Zoe Saldana Getting Clowned For Trying To Play Nina Simone

[Poitier]

I do agree that Zoe doesn't have eurocentric features but she is closer to what society sees as attractive and safe. We must acknowledge that.

Nina wouldn't be ideal in any Black country, either.

 

[Stacker Pentecost]

And saying this doesn't mean we're 'hating on Zoe' or anything else, we're just stating the obvious why is this triggering so many Black people? Zoe fits a certain standard of beauty, Nina did not, Nina's life work revolved around her NOT fitting that standard of beauty, Zoe had to be physically altered to play Nina, it's a slap in the face to Nina's life's work, WHAT'S CONFUSING

 

[Poitier]

Nina isn't ever going to be a standard of beauty EVER anywhere on Earth at any point in human history

 

[Elle Driver]

Yes black women come in different shades, different features, different hair textures but we have to acknowledge that there is a threshold of what is deemed as acceptable and not ugly when it comes this society. Ignoring it is like burying your face in the sand and hoping it goes away. Nina's whole identity and life experiences have been centered around her skin tone and her broad features(which are deemed unattractive) so by zoe playing her character, it takes away from the authenticity of it and by this movie being produced with her playing this role, it down plays how those characteristics have impacted her life which is unacceptable due to the fact that colorism and featurism is a thing that shouldn't be ignored.
michelle o and serena williams have both been described as ape-like and their features aren't even as broad as nina. I do agree that Zoe doesn't have eurocentric features but she is closer to what society sees as attractive and safe. We must acknowledge that.

I agree with what you've said but girl look at Zoe nose can you really say she has a Eurocentric nose? Let's be real.

 

[Stacker Pentecost]

A lot of y'all have to be light-skinned and/or mixed/biracial people suffering from light guilt with some of these responses There's nothing inherently wrong with pointing out that someone like Zoe clearly fits a Eurocentric standard of beauty and that it's a slap in the face casting her to play someone who's art and activism revolved around NOT fitting that standard of beauty. THEN changing her appearance to fit the role instead of finding someone who physically resembled Nina more. Obviously physical appearance is important (Nina's work literally revolved around it) otherwise they wouldn't have altered Zoe in the first place. We have to be honest with ourselves here.

 

[Medicate]

@Elle Driver I read the book from front to back and read Abdias Do Nascimentos "Brazil: Mixture Or Massacre" and even Nascimento fcked with a white woman of all things, but still told the story, that's how much white supremacy has entrenched itself onto the Black diaspora...........I suggest you go read more and shut the fck up when you coming at me here......I'll ether this whole fckin board on this bytch.....Don't take my cursing as some sort of weakness....i'll school you and the homo side kick of yours if we really got down to it.........

You can't tell me shyt youngin.....

I never said HE SAID a certain quote in my post either....

Btw I heard your husband was dominican....what's his lineage?

 

[Aceofspades404]

Nina wouldn't be ideal in any Black country, either.

have you been to every black country to state that as fact?
my country for example has plenty of women who look like nina. they are not called apes, they are not called dark butts, they are not called ugly.

 

[Poitier]

have you been to every black country to state that as fact?
my country for example has plenty of women who look like nina. they are not called apes, they are not called dark butts, they are not called ugly.

Nina isn't the standard of beauty in Haiti And Haitian phenotypes and Nina's don't represent even 5% of Black phenotypes.

 

[mson]

The casting of Nina Simone and why skin color matters

 

[Red Shield]

Nina wouldn't be ideal in any Black country, either.

Truth be told... she probably wouldn't

 

[Flykid567]

lightskin\biracials people have privilege not the extent of white privilege but it still there for example 90 percent of actors that are black are extremely lightskin or biracial or 10 percent black. A lot of lightskin people have a superiority complex and be with the quickness to dismiss they privilege and say naw we all the same or say some basic shyt like when the white man see us we both a nikka to them knowing dam well whites see a difference.

 

[Poitier]

Truth be told... she probably wouldn't

Breh very few can keep it 100

 

[Stacker Pentecost]

The casting of Nina Simone and why skin color matters

In a trailer released this week, Saldana is shown wearing makeup to darken her skin and a prosthetic nose that broadens her nose to make her look like Simone.

"She looks grotesque to me," said Yaba Blay, a political science professor at North Carolina Central University and the author of the book (1)ne Drop: Conversations on Skin Color, Race, and Identity. "This flies in the face of who Nina Simone was. She was very black and she saw color."

For Blay, Saldana's look harkened back to 19th century minstrel performances where white actors wore blackface and portrayed blacks as "sub-human" caricatures of blackness. In this role, Saldana "looks like something that was created, she doesn't look human to me," said Blay.

Raquel Coombs, the vice president of communications for the NAACP, which nominated Saldana for an Image Award this year, said that the organization supported "people of all hues to have opportunities within the industry."

But it was the "extra steps" taken to make Saldana look like Simone that were of most concern, Coombs said. "We've long been opposed to anyone using blackface and putting on prosthetics to make someone appear blacker. Someone should have known that would have hit those pressure points in the African-American community."

Kelli Moore, an assistant professor of media, culture and communication at New York University, said "the anxieties and resentments that are within the black community are a result of colorism" or the notion that lighter skinned blacks with straighter hair and Anglicized features have historically been treated better, both inside and outside of black communities. Using a darker skinned actress to play Simone would have made the film "a black film" Moore said. According to Moore, Saldana's "angular multiracial face is a commodity and it will bring different kinds of viewers to this theater," namely non-black audiences.

THE BOLDED and the underlined.

Like I've already said in this thread, the physical alterations made to Zoe are very telling. They obviously didn't believe her talent was enough to carry the role, but they also didn't feel comfortable with hiring an actual darker skinned, broader nosed actress to play Nina. DESPITE THE FACT THAT NINA'S ART AND ARTISTRY REVOLVED AROUND HER BEING A DARK-SKINNED WOMAN WITH BIG FEATURES.

They can put all the makeup and fake noses on Zoe that they want, at the end of the day her face still fits a certain standard that will not make viewers uncomfortable in the way that Uzo Aduba's face (for example) makes people uncomfortable.

 

[Aceofspades404]

I agree with what you've said but girl look at Zoe nose can you really say she has a Eurocentric nose? Let's be real.

Never said she had one. The key word is threshold and with her skin tone and hair texture, she passes.
I am not saying that a light skin black woman with a thin nose and 3a hair is less of a black woman than I am.

Nina isn't the standard of beauty in Haiti And Haitian phenotypes and Nina's don't represent even 5% of Black phenotypes.

where did I say she was? stop making things up to fit your narrative.
I see your angle and even though you are trying to debunk white supremacist rhetoric, you as a black person deeming that phenotype unattractive is equally as dangerous. there are plenty of blacks that look like nina and should be celebrated. Not down played bc they don't represent 5% of black phenotypes.

 

[Elle Driver]

The point is that you bring up that Iman quote when she's calling out people with your mindset. She resents the idea that her features are seen as Eurocentric and that there are black women who think that she looks like a white woman dipped in chocolate. You're contradicting yourself.

Exactly, the point she's trying to make is proving Iman's. Actually Iman isn't mixed at all and has a straighter nose than Zoe. This line of thinking is divisive and stupid af. Zoe produced the movie and got the okay from Nina Simone's daughter, she didn't get picked for anything.

@Elle Driver I read the book from front to back and read Abdias Do Nascimentos "Brazil: Mixture Or Massacre" and even Nascimento fcked with a white woman of all things, but still told the story, that's how much white supremacy has entrenched itself onto the Black diaspora...........I suggest you go read more and shut the fck up when you coming at me here......I'll ether this whole fckin board on this bytch.....Don't take my cursing as some sort of weakness....i'll school you and the homo side kick of yours if we really got down to it.........

You can't tell me shyt youngin.....

I never said HE SAID a certain quote in my post either....

Btw I heard your husband was dominican....what's his lineage?

You wanna know about my husband yet you asking me to be banned? Which one is it?

If you actually read Dr Chancellor Williams book you'd actually understand that what he was talking about what division between colors. Children of non black fathers weren't considered black, they got the heritage of their father (patrilineal), and didn't continue their lives as blacks. It ended up slowly but surely destroying black civilizations. So if you think ousting black identifying mixed race people's, do you honestly think it would strengthen the black community? I honestly don't think division is necessary. Zoe identifies herself as a black woman of mixed origins, hell she doesn't deny her Haitian origin. I understand the problems with her casting, but the way some people are going about it saying hey features aren't black is fukked up. Iman herself found that unfair and she came from a country where all if not most the women had thin noses and features that didn't fit this convoluted version of blackness. That line of thinking is dangerous.