Hollywood’s ongoing whitewashing is problematic

Nina Simone’s character should have been better cast

Hollywood has often been criticized for whitewashing, using white actors to portray people of colour. Their latest example, where Zoe Saldana portrays Nina Simone in the newly released biopic of the singer’s life, is no exception.

Simone was a black woman in a racially conflicted society, in a society that does not believe or desire to see the image of confident black women. To cast a light-skinned woman in her role diminishes what Simone stood for as a very loud and proud advocate of her blackness.

“It’s an insult, to our people and their struggle and to all the things that Nina stood for in her music and all the things she stood for in her life,” said Sam Waymon, Nina Simone’s brother, in an interview with Rolling Stone.

While Saldana is black, and she acknowledges her African heritage, her features are very Eurocentric. She is a long way from Simone’s features, which were considered very “traditionally African.”  Saldana’s natural face structure, her nose, lips and cheekbones, are slim compared to Simone’s, whose iconic face was bold with full lips and nose.

To better align with Simone’s facial features, Saldana wears darker makeup and molding to widen the shape of her nose. Why couldn’t they just cast someone with similar looks to Nina Simone’s, instead of casting a big name actress and then almost completely alternating her looks?

Now, to say that Saldana isn’t “black enough” to play Nina Simone is a bit messy. While Saldana is a black actress, there are so many actresses—India Aries, Akosua Busia, Viola Davis, and many others—with naturally darker complexion and non-Eurocentric facial features that could’ve had this opportunity. To rephrase Viola Davis’ statement in her 2015 interview with TheWrap: darker-skinned black people in the media are ignored and aren’t given the same opportunity as the lighter-skinned black people.

The same kind of discrimination goes on in the black community in general, as lighter-skinned black people are often deemed as more desirable.  This only contributes to the colourism entrenched within the African diaspora, as there is a trend of using lightening cream in Africa to achieve a lighter complexion. This trend sends out a damaging message that suggests the darker you are, the further you are from beauty. This leaves everyone who does not fit into the Eurocentric beauty standards in the dust.

Who better than Nina Simone’s own daughter, Simone Kelly, to know who is and who isn’t fit to play the role of her mother? Kelly doesn’t support Saldana to play her mother, nor does she support the script of the movie in general.

“There are many superb actresses of color who could more adequately represent my mother and could bring her to the screen with the proper script, the proper team and a sense of wanting to bring the truth of my mother’s journey to the masses,” Simone Kelly told Rolling Stone. “And Nina, in my opinion, doesn’t do any of that.”