Becoming Cleopatra: The Shifting Image of an Icon

by Francesca T. Royster

Cleopatra. Sexy, sultry, political, and racially ambiguous. Moving fluidly from Shakespeare's England to contemporary LA, Francesca Royster looks at the performance of race and sexuality in a wide range of portrayals of that icon of dangerous female sexuality, Cleopatra. Royster begins with Shakespeare's original appropriation of Plutarch, and then moves on to analyze performances of the Cleopatra icon by Josephine Baker, Elizabeth Taylor, Pam Grier (Cleopatra Jones) and Queen Latifah (in Set It Off ). Royster argues that Cleopatra highlights a larger cultural anxiety about women, sexuality, and race.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

271 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2003

Reviews

[lily 🪴]

look if you were doing this much reading you’d try to count it on goodreads too