Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies.
— William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra

The expression “Get woke, go broke” increased in cachet value this year when both Anheuser-Busch and Target ignored it to promote transgenderism and took heavy losses. A third corporation, Netflix, may suffer even greater damage, but not just from a conservative boycott like the other two. Its historical docudrama Queen Cleopatra — featuring black British actress Adele James as the infamous Egyptian monarchess — had already endured several blows. Last May, the show got the lowest audience score in Netflix history on Rotten Tomatoes with 1 percent, and a bottom-dwelling critics’ score of 13 percent. Which meant even liberal viewers and reviewers disdained the show. Now, a team of Egyptian lawyers and archaeologists intend to sue Netflix for $2 billion for “distorting the ‘Egyptian identity.’” (RELATED: This Bud’s Definitely Not for You)

Netflix ran the miniseries despite a warning statement by the Egyptian Council of Antiquities affirming Cleopatra’s race as white. “The Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities confirms that Queen Cleopatra had light skin and Hellenistic (Greek) features,” read the statement. The secretary general, Mostafa Waziri, personally blasted the production, adding, “The appearance of the heroine is a falsification of Egyptian history and a blatant historical fallacy.” By ignoring the concern of native officials dedicated to preserving and promoting their rich ancient heritage, Netflix created not only an entertainment bomb but an international one that now threatens to blow up in its face.

The Netflix team corrupted the oldest slogan of show business — “the show must go on” — into a new variation: The woke show must go on. What necessitated the presentation of such an insulting product — artistic integrity? As Jerry Seinfeld told George Costanza in a classic episode of Seinfeld where George cited that reason, “You’re not artistic — and you have no integrity!” If the program were any good, the artistic angle might be valid. But it is laughably bad. Queen Cleopatra represents the perfect storm of everything that is wrong with Hollywoke, beginning with its executive producer — Jada Pinkett Smith.

When we last left Pinkett Smith, her actor-husband Will Smith was wrecking his already downbound career by slapping Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscar ceremony in her “defense.” Pinkett Smith had previously humiliated Smith by discussing her extramarital affair in public right in front of him. Neither “achievement” would seem to merit getting millions of Netflix dollars to produce a Cleopatra docudrama. Maybe Pinkett Smith’s luminous screen career prompted the decision. Yet supporting roles in Angel Has Fallen, Bad Moms, Magic Mike XXL, and other mediocrities also appear insufficient. The final possibility could be the starlet’s fascination with, or scholarship in, Egyptology, especially the Ptolemaic dynasty. But no treatises or pertinent speeches by her exist. Let’s just go with her being a black female celebrity as the deal clincher.

Then again, perhaps even absent a background in the subject, Pinkett Smith and her team managed to showcase something noteworthy, worth a potential war with Egypt. Sadly, the end result is only slightly less ludicrous than Steve Martin’s musical homage to King Tutankhamun on Saturday Night Live. Queen Cleopatra doesn’t just go off the rails. It never got on the rails, primarily — though far from entirely — due to casting.

My major problem with title actress Adele James has less to do with her race than with her lack of pulchritude. I could appreciate a black ahistorical Cleopatra, but not a plain one (call me sexist but not racist). There are plenty of great roles for nonbeautiful actresses; Cleopatra ain’t one of them. She doesn’t have to look like Elizabeth Taylor (Cleopatra, 1963) or Rhonda Fleming (Serpent of the Nile, 1953). But the real woman’s sex appeal changed the course of history, temporarily dividing the Roman Empire, and inspired centuries of artwork, like Carlo Maratta’s gorgeous Cleopatra (1695). Hence a touch of classical beauty for a classical beauty is called for. But that’s a call Hollywoke will never answer. It will make itself look ridiculous first in pursuit of feminist fantasy, which Queen Cleopatra wallows in well into hilarity.

The opening montage seems like a spoof, with Cleo running around the desert, sword-fighting, overseeing military plans, and doing everything but look pretty, while Pinkett Smith’s pompous narration spikes the humor:

There was a time long ago when women ruled with unparalleled power [Howdy Doody Time?], as warriors, queens, mothers of nations [not one woman ever ruled as a warrior]. They bowed to no man [yes, they did], their actions echoing unapologetically throughout history. [What the hell does that mean — other than horrible writing?] And there was none among them more iconic than Cleopatra. [Iconic? I don’t think that word means what she thinks it means.] Vixen or strategist, collaborator or maverick [maverick?], her legend has been retold for millennia [yet never this poorly]. But few know the real woman — her truth [gag].…  Cleopatra walked through the sandstorms of history and left footprints so deep that no man could ever erase them. [But sandstorms could. I think the writer meant the sands of history.]

Throughout the show, credentialed scholars — most of them women, all minorities — remark on the events being depicted. The commentary of one of them, combined with the action that follows, made me laugh out loud. It’s when Cleopatra meets Julius Caesar (John Partridge): “Julius Caesar, used to running the affairs of Rome, meets Cleopatra,” the scholar says. “And it’s truly a meeting of two great minds.” Then, in the very next scene, Cleopatra is pregnant. That’s funnier than any feminist comedienne.