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Angelina Scores Cleopatra Role, Is Hollywood White Washing?

Written by YeahSheSaidIt on June 24, 2010 4:15 pm

Angelina-Cleo

Cleopatra, The Last Air Bender, Bonanza, Kung Fu, and so on. These are examples of movies and TV shows who instead of casting an ethnic actor to play an ethnic character they enlisted a White actor in their place. Sadly, “The Prince Of Persia”and the new version of the movie “Cleopatra” will join them in the manipulative studio tactic called race bending. Race bending is defined as when a movie studio/publisher, etc. changes the ethnicity of a character with a resultant discriminatory impact on an underrepresented cultural community and actors from that community. In other words, instead of casting a person of color to play a person of color, they enlist a White actor for the role instead.

Omarosa: Black Women Are Complicated

There are several reasons why studios take this direction. One being that they feel that the audience will not connect with the lead character unless they are white washed, even if the actual character is a person of color. Another is that they think that the audiences are so unaccustomed to seeing a person of color as lead in a big budget film that the movie could not possibly be a success if they cast an actual person of color in the role. Finally, if the character they are depicting in some way is a hero of sorts, or a historical legend, Hollywood prefers to portray those historical legendary types as being White. Not all legends but certain ones that they feel White audiences feel a connection to and want to fulfill that connection by portraying them as being ethic but not really THAT ethnic. Maintaining the thinking that the White audience members place this certain historical figure on a pedestal of some kind and can only accept seeing them as being White even if historical evidence says the opposite. Similar to how they often portray Jesus Christ. I digress.

One would assume from this long standing tradition of White washing characters that the movie studios assume that audience’s are intolerant, narrow minded, simpletons. Although we do have some members of our population who do represent that description, it does not count for the masses. Give audience’s credit. It should be clear to… To Read The Rest Go To YeahSheSaidIt

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  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Tyelisha2/ Tyelisha2

    It’s a shame but this been going on for a very long time.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/BreBuffalo/ BreBuffalo

    Talking about having a dud,a real sinker of movie,Cleopatra?
    Canyou say ,dvd?
    Cleopatra has been told 1000 times before. There is nothing to tell.
    THAT is the first problem.

    Next,Cleo was not Black, dark in complexion. She was Eygptian,Greek in her line.
    I suspect she looked like Morroacans of today,Armeian, Turkish.

    NEXT,Hollyweird cast actors based on popularity,etc.
    Yeah, they are casting Jolie ,all White Amer., as Cleo.

    FLIP side,they casted Vanessa Williams as Mother Henriette DeLile,a Free Woman of Color. Talk of miscast.

    Better pick would have been a White actress.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Kashi101/ Kashi101

    shameful. i wouldn’t have paid to see it anyway

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Nightowl358/ Nightowl358

    Not surprising, and this goes back to Hollywood and appealing to the masses; Hollywood producers want an actress that will get whites to sit on their asses and watch a 3 hour epic, expensive ass film.

    Is there a black female version of Will Smith – you know, a black actress that white folks love to death and will flock out to see? That’s probably what you need for them to cast a sister.

    They’d better hope this one turns out better financially than the 1963 version with Liz Taylor; that one almost bankrupted MGM Studios.

  • http://www.hollywood.cz.cc/?p=38821 White Actors Portraying Ethnic Characters | Hello Beautiful | HOLLYWOOD

    [...] See the rest here: White Actors Portraying Ethnic Characters | Hello Beautiful [...]

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/goodness4sho/ goodness4sho

    I would not pay a penny to watch this broad!!

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/BoweryBetty/ BoweryBetty

    I definitely have major issues with the “race bending” and white-washing of roles from characters of color being played by white actors in Hollywood and beyond, but I must echo Bre’s statement about the true history of Cleopatra. Unfortunately, a bizarre, elaborate myth has been cultivated for an endless stretch of years and it’s really sad because it’s such a reflection on the quality of world history education(particularly African history) being taught in American schools. Cleopatra was NOT a Black African, but she did adopt Egyptian rituals and cultural beliefs. She was a member of the Ptolemaic Dynasty which was a GREEK (I repeat GREEK) royal family that ruled Egypt for over 200 years and succeeded the Pharaohs.

    It’s hard watching so many people fight and spew fire and insults over this Cleopatra issue when they don’t have a clear view of true history. Now if you want to talk Angelina Jolie and “race bending” in neo-blackface?? Let’s talk about her playing Mariane Pearl in “A Mighty Heart”. Slap a little bronzer and a curly wig on her and — VOILA! — you’ve got an Afro/Cuban/Chinese/Dutch sista! It’s beyond being an insult. Another recent neo-blackface role is by Gerard Depardieu portraying one of my favorite authors, Alexandre Dumas. Once again, slap on a little bronzer and a curly wig and — VOILA!!!! It makes me sick to see this particular white-wash because of the hell Dumas went through in life by claiming his African heritage instead of trying to pass like so many others in his time.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Hellokitty111/ Hellokitty111

    I wouldn’t have seen the movie regardless of who played the role.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/linqingshan003/ linqingshan003

    Username has been taken already. Please choose a different one

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/jardona57/ jardona57

    YES IT’S PRETTY SAD. I DON’T LIKE ANGELINA ANYWAY, SO I WON’T BE WATCHING. I DON’T SHE IS A GOOD ACTRESS. I HAVE NEVER ANYTHING SHE HAS DONE NOR WILL I EVER. YES I CAN SAY NEVER, EVER. HOLLYWOOD IS FULL OF CRAP ANYWAY. I CAN GUARANTEE YOU IF THAT LEADING ROLE WAS A BAD JACKED UP BLACK WOMAN THEY WOULDN’T BE STARRING A WHITE FEMALE. BUT SINCE CLEOPATRA WAS DECENT AND A RULER WELL, ENOUGH SAID.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/jazzwatch/ jazzwatch

    gues they don’t CARE about Blacks like they THINK they do…
    as far as the movies I can save that dought to buy some gas or get some drawes…..

  • http://articlesfeaturedirect.shopaworld.com/2010/06/17/feel-windows-cleaned-city-london/ ARTICLESFEATUREDIRECT.com

    Feel How Often Do Windows Need To Be Cleaned In A City Like London…

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  • http://www.blackplanet.com/windel1/ windel1

    This should not surprise anyone….If you look back, Liz Taylor played Cleopatra, and before her there was another white actress. Charleton Heston played Moses instead of Sidney Poitier. Every Biblical character who was Black (David, Abraham, Sarah, Ruth, Solomon, Daniel, et al….were all portrayed as white, when in fact, they were not….

    Hollywood says that it’s just entertainment! However, it may be entertainment, but it’s just programming people’s minds to believe things that are not true!

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/revdrjohnson/ revdrjohnson

    Degrees of separation … Angelina is actually part-Iroquois and French, and shares a DISTANT ancestor with Beyonce. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zacharie_Cloutier

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/princezhllywood/ princezhllywood

    I probably won’t see the movie one way or another and Hollywood has always done things were they use “others” to play more ethnic rolles, but Cleopatra was Greek. At least Angelina Jolie has darker features and looks like she’s some kind of white/middle eastern mix.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/xklan/ xklan

    CLEOPATRA is a TITLE ,,, not a name .There were MANY CLEOPATRAS.This title originates in the land we call”AFRICA”As far as what THIS particular CLEO looked like……???…We need to BOYCOT these movies. If we are not respected enough to represent ourselves in these movies then we should not be stupid enough to pay hellywood to S–t it out then MAKE US EAT IT!!!!As to Armenian ,Turkish,,,,It is insane for us to even discuss that!!but….in our BLANCO-”intellegence” we have have lost our minds,,, we are thinking with “relaxer in our hair,,and blue contacts”..in our eyes!!! To be honest ,,, “AFRICANS” were the first people on this rock…soooo that makes every body BLACK for all you techno-crats!!!!!! OH!!! BY the way YOU THINK THERE AREN’T (then and now )DARK EGYPTIANS!!!??????!!!!….WHO,WHA,,DAMNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/revdrjohnson/ revdrjohnson

    By the way …
    Where on earth did the photo on the left come from? DAT WEREN’T CLEO. As “princezhllywood” mentioned, Ol’ Girl was NOT BLACK, and NOT CUTE!!! Angelina is doing her a favor! Check it out: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/miscellanea/cleopatra/bust.html

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/revdrjohnson/ revdrjohnson
  • http://www.blackplanet.com/xklan/ xklan

    …..OH YEAH,,,,wether u believe the theory of creation,,or eveloution,,,,,,,,,WE ALL HAVE THE SAME MOTHER!!!(…AND FATHER)SO that means that we are all RELATED!!!!!!…we “darkies”were just first in line!!!!….CANUDIGIT!!!!!!!!???!!!!So ,,,”count it all joy “,,,,or “charge it to the game”…..either way…in a carbon based universe black comes in many fourms!!!!!!7Up??!!!

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/1SereneOne/ 1SereneOne

    Cleopatra VII , as much as I hate to say it , or the historic Cleopatra that we know about who had the ill fated relationship with Marc Anthony and the date with a poisonous serpent , was the daughter of Ptolemy m was the descendant of Alexander the Greats General a Greek named Ptolemy I Soter.
    She probably was of mixed race at best , but could not have been a pure bred Egyptian because of her being born into a family of Greeks who conquered Egypt. Busts of her dating to that era has her with a Greek type hook nose , but written records state golden skin , depicting a person of mixed race.

    The afrocentrism aside , I prefer history and fact.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kleopatra-VII.-Altes-Museum-Berlin1.jpg

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Envy_Entertainment/ Envy_Entertainment

    why do we care, wait long enough, martin l. king jr., will be played by a dark haired caucasion. we’ll bitterly except that too. lets face it as long as we don’t acknowledge who the beast is, we will continue to live in his image and after his likeness.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/So_Gone02/ So_Gone02

    Who cares. I like Angelina, she’s a decent actress. But, who cares. So sick of all this black/white shyt.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/shadowman172005/ shadowman172005

    they will make all the bull—- movies that they want to.. they want to keep white people thinking that they came from everything and we came from nothing… they want us to think that the only thing that we have ever done well was being slaves..they most keep there lie alive for as long as they can..they will go crazy and loose there damn mind if the truth ever comes out… the only thing that white poeple have ever given to the world is thought everyone how to steal,lie and kill. they can’t let the truth come out that without us they will be nothing…we make white folks look good..the only reason they like Angelina is because she has the lips of a black woman… if she didn’t, she will be just another white woman just plain and simple…black folks need to tell the real story about Egypt most of us don’t even know that Egypt is in Africa…i just found that out 10 years ago and i’m 39 now…

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/So_Gone02/ So_Gone02

    Geography must not have been a requirement in school for you. Or you just weren’t paying attention. I am so sick of all this black/white, “white people this” “what people that”. It is 2010. Move on. Recognize your history & persevere. Overcome it. Talking about it only keeps all the negative around. You’re feeding the negativity.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/DN30001/ DN30001

    @So_Gone02

    Thats like saying “so what McDonalds been malnutrioning people for for years…its still food! enjoy it!”

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/DN30001/ DN30001

    who cares they made Jesus white! let’s give praise!

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/courtneyR/ courtneyR

    Angelina’s book Notes From My Travels gives a really good glimpse of how dire the hunger and displacement situation of those MEN WOMEN AND CHILDREN from these countries that don’t have basic needs to survive,protect themselves and their children,who are constantly surrounded by violence and danger from their gov’t and sometimes their own people. From Sierre Leon,Tanzania,Pakistan,cambodia,Ecuador…Good book,good read…

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/easy_one65/ easy_one65

    This is a “p-e-r-f-e-c-t” example of why qualified Black female actresses can hardly get outstanding, prominent roles in Hollywood. In 2010, you have more than enough regal, beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous and sexy Black women who can unquestionably fulfill the role of Queen Cleopatra. I can name a few that come to mind…Taraji Henson…Gabrielle Union…Angela Bassett…Saana Lathan…Garcelle Beauvais…Janet Jackson…

    Don’t get me wrong. Angelina Jolie is a great actress; she’s just not appropriate for the role of Queen Cleopatra, who was indeed a Black woman. Hollywood is notorious for excluding Black men and women from quality, prominent leading roles involving actual historical Black figures. This leaves the viewer with the same stereotypical impressions of Black people within the movie’s content. Who can watch “Saving Private Ryan”, (an outstanding movie) and walk away from it, believing that there were no Black soldiers fighting along those white men in the front lines of Hitler’s hottest battles against the Allied Forces?…Of course they were there!…but not in Steven Spielberg’s exclusionary “interpretation” of WWII history. The same results will occur with this movie about this famous woman. There have been so many distortions of Egyptian and world history to favor the white race/Western World, as well as its biases in interpreting “our” culture and history. If you can control or influence our image and history, you will have young children of all races thinking that there were no Black people in history that pre-dated 1619 America…when in actuality, we were here in the Western Hemisphere way before Christopher Columbus got here (Dr. Ivan VanSertima)

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Blessed1/ Blessed1

    Until all races are fairly and accurately depicted in our history books, they will never be fairly and accurately depicted on the silver screen. Attitudes have to drastically change in the power brokers and I don’t see that happening in my lifetime. A lie will remain a lie until it is exposed and brought into the light for all to see and accept.

    PS Nightowl–the female version of Will Smith was Halle Berry. I don’t know how she is perceived now since the baby as I can’t think of a movie she has done since then.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/unknown108/ unknown108

    Whether of African descent or Greek this still raises the issue of white washing in Hollywood. Maybe the day will come when there is enough black owned studios with enough power to produce historically accurate movies. I think it is a major insult to cast whites as black characters and anyone who does not is probably a sellout. Whites have dominated every aspect of history by teaching the idea that every relavant character in history is white, that every great human advancement comes from white people, and the white culture created every civilized aspect of mordern day man. This has to stop and it will start with my wallet. I will not see this movie or any other form Angelia or maybe even the movie studio itself. I am tired of whitewashed history, just look up CESARE BORGIA and see what I mean.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/courtneyR/ courtneyR

    You are right about that easy_one65.but its always been this way in hollywood and everywhere else.Do you think that the fact that we are looked down upon ,cant come together,cant respect,uplift one another,take care of our families,not all of course,the fact that the males dont uplift themselves and their women and children have anything to do with why so many capable blacks are not getting their just do?

    of course we fought in wars,buffalo soldiers,of course we doctors throughout history,inventors,leaders,wives,husbands,etc

    qoute…Hollywood is notorious for excluding Black men and women from quality, prominent leading roles involving actual historical Black figures. This leaves the viewer with the same stereotypical impressions of Black people within the movie’s content.

    yes of course.but we dont support it either..we dont support each other,protect one another,push each other…So why would they or anyone else for that matter.? We have to fix this problem in the inner cities,the family structure,men have to lead their communities again etc only then can no one do as they please when concerning the stories that relate to our history…

    It has to be fix other wise,this and other things are never going to change..We have to start respecting ourselves and our behaviors towards one another..Because believe it or not,its all intertwined.And if anyone thinks that this destructive behavior that we are seeing from the lower level isnt hurting the black men and women trying to climb to the top,we are sadly mistaking..You have to have the power first as a collective,respectable power,then you can change the lies..

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/So_Gone02/ So_Gone02

    People still eat it

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/MisterUnderstood425/ MisterUnderstood425

    I wonder why anyone is surprised at this particular casting simply because of the history of Hollywood and even America and their NOTORIOUS white washing of history.
    It’s honestly about time we woke up on this because Arizona and Texas have already succeeded in eliminating ethnic influences on history in textbooks and school classes.
    The fact that we are still sitting back letting this happen just gives them further justification for their actions. I honestly wouldn’t pay money to see the movie and would boycott the movie or Hollywood in general if I thought it would help, but knowing the general populace, the cause would be ignored and I would be considered “stuck in the past” and not willing to “let go” of past injustices. The only problem with injustices, if they aren’t stopped or rectified then there’s no reason to let them go.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/BigEDub101/ BigEDub101

    She wasnt all black but they been doing this n hollywood for a while. “The Last SAMURAI” a white guy and look how every1 ate it up. Still havent seen it either

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/n0gar/ n0gar

    I have read different things about this Cleo. They often described her as “the last NATIVE Egyptian ruler.” This suggests that she had to have had a decent degree of African activity in her, Greek or not. The Greeks and Romans were mixing with the Egyptians and their offspring leave no doubt that ancient Egyptians were indeed black!

    Maybe Spike Lee or someone should make a film about black Egypt or the Moors in Spain from the Moorish perspective? I kept hearing about Will Smith wanting to do a Nubian Dynasty film but that seems to be going no where. Maybe “they” do not want someone with his draw to do something that breaks away from the norm.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/ladijgal/ ladijgal

    Yes, but seems there nothing we can do about it since we can’t even get together to support real issues. We don’t value our history so why should they?

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/shadowman172005/ shadowman172005

    i’m not been negative, i’m only telling the truth even if you don’t want to hear it..yes its 2010, so what…if things has changed that much. we wouldn’t be talking about this..thats my point

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/angeliqueci/ angeliqueci

    what happened to the warriors? i for one will never give up on fighting and writing about BLACK WOMEN’S actual place in history. our solution to Arizonia and Texas is to write our own history books and NOT ASK PERMISSION to teach the truth. i for one am happy that we are being forced to take up the battle again. going to work and school after 1968 gave us small gains that are being whittled away while we watch. i am not watching i am doing what about ya’ll. i say we organize national boycotts of racist HOLLYWOOD and show our children our economic power.

  • http://www.blackplanet.com/Schelby/ Schelby

    Start you’re own production company and you can make you’re own version Cleopatra. Otherwise, those with the money and the access to the medium will create history any way they want. They always have and always will. No use crying about it.

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