It’s the biggest failure in Netflix history. And for once, critics and the public agree

news culture It’s the biggest failure in Netflix history. And for once, critics and the public agree

The Cleopatra Controversy

Netflix is ​​on all fronts. Especially series and films, but also successful documentaries: the streaming platform produces masses of popular content across genres and formats. The giant recently made headlines with a new docu-fiction production dedicated to Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and legendary figure of antiquity.

This new series has caused controversy since it was announced. With good reason: Adele James, who lends her features to the Queen, is a black actress. From then on, several people protested against this choice of cast and accused the platform and the director Tina Gharavi of revisionism and “black washing“.

Even the Egyptian government got involved in the affair. As explained The world Late last month, the Ministry of Antiquities released a lengthy statement to relay the opinion of experts, who unanimously stated: “Cleopatra had white skin and Hellenistic features

At Facebooksaid the patron of Egyptian antiquities that this depiction of Cleopatra is a “falsification of Egyptian history“but added that his statement is only motivated by”Defending the story of Queen Cleopatra, which is an important part of ancient Egyptian history regardless of racial aspects“.

series Queen Cleopatra made a lot of noise during the month. And if this staging had succeeded in convincing the viewers, they might have been able to make them forget this story. Unfortunately, this is far from the case.

Netflix’s biggest critical mistake

Since its release on May 10th Queen Cleopatra collects disastrous opinions from all sides. The production also gets a very sad title, that of Worst Netflix Show Ever. RottenTomatoes has viewer ratings no higher than 3%. It is possible that this result is due to the controversy that the program was a victim of Check the bomb plot. Only that the ratings with a value of 20% are not really cheaper.

The series is accused of a lot of superficiality, a view that would have been interesting if it didn’t lack consistency. Despite everything, Netflix never once doubted the project, which is based on “reconstructions and appraisals“.

Shortly after the series’ release, Egyptian national broadcaster Al Wathaeqya announced the start of building its own series about Cleopatra, which “as faithful as possible“.