re: Gal Gadot cast as Cleopatra, and people aren't happy about it

It does not. I've researched this and there is NO evidence she was...but there is only snippets of evidence she definitely wasn't.

Evidence cited against Cleopatra having black ancestry is that the Ptolemy family was quite xenophobic—against "outsiders" including the native Egyptians they ruled for about 300 years.

When Cleopatra was taken to Rome there is no mention of her skin color in the historical record and it would have been if she were black-African.

Her ancestral record is uknown...from her paternal mother and grandmother and that's the crux. That's what people cling onto - that her grandmother or mother could've been black-African. So the speculation comes from not knowing 50% of her ancestry apart from her father's side.

She spoke Egyptian is the only argument that she was part black...but that's taking the giant leap that Egyptians were black Africans of which most trustworthy and long-standing throughout history scholars...say no.

In fact the Egyptians had a sign at the base of the Nile on the border before entering Egypt that said "no black person may enter."

So even if Cleopatra was half-Egyptian that doesn't mean she was a part black African as defined in antiquity...

Now she might be "a person of color" with traces of a mix...sounds like Gadot somewhat fits that profile.