{"id":25331,"date":"2012-09-13T04:16:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-13T04:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=25331"},"modified":"2012-09-13T04:17:05","modified_gmt":"2012-09-13T04:17:05","slug":"stir-builds-over-actress-to-portray-nina-simone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=25331","title":{"rendered":"Stir Builds Over Actress to Portray Nina Simone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stir Builds Over Actress to Portray Nina Simone<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2012-09-12<\/p>\n

Tanzina Vega<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the digital age Hollywood casting decisions leaked from behind closed doors can instantly become fodder for public debate. And when the decision involves race and celebrity, the debate can get very heated.<\/p>\n

The online media world has been abuzz with criticism for nearly a month now over the news \u2014 first reported by The Hollywood Reporter<\/em> \u2014 that the actress Zoe Saldana<\/a> would be cast as the singer Nina Simone<\/a> in the forthcoming film \u201cNina\u201d based on her life.<\/p>\n

Few have attacked Ms. Saldana for her virtues as an actress. Instead, much of the reaction has focused on whether Ms. Saldana was cast because she, unlike Simone, is light skinned and therefore a more palatable choice for the Hollywood film than a darker skinned actress.<\/p>\n

\u201cHollywood and the media have a tendency to whitewash and lightwash a lot of stories, particularly when black actresses are concerned,\u201d said Tiffani Jones, the founder of the blog Coffee Rhetoric<\/em>. Ms. Jones wrote a blog post titled \u201c(Mis)Casting Call: The Erasure of Nina Simone\u2019s Image.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Recently an online petition was circulated to protest the casting of the light-skinned actress Thandie Newton<\/a> in the film based on Ngozi Adichie\u2019s<\/a> novel \u201cHalf of a Yellow Sun<\/a>,\u201d which centers on the Nigerian Civil War (1967-70)<\/a>; there was some criticism of the casting of the biracial Jaqueline Fleming<\/a> as Harriet Tubman<\/a> in the film \u201cAbraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…Casting an actress who does not look like Simone is troubling, said Yaba Blay<\/a>, a scholar of African and diaspora studies and the author of a forthcoming book called \u201c(1)ne Drop: Conversations on Skin Color, Race, and Identity<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe power of her aesthetics was part of her power,\u201d Dr. Blay said. \u201cThis was a woman who prevailed and triumphed despite her aesthetic.\u201d Dark-skinned actresses, she added, are \u201calready erased from the media, especially in the role of the \u2018it girl\u2019 or the love interest.\u201d<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stir Builds Over Actress to Portray Nina Simone The New York Times 2012-09-12 Tanzina Vega In the digital age Hollywood casting decisions leaked from behind closed doors can instantly become fodder for public debate. And when the decision involves race and celebrity, the debate can get very heated. The online media world has been abuzz […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8413,6,20,25],"tags":[11838,11839,2640,11836,11835,2327,11837,7992,11840],"class_list":["post-25331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-communications","category-new-media","category-usa","category-women","tag-cynthia-mort","tag-jimmy-iovine","tag-new-york-times","tag-nina-simone","tag-tanzina-vega","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-tiffani-jones","tag-yaba-blay","tag-zoe-saldana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}