I watched Netflix's Cleopatra so you don't have to... Episode 1

This was a hard watch. Let me know what else you would like to see in the comments.

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delicious coffee

[sirsudo]

A brave soul who walked into the darkness to keep us from having to

[hctdzio]

I think the most insulting thing was just the way the producer, director and the main actress reacted to the whole thing. Imagine gaslighting and insulting an entire country and telling them they're racist. Imagine an Egyptian calling the director and telling them that Cleopatra wasn't black but Greek and then said director to scoff at you and reply back "You are Egyptian! Why would Cleopatra being Greek be a good thing to you?". They showed they didn't care about the truth or the Egyptian people at all with these actions and it's disgusting.
Edited some mistakes*

[KamiRecca]

Its Possible that Cleopatra was half martian. Just saying. Its not Impossible, hence it is Possible.
All praise our Martian Queen!

[thomascoffin]

I've seen a lot of people over the years trying to say that the Macedonians would've had to marry into existing Egyptian nobility. Seems like none of them know how conquest and subsequent colonization works.

[nella]

7:10 You are mistaken.

To the north, Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely... One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out against the invaders. And life is not easy for the Roman legionaries who garrison the fortified camps of Totorum, Aquarium, Laudanum and Compendium.

[fakjbf]

6:13 I love that “Rome” is just the literal city while “Egypt” is the entire kingdom rather than just the capital of Alexandria. Almost like if they showed an actual map of Rome’s actual sphere of influence their entire point would be flipped on its head.

[FunFilmFare]

I think THE worst thing about that Netflix Cleopatra documentary to me is not even the casting, but all the modern-day anachronisms…

1. Antony and Octavius’ scraggly long hair and beards (most Roman men were clean shaven)
2. Ancient Egyptians wearing short hair, buzz cuts and Afros, not a single wig in sight
3. The modern-day music
4. Ancient royals saying “OK” “Yeah” “Hi” etc.

Anachronisms might be OK in historical fiction, but not in a documentary. Documentaries by nature are obligated to be as historically accurate as possible.

[sxeptomaniac]

The melodrama really is so weird. My wife was watching some of the show, and I walked by as Cleopatra was just so very shocked and hurt that her sister betrayed her at some point. I just started laughing, knowing enough about the Ptolemies to remember that they were constantly betraying and killing each other. They seem determined to make the show a hagiography.

[Soguwe]

It would have been fine if they declared it as the fan fiction it is
There's a whole Genre of historical fiction out there, this would have fitted right in
But they just _had_ to ride the wave of contoversy-marketing

[Janus]

This is the same Netflix that made a "documentary" about the three mile island nuclear event. The events were distorted, the people speaking were questionable, and the editing style was the same as investigative murder-porn. Netflix is trash.

Thanks for your sacrifice

[matthewsander]

I had a history professor that liked to speculate and entertain possibilities as facts. The class was a headache and a half

[Devicedinput]

"If i made a drinking game of how many times they say "possibilty", i would die of alcohol poisioning" Fantastic lineXD

[DownWithBureaucracy]

Crazy enough, showing the court as Greek would have been a great contrast to show how Cleopatra was an "Egyptian" ruler in the sense she bothered to engage with the culture while the rest of the ruling class didn't

[Real_History]

The issue of her mother is overblown.

Ptolemy XII ‘s only properly identifiable wife was Cleopatra V. We know for certain that she had at least one daughter, Berenike IV - Cleopatra VII’s older sister.

The ‘issue’ comes from the fact that she disappears from the historical record in 69/68 BCE, right around the time of Cleopatra VII birth. This has led some to speculate that she may have died in or shortly after childbirth. Because we are unsure of the timing, we cannot say for certain that she is the mother of Cleopatra VII.

However, though Cleopatra V disappears from the historical record, there are attestations to one ‘Cleopatra Tryphaena’ who was co-ruler of Egypt in the year 58BCE and died in 57 BCE.
If Cleopatra V did die in 68BCE, this Cleopatra Tryphaena must have been an otherwise unknown daughter. This has led to historians call her Cleopatra VI Tryphaena, which is why the last Cleopatra is Cleopatra VII.

HOWEVER, there is a dedication in a temple that has been dated to 57 BCE that speaks of Cleopatra Tryphaena as Ptolemy XII’s wife rather than his daughter. This has led many modern historians to conclude that the mysterious Cleopatra Tryphaena is actually Cleopatra V.
If Cleopatra V was alive as late as 57 BCE, she was almost certainly the mother of not only Berenike IV, but of all Ptolemy XII’s children… including Cleopatra VII.

Some might respond that maybe Cleopatra was born out of wedlock with a concubine or something. Realistically, if that was the case we would know about it because you can bet your bottom dollar that the Romans, who said some pretty vicious things about her, would not have missed the opportunity to call her a bastard.


So you see, it’s not that we have no idea who Cleopatra’s mother was, it’s just that we cannot say for absolute certainty, but we have a pretty fucking good idea.

[gabrielethier]

I don't think these people understand that the fact that Cleopatra was greek is largely why she is so well remembered, considering her death marks the end of the Hellenistic age

[adiabeticjedi]

Not gonna lie. I feel that Ubisoft portrayed a better Egypt and Cleopatra than this show has.
Please do more of this. Ive got too much shit on my plate to rant over poorly portrayed history, but still really want to. So thank you Buddy.

[janegael]

The podcasts are wonderful but I really love this format. You're fun to watch because you're so animated. Gabby putting in her 2 cents worth would be awesome.

[Rikalonius]

11:48 I've said this in other places, but I'll say it here also. Nobody has yet to take on depicting one of Cleopatra's most daring and heroic maneuvers. That is, the quest to get to the palace and into Caesar's presence in the first place. At the time, where Cleopatra was being blocked by her brother's army, she took a small boat with her Greek bodyguard and a couple attendants and they made it 100 miles through crocodile and mosquito infested swamplands, with her brother's agents looking for her, to get to the Alexandrian harbor, and then past the guards to get into Caesar's presence. That's some epic Hidden Fortress level heroes journey, but nobody has yet to depict it. You want to make her look like a boss, that's the way, not through stupid sword fights.

[kevinboros]

It's so beautiful that I can imagine Confucius as being a white Swedish female, so empowering! Reality really CAN be whatever I want!

[antoniakilby]

This is why I really hate when a TV company decides to recreate history. I actually ran into someone who thought that the CW's Reign was how it all actually happened right down to the clothing. That statement gave me a headache that lasted for quite some time. Reading historical fiction might be fun, however it's fiction, not history. History is not being taught at this point. We have whitewashed it, cleaned it up and made it so you don't feel attacked or guilty about what our forefathers did. I call BS. I'm very aware of our history. It's not exactly something that we should be standing up and be proud of. Now we want to deny it. It's truly interesting that Germany when it teaches about the atrocities they committed during World war II is open and honest, and the children don't seem to have any problem accepting what the generations before them did. We need to get back to teaching history on a fact-based curriculum because a lot of what is being taught now is fiction.