Denzel Washington as Hannibal Barca, Netflix faces backlash for ‘miscasting’ | Web Series
American actor and producer, Denzel Washington’s casting as the legendary ancient general Hannibal Barca in an upcoming Netflix project has been receiving extreme backlash from outraged Tunisians, who have accused it as an act of ‘miscasting’ and ‘falsifying history.’
The streaming giant endorsed the film release about, “the Carthaginian general who famously led an army of warriors and elephants across the Alps to fight the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War.”
Hannibal’s home region, Carthage is now a part of Tunisia, the northernmost state in Africa and is considered to be a part of the Arabic World.
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The ‘miscasting’ of Hannibal
As per the English translation of the French-language Tunisian new outlet, La Presse, the casting of a Black actor to play the legendary role of Hannibal is so to say, “problematic.”
“To consider Hannibal as a black African would be, according to Tunisians and many observers, a historical error, because Carthage, built by the Phoenicians in the current Tunisia, it is located just 200 kilometres southwest of Sicily,” said the article.
The news outlet summarized ancient history with author Mary Lefkowitz pointing out that Hannibal came from a family of Phoenician Semitic settlers, which was common in the region, additionally claiming that the representations of Hannibal in Carthaginian plays depict him as a White Semite man.
Therefore, the choice of Denzel to play Hannibal “raises profound questions about Afrocentrism, historical fidelity and the challenges of casting in the motion picture industry,” wrote the Tunisian outlet.
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Petition to cancel the project…
A petition on Change.org is demanding that the streaming giant cancel the upcoming project as “this miscasting and falsifying History is unacceptable and unethical.” It also asked for the Tunisian Ministry of Culture to “act against this attempt of stealing our history.”
Keep watching this space for updates on the same.
