Why Angelina Jolie Shouldn't Be Playing Cleopatra

As if Jake Gyllenhaal starring as the lead in Prince of Persia weren't enough, recently, we learned that Angelina Jolie has been cast as Cleopatra in the movie adaptation of the novel Cleopatra: A Life. The casting seems odd, since decades of speculation and research into Cleopatra's genetic makeup reveal that the young Queen of Egypt was not the olive-skinned Greek whom Westerners recognize — but may have actually been black.

Of course, films inspired by real people are always controversial, no matter the racial makeup of their subjects. The producers who made a film version of the Dreamgirls play, for example, were criticized for casting Beyonce — a light-skinned African-American — to play Deena Jones. (The character was largely based on Diana Ross and was previously played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, both of whom are much darker than Beyonce.) Jolie has also been criticized before on questions of race, for wearing dark make-up to play the star of A Mighty Heart. In reality, her character — Mariane Pearl — was a mixed-race, Cuban and white woman.

The issue is that white women like Jolie are Hollywood's default. Maybe there wasn't a part-Cuban actress with the talent to play Pearl (doubtful, though). So when it came to A Mighty Heart, producers picked a white actress, rather than bothering to look for a Latina or other mixed-race actress instead. The same thing happened with Cleopatra. There's still plenty of controversy over Cleopatra's ethnicity — some don't believe she may have been European, while others don't believe that she may have been mixed-race or mostly African — so if you can't please everyone, why not go white?  

So-called "race-blind" casting decisions wouldn't be under so much scrutiny if there was more work for actors and actresses of color. Who would care about Jolie playing a mixed-race woman if actresses like Halle Berry and Rashida Jones could also play white women? Yes, Jones has played characters whose ethnicities weren't specified before — but that's not the same as getting cast to play someone who's traditionally been portrayed as white, like Helen of Troy (or, say, Barbara Bush). Once again, color-blindness is a false idea that serves to benefit the same group of Hollywood principals.

It's a similar argument that I lodge against the fashion industry and its obsession with black (or brown, or yellow) face. If the idea behind such blackface is to create a contrast against whiteness or show the beauty of different complexions, then why not actually hire a model with that skin color?

Unfortunately, as this latest Hollywood dust-up indicates, though people of color often provide inspiration for creative projects, when it comes to benefiting from such work, professionally or financially — well, that's something too often left to others.

Photo Credit: cliff1066