um...say again?

While mindlessly browsing the internet a few days ago, I came across this gem of an article:

http://marquee.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/17/backlash-over-angelina-jolie-as-cleopatra/

Read it. It's short. And please don't read the comments to it, you may rot your brain.

First, before I say anything about this article, I will say that I am in no way, shape, or form intolerant of other races or anything along those lines. I think that the 20th century movies depicting colored lead-woman roles with white women painted to be dark-skinned is a past absurdity that shouldn't be repeated. And I really hope that we as a nation have moved past the entire aura surrounding the "need" to do such a ridiculous thing.

Back to the article. There are two things to address here. First of all, the author of the article is an idiot. Second, the general public "outraged" by the selection of Jolie as Cleopatra are idiots.

We are now reaping the benefits of a society playing spades during middle and high school basic history.

This is an article hosted by CNN.

It seems the author and the general public, and most of the "intelligent" persons who commented on the article opened their mouths before they even did a lick of research (a common thing nowadays). What boggles my mind is why would a reporter/journalist publish something that they apparently know nothing about? Oh right, this is American media.

So the knee jerk reaction is to jump on the PC bandwagon and accuse everyone of being racist. Please people, don't always rush to conclusions and assume that this is the case. When will we move past this?

Just to clarify here...Cleopatra was a Ptolemy, of European decent. More specifically, Macedonian. She was not African. She didn't even speak Egyptian. Her culture was more centered on Greek ideology than the centuries of solely Egyptian before her dynasty. Greece and Egypt were side by side, intertwined culturally all through this time. Therefore it does not require a huge amount of thinking to come to the conclusion that Cleopatra was not black. Or African. Or even truly Egyption for that matter.

And therefore, Angelina Jolie is not an ethnically absurd choice for the role of this pharaoh. Actually, I think she fits the role quite well. If I knew nothing about her and had to guess her heritage, I would honestly probably say Greek, based on looks alone. She seems as though she can pull off a Mediterranean "look" quite well for the movie. I dunno though, I might be racist for saying such a thing.