Why Calling The Casting Of Gal Gadot As Cleopatra 'Whitewashing' Is Just Ignorant

In my newsfeed yesterday was a story about actress Gal Gadot being cast as the legendary Egyptian ruler Cleopatra, It appears that some people took offence to the casting calling it 'whitewashing', a term used when a Caucasian is hired to play character, or in this case historical figure of a different ethnicity. 

On it's face this sounded down right stupid because Gadot is an Israeli. This means that the actress is of middle eastern lineage and isn't technically white.

If you also take into account that Egypt and Israel are adjacent to each other geographically so the casting makes sense.

Besides, who could possibly make a more beautiful Cleopatra than Gal Gadot?

The argument to the contrary is that the role should go to a Arab or African actress.

Here is an except from a BBC article:

  Writer on Africa, James Hall, said he thought the filmmakers should find an African actress, of any race. 

 US writer Morgan Jerkins tweeted that Cleopatra should be played by someone "darker than a brown paper bag" as that would be more "historically accurate".

"Gal Gadot is a wonderful actress, but there is an entire pool of North African Actresses to pick from. Stop whitewashing my history!"

These statements sound incredibly ignorant when you do a two second internet search and discover that the scholars state that Cleopatra was (cue the music):

Greek

 Scholars identify Cleopatra as essentially of Greek ancestry with some Persian and Syrian ancestry, based on the fact that her Macedonian Greek family (the Ptolemaic dynasty) had intermingled with the Seleucid aristocracy of the time.

So it seems that maybe the casting of Gadot as Cleopatra may not be white enough. I think people need to stop reacting with emotion, searching for bigotry and racism is every little thing, and start tempering things according to facts.

Check Out:

The New Wonder Woman Trailer Is Here ... And The Batman