Gal Gadot as Cleopatra. Thoughts?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there are a few issues with this outrage. One, the majority of Egyptians aren’t Arabs, they’re North African. Two, Gal Gadot is not bland looking, by any standard. Not that it should matter because Cleopatra wasn’t the great beauty we all picture her to be. Disregarding the fact that beauty standards were something entirely different in 40 BC, it was said to be Cleopatra’s political acumen and personality that won her praise, not her looks.

Which brings us to point number three. One of the reasons Cleopatra was so revered is that she was the first (and only, as she was also the last) Ptolemaic ruler to learn the Egyptian language. She had to learn that language because — here’s the big one — she wasn’t Egyptian, she was Greek.

Now, true, Cleopatra’s Greek ancestry doesn’t actually excuse the casting of Gadot. In fact, there is some debate on whether her mother was of a different race, and if the queen did in fact have African features. Others have brought up the idea that tapping a former member of the Israeli Defense Force to play a Hellenistic ruler of Egypt could come off as insensitive, at best. Whatever side you’re on, it would seem prudent to look into the complex histories involved before jumping to conclusions.