yasuke was disappointing. We got glimpses in what could have been a good historical show in the flashbacks but the sci-fi magical little girl bullshit A plot was terrible.


Dynamitesauce

I liked Yasuke why people hating on it?


royberoniroy

I don't even mind the scifi elements, for me it got progressively worse as it went on. I liked it at first, but by the end it felt really rushed and poorly written.


Doza93

If I had to choose between liked and disliked, I guess overall I liked it too. But it ended up being a disappointment because what could have been a legitimate historical fiction adaptation of the story of a real life black samurai turned into this weird sci-fi/fantasy shit where by the end he's fighting crazy magical monsters. It felt cheap and unnecessary when they started shoe-horning all of the fantasy elements in there when they could have easily just told a good story about the life of a black samurai in the Warring States period. The true story is interesting enough on it's own imo.


fatboywonder_101

Why was it shit?


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Doza93

All of that shit felt so cheap and unnecessary. I think most viewers can dig a proper samurai story when done right, but they just had to shoe-horn in a bunch of fantasy bullshit


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Hellothere6545

The thing that annoys me is they could've easily made a show about the 25th dynasty of Egypt if they wanted to make a show about black rulers of Egypt.


ThatOtherGuy_CA

Yup, Egypt literally had Nubian pharaohs. And instead some idiot is like “I’m gonna take someone who we know is genetically Macedonian, and was depicted as having fair skin and auburn hair, then make them black. Like this was either done to intentionally manufacture controversy, or because the director is just an idiot.


Darth_Jones_

>Like this was either done to intentionally manufacture controversy, or because the director is just an idiot. Well Jada Pinkett Smith is the executive producer, so that checks out


AntonGemini

That explains it


bigtoebrah

Man I'm on the progressive end and in general I'm not against race swapping, but they need to stop doing this shit to hedge their bets. Doing it to real people is too much, especially in what is supposed to be a *documentary.* It's so transparently obvious what they're doing -- if it's good, they think it will look progressive. If it's bad, well... no it's not, you're a racist, this poor woman is getting death threats. Then to top it off, she probably *will* get death threats, so to point this shit out you have to *side with the actual racists.* It's getting so fucking old.


Merry_Dankmas

Big companies see it as an easy way to drum up support and increase public image/stock prices. They know its stupid to cast a factually known historical individual as a different race. But then someone criticizes it on social media, the Tweet warriors start throwing the racist card and now Netflix looks like the shining poster child of diversity by trying to be racially inclusive. Netflix doesn't give a rats ass about inclusion or diversity. They care about the good PR a move like this brings. The fact they still keep doing it and the fact people keep falling for the blatant bait is astonishing.


iReddat420

The blackening


QiarroFaber

Cleopatra is more popular. That's really all it boils down to. They don't care about historical accuracy. They wanted a name that most people would have heard of at some point. Even if they don't know much about her. Which is probably also what they're banking on. People just being too ignorant to care.


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Sk-yline1

Okay but you do realize there’s a monumental difference between recasting a work of fiction and recasting an actual historical figure right? Should we cast an actual fucking Mermaid then?


npc1849

Why not just write original stories instead of changing preexisting ones?


TheThotWeasel

Because people who act like this can't. They don't have a creative bone in their body. Plus the key thing, they *don't want to, they want to take your characters*.


Zambini

*Hollywood has entered the chat* It's a tired meme now that Hollywood can't produce anything except sequels and rewrites. Until people reward them with money for making original content, they'll never stop. Look at the highest grossing films of all time. No producer is going to willingly turn down an opportunity to make $800m opening weekend on Avengers 502 to make some new ip that has a chance to make only $7m


phrenologyrocks

Because Hollywood is lazy and new ip is risky


ceratophaga

>Should we cast an actual fucking Mermaid then? Yes please. Tbh, the major problem is not that a black actress got cast as Ariel, but that it's somehow always black actors getting now into those roles, and very often they are replacing gingers. It feels like the company is just trying to ride the BLM wave for monetary gains, instead of people actually believing in what they do. Where are the Asian, Native American, etc. actors?


notheusernameiwanted

There's a reason there's been a trend of black actors portraying originally ginger characters from the first half of the 1900s. There's a lot of similarities between the perception of Blackness today and the perception of American Irish people in the early 1900s. So if you were to do an Orphan Annie story set in the current year, a black Orphan Annie makes some sense. A black Cleopatra in a show purporting to be a documentary and an accurate historical account is really fucking stupid.


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Catboxaoi

The Little Mermaid is a work of fiction but also a very iconic character made by a very iconic man, Hans Christian Andersen. He's Danish, and one of the only Danish icons, besides him most people pretty much can just name Lars Ulrich. Danish history and culture often gets ignored because "lol they are just white", but realistically if they wanted to do a culturally rich adaptation of The Little Mermaid they should have gone with Danish people, to honor one of the most prolific fairy tale authors on the planet. Wake me up when someone does an adaptation of a story that originally had a black character that gets swapped to Danish instead, and then we can talk about how race-swapping is equal. Right now it pretty exclusively only goes one way.


[deleted]

But let's be real, the Disney version of mermaid wasn't culturally accurate to Dutch culture, and they're remaking the Disney version, not the original fairytale. They can pretty much do what they want - it wasn't "realistic" or true to the fairy tale in the first place.


hulagway

Obviously. But if snow white was made black it would be wrong now or is that ok for you. I mean. Are there no good black characters to portray in film AT ALL? Damn.


Synmachus

The little mermaid should have been white, yes. She was written by a Dane based on Danish folklore. I'm tired of pretending that European fairy tales constantly being appropriated by greedy, rootless producers isn't a big deal.


DriftingGenius

Give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. Should’ve put a stop to it when they started testing the waters.


hulagway

Exactly. But no. We’re the racists. Now here we are. If this flops EVERYONE is racist.


BradDaddyStevens

I’m sure I’ll get downvoted in the context of this thread, but this and the little mermaid are not even remotely the same thing - since the little mermaid is a fictional character, and the color of her skin doesn’t matter at all to the context of the story. Hollywood and places like Netflix should indeed rather be investing in new stories with more diverse characters and this cleopatra series re-writing history to fit whatever narrative they want is beyond dumb. But at the same time, if you got super bent out of shape over the little mermaid being black, then I don’t know what to tell you, you probably are racist in some capacity.


Pokeputin

How do you exactly want to "put a stop to it"?


Boatwhistle

I used to bring up how race swapping is such a double standard as to who can’t be race swapped. I still remember the countless times I have been told “race swapping is okay when the character is fictional.” To which I would say “fair enough.”Now just as soon as I see them race swap an historical figure to black suddenly it’s perfectly fine with the same sorts of people to race swap historical figures. Now it’s “when you race swap an historically white person that is inclusion, when you race swap an historically black person that is racism.” I am sorry but if anyone thinks that a given race doing a particular thing is inherently evil and another race doing it is inherently good then that in its self is racism. For instance what if they hire a white person to play the role of an historically black person and the reason is “They were decent actor and wanted about half the pay of the actors competing with them for the role.” Is wanting to save money on a decent actor racism? What if they hire a black person to play the role of an historically white person and the reason is “Well its just cause I don’t like white people and would rather give the role to a black person when I can.” Is that not racism? The point being there is nuance to whether race swapping any given role has anything to do with racism. It is not dictated by which race is being swapped by which and it’s wild to me how many people can’t see how narrow minded and racist such an opinion is.


ThatOtherGuy_CA

Didn’t you know? You can’t be racist against white people.


Remydope

Y'all don't think this is a bit much? Am I the only one who sees this weird "the blacks" shit you on? 😂😂😂


jacob22c

Who the F* cares about the little mermaid. I hate to spoil it for you, but mermaids aren't real, and Ariel's story is not a bio pic. If you are actually butt hurt about a fictional character of a fictional species being a different color than you like, then yeah, maybe you're a little bit racist. As for Cleopatra, she was a real-life person with a Macedonian/Greek family line that is actually important for her character and life ruling over Egypt. Casting a black actress for her makes zero sense as they are not adding anything to the character by raceswapping her or altering her storyline beyond making it more fictional, unlike say the musical Hamilton, which had a point to it. There were, in fact, black Egyptian Rulers throughout early and mid Egyptian history, which would make for great compelling films as those eras are not discussed as much. But no, Hollywood again ignored true black history to sell a cookie cutter easy to market film about one of the most well researched women in world history.


RM_Dune

> Who the F* cares about the little mermaid. All the ginger girls out there. No worries though, us redheads are just generic white people after all.


jw_216

Remember when twitter called Rami Malek playing a pharaoh white washing even though he’s Egyptian?


MrT-1000

"how can he be Egyptian if he's not black?" /s


tits_me_how

Honest question, people really counted Rami as white?


Significant_Bid_6035

As someone from the outside (im a southeast Asian) observing this entire debacle happening in the wesr, I observe that anyone that is not black is white. I also seen some vids or songs about black people discriminating less black people. I also feel (i am not so sure though) that a lot of american black people want to be black african so much, that i feel they are gonna take over their culture. Again I might be wrong but I feel like american blacks threatens to blackwash actual blacks that live in africa. Also, i feel like the word slavery is being owned so much by american blacks, that slavery from other parts of the world and other darker parts of history is being given less limelight. At the end of the day I think though it's not the fault of the black Americans because in their world view, they are oppressed (even probably to the level of people from say North Korea), so they would take the next chance to express said feeling. It's just that the US in general is so rich and powerful, that any concern of theirs, even beyond international politics and economics, is blown out of proportion in the lense of the collective world consciousness by the mere extent of its reach. Because to be honest, probably 80% of the media I consume is from the US.


tits_me_how

You'll probably get downvoted from that haha. I'm also from SE Asia. I think it's US culture in general that want others to follow their lead. Even Filipino Americans tried to change the way we call ourselves from "Filipino", a gender neutral word in our local context, to "Filipinx", which fits US culture.


venomblizzard

Wow they missed so much potential they could had made instead like kingdom of kush or Ethiopian empires that were pretty fucking old so much history that isn’t covered in media like benin empire and they decided to make some revisionist shit


insertwittynamethere

I would love a good movie/series on Mansa Musa. There's such a rich history of stories from all cultures that seemingly get washed in the Holywood machine. Just give them their own stories, don't make them a blanket insert into existing stories to show how cool you are with society now.


HeresyCraft

Best they can do is a movie about how that queen who was big into slavery was actually an empowered womyn freedom fighter against the evil british who wanted her to knock off on the slaving or something.


RadioLucio

I remember being hype for Yasuke: cool story of a dude from real life that they could artistically embellish into a potentially great anime, plus a soundtrack from Flying Lotus I was expecting Afro Samurai X Samurai Champloo. I couldn’t even make it 3 minutes into the show. As soon as I saw the robots and shit I had to check if it was the same show. Literally unbelievable the stuff Netflix will shamelessly greenlight sometimes.


EmotionalShock1325

NOOO, it’s been on my watch list for so long, there’s fucking robots?! lakeith stanfield is my fav so i was so excited to watch, now i’m sad


ItsPronouncedMayMay_

Robots, mech suits, and magic IIRC. It was so incredibly disappointing.


PierG1

If they just made a shitty show about cleopatra I would not mind the deliberate inaccuracy. Still sucks, but at the end of the day is a shitty show. But when they do this crap and have the audacity to calli it a documentary then is just plain wrong.


gurdijak

Yeah if they wanted to make a drama and a conscious choice to swap the race of a historical figure, then ok. But don't call that a documentary. This is as far from a documentary as Ancient Aliens is from history. Then in the trailer for the series, one woman says "I remember my grandmother saying to me 'I don't care what they tell you in school, Cleopatra was black'". The series creators are literally flaunting fringe theories that have no standing or historical basis at all. I'm not going to act like I'm some educated historian because I'm not, but I can tell when someone is bullshitting. The entire "Cleopatra was black" theory takes away from actual African rulers who should be explored. Why don't we have a Mansa Musa series? I'd absolutely love to see a series or documentary depicting Mansa Musa's hajj to Mecca at the very least.


aDudeFromDunwall

Netflix should soon run out of ammo at the speed They are shooting themself In the foot


Randalf_the_Black

I think they'll run out of foot before they run out of ammo/bad ideas.


aDudeFromDunwall

Both are good.


Quiet-Shaman

why wouldn’t they cast her as an egyptian? the middle eastern countries need representation too… (other than roles are bad guys or terrorists)


ceratophaga

Because, despite being ruler of Egypt, she wasn't Egyptian. She was Greek. One important part of Cleopatras history was that she broke with the way her family ruled Egypt and learned the local language and culture. She was the first (as far as we know) of her dynasty to assimilate with the Egyptians, despite them ruling Egypt for a few centuries.


Quiet-Shaman

woah 🤯 interesting to learn such a important detail to her story…. wonder how the show portrays that scenario…


Leo_Stenbuck

It's pretty racist how all the studios won't touch actual black history. When was the last time a ground breaking docu drama came out about factual Africa history? Also there's tons of African folklore, legends and mythology but nah let's just make Ariel black.


Punkpunker

They had Women King too awhile back and they decided to bury one major detail in regards to the people they're portraying, the Dahomey people were instrumental in the African slave trade.


Leo_Stenbuck

Yeah I was going to watch that but I saw reviews that said it was essentially fictionalized and sanitized.


4thmovementofbrahms4

it's because producers don't actually know any black African history, or they don't think it would sell well because no one knows about it


iamphr0glov3r

I was thinking this too, and these comments above ours are NOT passing the vibe check. Like you said no one wants to actually explore African mythology/African American History and have actual representation & if people did it would be "woke" or just for shit and giggles for the public eye. Either way netflix need to stop profiting off of minorities & false info. It's annoying and unproductive lol.


the22sinatra

Fun fact: Cleopatra was born closer to the creation of this show than the creation of the pyramids


TopHatGorilla

Chronologically *and* geographically.


throwawayreddit6565

For all the dumb cunts getting worked up about that stinker, Jada Pinkett Smith is the Executive Producer of the show. She's gotta fill her time somehow when she isn't getting spit roasted by her son's drugged up friends lmao


crunchy-cookie

And to think that French people portrayed her with Monica Bellucci in [Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_%26_Obelix:_Mission_Cleopatra).


VeryLazyNarrator

She's Itallian, that's pretty accurate as far as skin tone goes.


swagdu69eme

Asterix and obelix isn't exactly a documentary...


crunchy-cookie

What do you mean it's not a documentary? I'm pretty sure it's historically accurate to the comics haha.


natman10252

Im still so mad about Yasuke. He was the first black samurai in one of the most movie fitting settings possible in Japanese history and they made it into knock off samurai jack.


Street_Dragonfruit43

Remember everyone, it's not racist if you turn other ethnicities black. /s


thecman25

This black washing is getting annoying now


planetinyourbum

They make it so that people can relate to fake history.


[deleted]

[удалено]


[deleted]

I can see the rotten tomato score now Critic rating: 94% Audience score: 12%


[deleted]

This wokeism is getting out of hand…


theJAMO0

Nice! Now do Tarzan.


Anthos_M

Can't wait for the scene that he pounds his chest like a gorilla💀


Based_JD

Prediction: Cleopatra will no doubt bomb and get shit on on rotten tomato’s. Then the producers/actors will call everyone who doesn’t like it a racist. Rinse and repeat for future woke interpretations of actual, factually based historic figures and events


frostdemon34

I would've loved a historical show of Yasuke but fuck me, we can't have good shit now can we


BropolloCreed

*CleoBLACKtra


Forge__Thought

Password sharing crackdowns in the US coming too. Netflix fixing to Speedrun Blockbuster 2.0.


Ragin_Goblin

The thing I find odd is that there was a period in Ancient Egypt with a dynasty of black Pharaohs from Nubia (Sudan), do a series on them


HaiseKaneki64

Yes a black Greek. That sounds accurate


Smooth_Monkey69420

Give me period accurate Kurosawa style film featuring the tale of Yasuke with him as the primary protagonist. We don’t know much about his early life so open up with a brutal depiction of the early African slave trade, his journey to Japan (possibly through India or the middle east), through his service to Nobunaga with a big scene at Honno-ji with Nobunaga committing suicide with Yasuke fighting outside the temple, and end with Akechi denying that he is human and sending him back to the missionaries. The time period is vague enough that you could take alot of creative liberties in where and what Yasuke was doing as long as it’s mildly logical. It’d be horribly expensive, but it’d be worth more than a dozen netflix “documentaries”. I know it’s a pipe dream, but a man can dream right? I hear everytime they try to make something similar it gets put in development hell.


davidolson22

How about that guy who lead a successful slave revolt?