Even before the start of the Netflix series “Queen Cleopatra”, the project was very controversial. Now the series is also being punished by critics and users.
Netflix is known for producing very attention-grabbing productions – both positively and negatively. Sometimes the hype surrounding a series comes as a surprise, such as with “Squid Game” or “Wednesday”. And sometimes, on the other hand, a certain amount of attention is foreseeable in advance because well-known stars are involved or the project is much discussed on social networks. In fact, both apply to “Queen Cleopatra”. The series has finally been available on Netflix since May 10th. Since then, however, bad reviews have been pouring in from all sides.
Discussion about “Queen Cleopatra”
Even before the start on the streaming platform, “Queen Cleopatra” attracted attention. The series, which includes Jada Pinkett-Smith, Craig Russell and Adele James, revolves around the well-known Egyptian ruler. Netflix labels the series as a documentary and thus claims a certain historical accuracy. And that became a point of contention early on.
With Adele James in the title role, the series has a black actress as Cleopatra. The occupation caused an outcry, especially in Egypt – the sphere of activity of Queen Cleopatra during her lifetime. The accusation of “blackwashing” is in the air, that is, to occupy an actually white person with a black one (as a counterpart to “whitewashing”). Among others, Zahi Hawass, the country’s former Minister for Antiquities and Egyptology, described the depiction as “completely distorted”. The ministry itself notes that Cleopatra was of Greek descent, emphasizing her fair complexion and Hellenistic features.
The director of “Queen Cleopatra”, Tina Gharavi, explained her decision in part by the fact that Cleopatra’s family had already lived in Egypt for 300 years when she was born. Accordingly, the probability that she was white is rather low, as Ghavri emphasized in a detailed statement to Variety.
Queen Cleopatra is the lowest rated Netflix series
To what extent this debate, which was sometimes heated in advance, will affect the ratings of the series cannot of course be said exactly. The fact is, however, that the reviews for “Queen Cleopatra” are scathing. At IMDb, the series currently has a rating of 1.0 out of 10 based on nearly 60,000 reviews (as of May 17, 2023). It doesn’t look any better on Rotten Tomatoes: Only one in 10 critics gave a positive rating and the so-called “audience score” is only 2 out of 100 percent. This means that on average only 2 viewers out of 100 rated the series with at least a 3.5/10.
According to the industry portal Insider, among others, this is the worst rating for a Netflix series of all time. The score may climb a little in the coming weeks when the excitement has subsided a bit. In the past, this could be observed in productions such as Amazon’s “Rings of Power” – even if, as can be read here, the cases are not entirely comparable.