The whole article is a nice strawman. There’s a difference between nuclear families and the broken families resulting from the democratization of divorce, out-of-wedlock pregnancies and runaway fathers. If anything the author should be advocating for more nuclear family. But good luck saying that legalizing divorce was a mistake.
There’s also the fallacy that family is a fundamentally good idea, where in fact it’s only as good as its members are. I’d say about half the people out there would be repulsed by the idea of “bringing back the big tables.”
as many believe an Arab or dark-skinned actor would have been a better fit for the role.
WTF? Have any of these people ever met an Egyptian? Many of them look pretty much like … uh, Gal Gadot. At least in terms of skin tone. The upper classes tend to be “whiter”, and I suspect that’s been true for many thousands of years.
I’m guessing the problem here is the fact that she’s Israeli.
I’d buy the criticism of it being a bit looksist. Cleopatra was not physically attractive. Later coins showed her real appearance in order to deter pretenders
It seems more likely to me that her portrait-painters were just not very good artists, or at least not good at realistic portrayals. The article you linked to doesn’t make a particularly strong case that she was plain and ordinary.
As far as Gal Gadot is concerned, I reckon the Egyptians still haven’t forgotten 1967. I suppose it’s a bit like an American actor portraying Claus von Stauffenberg.
