Gal Gadot's Cleopatra Biopic Is Missing Intersectionality
A very simple question: Was Cleopatra an Egyptian ruler?
Gal Gadot
A very simple question: Was Cleopatra an Egyptian ruler?
If you didn't know, the answer is yes. Do we, as a global consumer society, have access to internationally-acclaimed Egyptian actors who could potentially play the role of Cleopatra? That answer is also yes. So, could Patty Jenkins, the director of an upcoming Cleopatra biopic, have picked an Egyptian actor to portray one of the most iconic Egyptian rulers in the country's history? Say it with me: Yes.
In light of Wonder Woman's Gal Gadot being announced to play the historic Egyptian queen, Twitter has been in an uproar. As an Egyptian American, I feel like it's helpful to acknowledge simple history before we get too carried away breaking down each other's 23andMe scores. Many feel that picking an Egyptian, or even North African, actor to portray Cleopatra would have been more faithful to her cultural heritage.
The debate gets even dicier as defenders of Gadot's casting have been all too eager to point out that Cleopatra herself was of Greek descent, and therefore the role is up for grabs for any Greek-passing actor. Probably the most infuriating, gaslighting tweet is from the writer of the untitled film, Laeta Kalogridis, who undercut Cleopatra's Egyptianness entirely by calling her the "the most famous Macedonian Greek woman in history." Pardon my language, Kalogridis, but kindly f*ck off. Why don't you wait until you've written the movie before you try to rob Egypt of its history?
What are we even debating?
First, race-matching doesn't work here. As NYU historian Arash Azizi puts it: "The fact that neither [Cleopatra's or Gadot's] background can be easily distilled shows why it's wrong to insist that artists fit rigid identity boxes to qualify for a role." So if you fell down this Twitter rabbithole of people pointing fingers about who's more qualified to portray whom, then you might not make it out the other side.
So let's keep it simple: Gal Gadot is of Middle Eastern descent. As white-passing as she is, her DNA isn't up for debate. So if you want to say casting her as a Middle Eastern leader is culturally appropriate, fine. But apparently, hiring an Egyptian actor was never an option for the project in the first place, since the idea reportedly came from Gadot herself. So the reason people are upset that a darker-skinned actor wasn't chosen to play Cleopatra has nothing to do with historical accuracy and more to do with North Africans not seeing ourselves in films about our own history. When Americans think of Cleopatra, they may think of Elizabeth Taylor, but when I think of Cleopatra, I think of an Egyptian.
What worries me about this Cleopatra biopic is what it has in common with every single other Cleopatra biopic: an entirely white creative team. Jenkins herself is no slouch; she reached international acclaim for her 2003 Academy-award-winning film, Monster, starring Charlize Theron and Christina Ricci. When she was tapped to direct the first Wonder Woman film in the DC Extended Universe in 2017, she made arguably the best-received blockbuster of that summer. In addition to its critical success, Wonder Woman brought in over $800 million against a reported $120 million budget. This was in no small part to Gal Gadot's fan favorite performance as the Amazonian Princess, reprising her role from the critically disastrous, albeit financially successful, Batman v Superman film in 2016.
Jenkins and Gadot were regarded as an unstoppable duo, successfully shattering a cinematic glass-ceiling that seemingly existed purely out of patriarchal ignorance. Together they proved that not only was there room in Hollywood for a summer blockbuster with a leading woman – there was a craving for it. So after the inevitable Wonder Woman sequel wrapped in 2018, Jenkins and co. set their sights on… a Cleopatra biopic?
This film is less about telling an authentic story of Cleopatra and more a vehicle for Gadot and Jenkins to flex their filmmaking might. This is made all too clear by Gadot's tweet regarding the film: "To tell [Cleopatra's] story for the first time through women's eyes, both behind and in front of the camera." Nowhere in that statement does she mention an interest in honoring or elevating the history and culture of Egypt – which, personally, I find more important than simply telling the story of Cleopatra "through women's eyes." By that, I mean it matters which women's eyes.
America (and the West at large) has a duplicitous habit of producing Euro-centric depictions of the Middle East whereby white people are portrayed as the main arbiters of influence. I appreciated writer Hannah Flint's succinct take: "From The Ten Commandments to… nearly every movie in The Mummy franchise… North Africans are either sidelined, underwritten, negatively portrayed or erased to centre white characters and – especially – to champion white saviors."
This is harmful representation for all Middle Easterners – and that includes Gal Gadot. It indirectly asserts that white people are the ones who are important to Middle Eastern history, and we, as darker-skinned descendants of the people of that time, are less important.
To be clear, when you look at Hollywood's track record for depicting Cleopatra in particular, it's very clear she deserves to be portrayed in a story outside the licentious bounds of the male gaze. On the whole, Patty Jenkins and Gal Gadot make an incredibly capable and invigorating team; they are without a doubt the future of big-budget Hollywood hit-makers.
But when it comes to depicting Middle Eastern history that has long been marred and exploited through a western lens, intersectionality – not just feminism – is needed to give our stories the dignity and respect they deserve. If the only thing Patty Jenkins, Laeta Kalogridis, and Gal Gadot are attempting to do with this film is not to depict Cleopatra from a male gaze, I don't feel that's enough to sincerely do justice to my country's history.
But when it comes to depicting Middle Eastern history that has long been marred and exploited through a western lens, intersectionality – not just feminism – is needed to give our stories the dignity and respect they deserve. If the only thing Patty Jenkins, Laeta Kalogridis, and Gal Gadot are attempting to do with this film is not to depict Cleopatra from a male gaze, I don't feel that's enough to sincerely do justice to my country's history.
