Nina Starring Zoe Saldana

This is so incredibly wrong. No offense to Zoe Saldana, who I think is a very talented actress, but why was she, a light skinned actress of Dominican descent picked to play the legendary African American singer Nina Simone?!?! The fact that they had to darken her skin with makeup is disturbing and offensive to me. Blackface in any way, shape or form should not be happening in this day and age and should not be tolerated.

I'm sure there were many talented dark skinned African American actresses that they could have chosen to play this role.

This is just unacceptable to me and I will not support this film by seeing it.

View Trailer and read related article HERE

FYI: This is CarlosAlberto. I am using this account, which I created as a joke around the time of the Anthony Weiner scandal because I cannot log on to my account. Don't mean to mislead anyone.

Updated On: 3/3/16 at 01:19 PM

It was only a matter of time. I'll try to keep things pithy for once. African-American actors have portrayed brown and olive-skinned historical characters on screen before, e.g. Lou Gossett Jr. as the late Egyptian leader Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat in SADAT (1983). See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086229/ Zoe has been honest in both print and televised interviews about her early struggles getting cast as either Latina or American due to her complexion and name. She's never been the go-to gal for English or Spanish-speaking Latina roles and landing any role that even obliquely reads African-American has not been without controversy, e.g. Nyota Uhura of Star Trek fame. I'm looking forward to seeing the biopic.

Updated On: 3/3/16 at 02:36 PM

There have been many Afro Cubans, Mulattos, Dark Skinned Puerto Ricans, etc that have played African American roles. Irene Cara (Puerto Rican) and Laz Alonso (Cuban) are just two that come to mind but that's not the issue.

The issue is that she had to don black face.

Updated On: 3/3/16 at 03:38 PM

Soooooooooooo pissed about Kidman's The Hours nose now.

I didn't respond to all of the questions from Carlos and henrikegerman because this is such a complex topic. Do we want to return to the percentages game where persons of African descent are concerned? I'm neither Hispanic nor Latino nor Arab so I have no idea whether self-identifying as black (or being relegated to that category by default) is a burden in either context. But I will suggest that African-Americans are not the only group in the US struggling to close the income equality gap, achievement gap, and digital divide.

What intrigues me about Zoe is that she's quite comfortable in her own skin despite not always being warmly embraced by either the African-American or Latino community at large. She was eviscerated by several notable native Colombians for her lead role in COLOMBIANA. See http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1657507/ From what I gleaned from univision.com during the movie's premiere, many Colombians were concerned that as una trigueña Zoe didn't adequately represent the traditional Colombian standard of beauty. It's my understanding the most Colombians of African descent reside in a few overcrowded ethnic enclaves along the coast. Several of the univision message-board comments in Spanish were downright vulgar & rather racist. Her earlier turn as Uhuru in STAR TREK was met with scorn from many in the African-American community for another set of reasons. I'm not here to throw her a pity party but would like to point out that neither Cameron Diaz nor Sofia Vergara nor Jennifer Lopez has faced the myriad challenges that Zoe has had to overcome to find decent work in Hollywood, but I digress.

In short, how black must one be to portray a historical or fictional African-American character? And if African-Americans can portray black, brown, and olive-skinned characters from other identity groups, shouldn't there be some reciprocity?

I understand what the issue is. I'm sure Lisa Simone is acting in good faith and has no other agenda when tweeting mean things attacking another woman. And I share in the rage at the prosthetics community. It's given me a sense of what people with real adamantium claws must feel whenever they look at Hugh Jackman. They don't have the freedom of a CGI department.

Zoe Kazan is going to be an amazing Nina! I can't wait!

More casting news:

http://stubhillnews.com/2016/02/24/diaz-angelou/