{"id":45956,"date":"2016-03-09T01:50:00","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=45956"},"modified":"2016-03-09T01:50:00","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T01:50:00","slug":"why-zoe-saldana-was-the-wrong-black-woman-to-play-nina-simone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=45956","title":{"rendered":"Why Zoe Saldana was the wrong black woman to play Nina Simone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/film\/nina\/simone-zoe-saldana-casting-light-skin\/\" target=\"_blank\">Why Zoe Saldana was the wrong black woman to play Nina Simone<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\" target=\"_blank\">The Telegraph<\/a><br \/>\n2016-03-04<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheDiasporaDiva\" target=\"_blank\">Emma Dabiri<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/film\/nina\/simone-zoe-saldana-casting-light-skin\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/content\/dam\/film\/ninazoe-xlarge.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>With her long silky hair and brown tan skin, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zoe_Saldana\" target=\"_blank\">Zoe Saldana<\/a> may well be black. But is she &#8220;black enough&#8221; to play <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nina_Simone\" target=\"_blank\">Nina Simone<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>Some people seem to think not. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/worldnews\/northamerica\/usa\/12182817\/Nina-Simone-estate-slams-Nina-star-Zoe-Saldana-for-blacking-up-to-play-the-singer.html\" target=\"_blank\">Ms Simone&#8217;s surviving family have asked Saldana<\/a>, who darkened her skin with make-up to star in the upcoming biopic <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0493076\" target=\"_blank\">Nina<\/a><\/em>, to &#8220;take [her] name out of your mouth for the rest of your life.&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/03\/04\/arts\/debating-zoe-saldana-nina-simone-and-the-spectrum-of-black-skin.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Many Americans agree<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/zoesaldana?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@zoesaldana<\/a> Cool story but please take Nina&#39;s name out your mouth. For the rest of your life.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Nina Simone (@NinaSimoneMusic) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NinaSimoneMusic\/status\/705202774154223617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 3, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>To some it may seem strange that a woman with parents from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Puerto_Rico\" target=\"_blank\">Puerto Rico<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dominican_Republic\" target=\"_blank\">Dominican Republic<\/a> \u2013 where 85 per cent of people have African ancestry \u2013 should be regarded as not being &#8220;black&#8221;. But to understand this, we need to consider the way race has been constructed by our society.<\/p>\n<p>As a mixed women with a white mother and black father, I should logically be regarded as &#8220;half-white&#8221; as often as I am &#8220;half-black&#8221;. Yet this doesn&#8217;t happen, because race is not logical. Instead, whiteness is a social construct which depends on a myth of racial purity and exclusivity, with no room for anyone with visibly African ancestry, no matter how light our skin. In the USA, this was typified by the &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=3208\" target=\"_blank\">one drop rule<\/a>&#8221; \u2013 a legal principle which decreed that anyone with a single African ancestor was &#8220;black&#8221; for the purposes of segregation. For many people, black is simply black.<\/p>\n<p>This can be a powerful concept: I identify as black, not mixed-race, precisely because it is an inclusive category which allows unity between a very wide range of people. But that plurality can also obscure things. I am always sensitive to the advantages I might have in comparison with darker skinned black women, because the truth is that there is a huge difference in how society treats us&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/film\/nina\/simone-zoe-saldana-casting-light-skin\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why Zoe Saldana was the wrong black woman to play Nina Simone The Telegraph 2016-03-04 Emma Dabiri With her long silky hair and brown tan skin, Zoe Saldana may well be black. But is she &#8220;black enough&#8221; to play Nina Simone? Some people seem to think not. Ms Simone&#8217;s surviving family have asked Saldana, who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,1196,8,20,25],"tags":[13842,23169,11836,7738,11840],"class_list":["post-45956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-emma-dabiri","tag-nina","tag-nina-simone","tag-the-telegraph","tag-zoe-saldana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45956","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=45956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45957,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45956\/revisions\/45957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}