African Queens is a 2023 docudrama series focusing on female monarchs, airing on the streaming service Netflix. The series is produced and narrated by Jada Pinkett Smith and features dramatized fictional re-enactments as well as interviews with experts. The first season covers Njinga, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, and is directed by Ethosheia Hylton. The second season focuses on Queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, Pharaoh Cleopatra VII Philopator, and is directed by Tina Gharavi.
Summary
The docu-drama series combines dramatic recreations with interviews with historians and people from the modern-day regions that the Queen ruled over. Producer Jada Pinkett Smith cited a lack of stories covering Black queens as her inspiration for helming the series. She said: "We don't often get to see or hear stories about Black queens, and that was really important for me, as well as for my daughter, and just for my community to be able to know those stories because there are tons of them."
For the first season, the life of Njinga, Queen of Ndongo and Matamba, is explored. Interviewees include Kellie Carter Jackson, Wellesley College associate professor in the Department of Africana Studies; Diambi Kabatusuila, the present-day traditional Queen of the Bakwa Luntu people in Central Kasaï; and Rosa Cruz e Silva, the former director of the National Archives of Angola.
The second season explores the reign of Cleopatra, queen of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. Postdoctorate Black feminist and Classicist Professor Shelley P. Haley was interviewed for the second season.
Cast
African Queens: Njinga (2023) Adesuwa Oni as Queen Nzinga Eshe Asante as Ndambi Marilyn Nnadebe as Funji Chipo Kureya as Kambu Philips Nortey as King Mbande
Queen Cleopatra (2023) Adele James as Cleopatra Craig Russell as Mark Antony John Partridge as Julius Ceasar James Marlowe as Octavian Andira Crichlow as Arsinoe
Episodes
Season overview
African Queens: Njinga
Queen Cleopatra
Release
The first season premiered on February 15, 2023. The second season premiered on May 10, 2023. With the release of each season, all episodes were released simultaneously on Netflix.
Reception
African Queens: Njinga
Metacritic assigned African Queens: Njinga a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Ellen E. Jones of The Guardian was critical of the first series, awarding it 2 out of 5 stars, saying that "This tale of a 17th-century African female ruler features impressive academics, but they're drowned out by poor-quality dramatic sequences. It lacks context, analysis or personality." Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter was also critical, saying that the format limited the ability to go deeply into the subject. Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times, however, praised the first series and gave it three out of four stars, saying while the "jazzy score and sometimes melodramatic dialogue occasionally [interrupts] the moment[, the show] keeps us involved and heats up the often violence-soaked drama in subsequent episodes". Luke Peppa of the Financial Times exclaims that, as in Njinga, with greater exposure to stories featuring African histories and myths, one might "even be inspired to create their own Africa-centric stories, [having a] wealth of stories that are yet to be told."
Queen Cleopatra
The website's critics' consensus reads, "Queen Cleopatra may posit some fresh speculation about the ubiquitous monarch, but its glossy presentation errs more towards a superficial toga party than a substantive endeavor." Metacritic assigned Queen Cleopatra a weighted average score of 45 out of 100, based on 5 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Anita Singh of The Daily Telegraph gave it 2 out of 5 stars, saying, "It's too soapy for serious history fans, and not enough of a soap for viewers who like juicy historical dramas." The Indian Express writer Rohan Naahar says that "you don't quite get an idea of who Cleopatra was as a person[...] She's projected, funnily enough, as a Beyonce-like figure." Naahar criticized the production design of the show, saying that Queen Cleopatra "[didn't] feature a single archive photograph of the palaces in which she lived, or of her many sculptures, or even paintings of her most famous conquests — both geographical and romantic."
Controversy
Cleopatra was played by Adele James in the second season's dramatic reenactment scenes. James is an actress of mixed Jamaican and English ancestry, which caused controversy over the depiction of Cleopatra's race.