Welcome back!
My physical exam went very well, so I am back in the saddle here today, ready to go, ready to write about anything that comes to my mind.
And today I am going to write about …
Cleopatra?
Why not?
She was the Kate Upton of her day, the world’s most beautiful woman, able to captivate any man with her beauty … and her brains.
But let’s fast forward to the present time.
Today, we measure beauty by the celebrities that we see parading around in every type of dress and undress, and personalities like Upton are looked at approvingly by most of the male population, but many in the female population state that using her as a touch point for female beauty leads to body shaming and many young women feeling that they can never live up to such an image.
The same can be said about Gal Gadot, who made such an incredible splash as “Wonder Woman” a few years ago, such an incredible splash that even though she has made just a handful of films, she appears to be one of the most powerful women in Hollywood.
Just the other day, she announced that she and her Wonder Woman director, Patty Jenkins, would reteam for a new retelling of Cleopatra, but this time supposedly from the female viewpoint, whatever that means.
When I read this, I said to myself, “OK, an Israeli Jew playing Cleopatra … she is going to get hit about this,” and boy, was my assumption right on the money!
After this announcement was made, the backlash started.
But let’s look at the background of Cleopatra in the movies first, before we get into the current backlash.
The character of Cleopatra has been portrayed by many actresses over the years, including Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor, two beauties in their won period of Hollywood prominence that no one would argue about as far as their looks were concerned.
Both portrayals caused lots of controversy.
Colbert’s portrayal of the icon kind of skirted morals of the time it was put out—1934—as the character flirted with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, and there were a few risqué for the time scenes in the Academy Award nominated film to keep censors going overtime.
But the portrayal of Cleopatra by Taylor is the one that is held up against any other, for both on-screen and off-screen reasons.
Taylor was arguably the most beautiful woman in Hollywood at the time, and the 1963 film was completely built around her, accenting her beauty at every turn.
It also starred Richard Burton as Mark Antony, and the two firebrands—married to each other and divorced twice, and the doyens of the gossip columns during this period and throughout the rest of their lives—sparked on the screen, even though the film was over-budgeted and a critical failure even though it did garner a few Academy Award nominations.
But people then overlooked one thing about Taylor’s portrayal of Cleopatra, which ties into Gadot’s announcement of her portrayal.
One of Taylor’s marriages was to impresario Mike Todd. Todd was Jewish, and Taylor converted to Judaism to marry him. Through all of her subsequent weddings and affairs, she never renounced her Judaism, so when she portrayed the Egyptian icon, she was a Jew portraying an Arab.
So now Gadot is preparing to do the same thing, and in the current world of social media, she was raked over the coals by some for even thinking of doing so—and she is not only Jewish, but Israeli yet, so her upcoming portrayal is considered almost blasphemy by some.
They liken it to past portrayals, where whites played American Indians, where whites played Mexicans, where whites portrayed Charlie Chan and other characters that led to racial stereotypes.
How can a Jew play an Arab, and an Israeli Jew at that, they ask.
The background of Cleopatra comes into question, In recent years, many blacks have claimed her to be one of their own, a dark skinned woman who was the standard for beauty and power way back when.
But in fact, it has come up in recent years that Cleopatra was Greek, which acco0unts for her darker features, which were not African in nature, but they were what we would call today “swarthy.”
Yes, Cleopatra was “Queen of the Nile,” but evidently, even if she was a full Arab, which she wasn’t, Egyptians are often unfairly characterized as “Arab,” which they technically aren’t—they are North African, and yes, Israelis are also North Africans, so Gadot would fall in line with that thinking.
Other who lambasted Gadot for even thinking about playing Cleopatra also got into anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli rants which I am not going to get into here, but let’s bring this out into the open for the current time.
Yes, Hollywood did often use non-blacks, non-American Indians, and non-Asians to portray characters who were part of those groups.
But the tide has turned in our modern times, where any actor and actress can portray whoever they want to portray as long as it is done in a positive way.
The biggest show on Broadway for the past few years has been “Hamilton,” a play about Alexander Hamilton. The creator of the musical is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who portrays Hamilton.
Hamilton, who was white, is portrayed by Miranda, a Puerto Rican. Nary a whimper was heard about this since the play premiered. Few if any people have raked Miranda over the coals for his portrayal of a white man played by a Hispanic.
Yes, I know, Alexander Hamilton is not the icon that Cleopatra is, but still, there are people who are looking at Gadot’s upcoming portrayal as the end of the world, and giant step backward for mankind.
Stop already. This is nonsense.
Heck, you just have to turn on TV to see such ersatz portrayals right in front of your eyes. For instance, you have “The Goldbergs” TV show, where an obviously Jewish family—even though they hesitated in making that clear during the early seasons of the show—is portrayed by mainly non-Jewish actors—one with the last name of “Gentile” yet!
No uproar, no calamity, no harm, no foul.
If you are incensed by this latest announcement, I would suggest that you read up on Cleopatra, find out that she was actually Greek, and that due to a mix of her looks—which some even say wasn’t what they have been portrayed to be by modern society—and mainly her brain, she became not only the most famous woman during her time, but also the most powerful.
So, what’s the big brouhaha over Gadot’s upcoming portrayal, other than complete ignorance about who Cleopatra actually was?
If Miranda can do his thing, Gadot can do hers.
The end of this nonsense. Let’s move on to other more important things to get riled up about.
My physical exam went very well, so I am back in the saddle here today, ready to go, ready to write about anything that comes to my mind.
And today I am going to write about …
Cleopatra?
Why not?
She was the Kate Upton of her day, the world’s most beautiful woman, able to captivate any man with her beauty … and her brains.
But let’s fast forward to the present time.
Today, we measure beauty by the celebrities that we see parading around in every type of dress and undress, and personalities like Upton are looked at approvingly by most of the male population, but many in the female population state that using her as a touch point for female beauty leads to body shaming and many young women feeling that they can never live up to such an image.
The same can be said about Gal Gadot, who made such an incredible splash as “Wonder Woman” a few years ago, such an incredible splash that even though she has made just a handful of films, she appears to be one of the most powerful women in Hollywood.
Just the other day, she announced that she and her Wonder Woman director, Patty Jenkins, would reteam for a new retelling of Cleopatra, but this time supposedly from the female viewpoint, whatever that means.
When I read this, I said to myself, “OK, an Israeli Jew playing Cleopatra … she is going to get hit about this,” and boy, was my assumption right on the money!
After this announcement was made, the backlash started.
But let’s look at the background of Cleopatra in the movies first, before we get into the current backlash.
The character of Cleopatra has been portrayed by many actresses over the years, including Claudette Colbert and Elizabeth Taylor, two beauties in their won period of Hollywood prominence that no one would argue about as far as their looks were concerned.
Both portrayals caused lots of controversy.
Colbert’s portrayal of the icon kind of skirted morals of the time it was put out—1934—as the character flirted with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, and there were a few risqué for the time scenes in the Academy Award nominated film to keep censors going overtime.
But the portrayal of Cleopatra by Taylor is the one that is held up against any other, for both on-screen and off-screen reasons.
Taylor was arguably the most beautiful woman in Hollywood at the time, and the 1963 film was completely built around her, accenting her beauty at every turn.
It also starred Richard Burton as Mark Antony, and the two firebrands—married to each other and divorced twice, and the doyens of the gossip columns during this period and throughout the rest of their lives—sparked on the screen, even though the film was over-budgeted and a critical failure even though it did garner a few Academy Award nominations.
But people then overlooked one thing about Taylor’s portrayal of Cleopatra, which ties into Gadot’s announcement of her portrayal.
One of Taylor’s marriages was to impresario Mike Todd. Todd was Jewish, and Taylor converted to Judaism to marry him. Through all of her subsequent weddings and affairs, she never renounced her Judaism, so when she portrayed the Egyptian icon, she was a Jew portraying an Arab.
So now Gadot is preparing to do the same thing, and in the current world of social media, she was raked over the coals by some for even thinking of doing so—and she is not only Jewish, but Israeli yet, so her upcoming portrayal is considered almost blasphemy by some.
They liken it to past portrayals, where whites played American Indians, where whites played Mexicans, where whites portrayed Charlie Chan and other characters that led to racial stereotypes.
How can a Jew play an Arab, and an Israeli Jew at that, they ask.
The background of Cleopatra comes into question, In recent years, many blacks have claimed her to be one of their own, a dark skinned woman who was the standard for beauty and power way back when.
But in fact, it has come up in recent years that Cleopatra was Greek, which acco0unts for her darker features, which were not African in nature, but they were what we would call today “swarthy.”
Yes, Cleopatra was “Queen of the Nile,” but evidently, even if she was a full Arab, which she wasn’t, Egyptians are often unfairly characterized as “Arab,” which they technically aren’t—they are North African, and yes, Israelis are also North Africans, so Gadot would fall in line with that thinking.
Other who lambasted Gadot for even thinking about playing Cleopatra also got into anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli rants which I am not going to get into here, but let’s bring this out into the open for the current time.
Yes, Hollywood did often use non-blacks, non-American Indians, and non-Asians to portray characters who were part of those groups.
But the tide has turned in our modern times, where any actor and actress can portray whoever they want to portray as long as it is done in a positive way.
The biggest show on Broadway for the past few years has been “Hamilton,” a play about Alexander Hamilton. The creator of the musical is Lin-Manuel Miranda, who portrays Hamilton.
Hamilton, who was white, is portrayed by Miranda, a Puerto Rican. Nary a whimper was heard about this since the play premiered. Few if any people have raked Miranda over the coals for his portrayal of a white man played by a Hispanic.
Yes, I know, Alexander Hamilton is not the icon that Cleopatra is, but still, there are people who are looking at Gadot’s upcoming portrayal as the end of the world, and giant step backward for mankind.
Stop already. This is nonsense.
Heck, you just have to turn on TV to see such ersatz portrayals right in front of your eyes. For instance, you have “The Goldbergs” TV show, where an obviously Jewish family—even though they hesitated in making that clear during the early seasons of the show—is portrayed by mainly non-Jewish actors—one with the last name of “Gentile” yet!
No uproar, no calamity, no harm, no foul.
If you are incensed by this latest announcement, I would suggest that you read up on Cleopatra, find out that she was actually Greek, and that due to a mix of her looks—which some even say wasn’t what they have been portrayed to be by modern society—and mainly her brain, she became not only the most famous woman during her time, but also the most powerful.
So, what’s the big brouhaha over Gadot’s upcoming portrayal, other than complete ignorance about who Cleopatra actually was?
If Miranda can do his thing, Gadot can do hers.
The end of this nonsense. Let’s move on to other more important things to get riled up about.
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