Tina Gharavi, director of the Netflix movie “Queen Cleopatra,” spoke out in regards to the wave of backlash she skilled for casting Adele James, a black actress, within the main function.

Egyptians have been notably upset in regards to the depiction of Cleopatra as a Black girl, and commenters laced into Gharavi for not casting a caucasian to play the legendary function. “Whereas capturing, I turned the goal of an enormous on-line hate marketing campaign,” Gharavi stated. “Egyptians accused me of ‘blackwashing’ and ‘stealing’ their historical past,” she stated, in an article for Selection.

Gharavi was conscious of the uproar, however says she wasn’t fazed by it.

“Some threatened to damage my profession — which I needed to inform them was laughable,” she stated. “I used to be ruining it very nicely for myself, thanks very a lot!”

“No quantity of reasoning or reminders that Arab invasions had not but occurred in Cleopatra’s age appeared to stem the tide of ridiculous feedback,” she stated within the article. “Amir in his bed room in Cairo wrote to me to earnestly attraction that ‘Cleopatra was Greek!’ Oh, Lawd! Why would that be factor to you, Amir? You’re Egyptian.”

“So, was Cleopatra Black? We don’t know for certain, however we may be sure she wasn’t white like Elizabeth Taylor. We have to have a dialog with ourselves about our colorism, and the internalized white supremacy that Hollywood has indoctrinated us with,” Gharavi added within the Selection article. (RELATED: Large Tech Pledged Billions To ‘Racial Justice’ Amid BLM Protests. Now They’re Laying Off 1000’s)

“Cleopatra VII was white—of Macedonian descent, as have been the entire Ptolemy rulers, who lived in Egypt,” Kathryn Bard, professor of archaeology and classical research at Boston College, stated, Newsweek reported.