By Tracy L. Scott
So, if you’ve been hanging out with the Internets lately, you’ve heard that Zoe Saldana has recently been cast to play Nina Simone in an upcoming biopic about the legendary singer’s life. Most of the internet thinks this is a dumb, bad, stupid, dumb bad idea. I agree, and you probably should too. But not for the reasons you may be thinking.
Okay. The problem here, in my opinion, is not Zoe’s ability to play Nina Simone. Some people think she just doesn’t have it in her. Nina was gritty, in-your-face, bold, daring, subversive. I don’t think she could have been demure and gentle if she tried. Zoe could, though, and to some people this softness cancels any ability to give us hard, rough, bitter. I’m vetoing this. I saw Colombiana—okay, I saw the previews for Colombiana—and she appears to kick some major butt in that flick. Literally and otherwise.
The problem also isn’t that she’s not “black,” and reading this criticism actually makes me mad. Zoe has spoken very openly about her ethnicity, and identifies as a black woman. Who are we to strip that from her? How dare we not let her name herself? Get that out of here, sirs and madams. That’s vetoed as well.
And the problem definitely and absolutely is not that Zoe is “too pretty” to play Nina. Talk about insulting and telling of the extent to which our Western standard of beauty has poisoned our little brains. Both Zoe and Nina are beautiful. It’s just the one would be considered more so by a conglomerate of social institutions. Where’s my pen? I need to sign this veto real quick. The problem with this casting job is rooted in a very harmful, silencing tradition: the Hollywood whitewashing of people of color and their stories to make them palatable to the general audience (read: white folks).
Nina Simone’s physical appearance is an integral part of her story that can’t be glossed over, flippantly handled, or changed. In an image-obsessed society where white, skinny, thin nosed, blond haired, and blue eyed was (and is) the base requirement for being beautiful, Nina had more hurdles to clear than most, especially as she tried to claw her way through the alabaster world of classical music. The further you were from that beauty standard, the tougher your road, particularly for women. In her response to Zoe’s casting as her mother, Nina’s daughter, Simone, hints at the time she had, commenting:
“As a child, my mother was told her nose was too big and she was too dark yet she graduated valedictorian of her high school class – The Allen School for Girls – AND, skipped two grades.”
Casting someone to play Nina Simone who does not look like Nina Simone greatly dilutes her story and undermines her strength. Had Zoe been born back then, she and Nina would have had very different life experiences because of the way they look. Nina couldn’t pass. She didn’t have the societal advantage of light skin or fine hair to ease the road a little bit. And it was the pride she took in that that made her such a subversive figure. She didn’t try to make herself palatable to mainstream society. She didn’t bleach her skin or get a nose job. She was unapologetically her natural black self, in visage and in politics, and that is where her power lied. This quote from Nina both sums it up perfectly:
“I’ve never changed. I’ve never changed my hair. I’ve never changed my color, I have always been proud of myself, and my fans are proud of me for remaining the way I’ve always been.”
Ironically, the casting of Zoe in this role, has done exactly what Nina refused to do. If they’ll water this part of her character down, who knows what else they’ll change to make her easier for the masses to swallow? Remember how white folk casted white actors in the role of American Indians in movies, rather than have actual American Indians play them? Or when some genius decided that the word “nigger” should be removed from Mark Twain’s Huck Finn and replaced with the word “slave?” Or that time L’Oreal had Beyonce looking extra European in one of their ads? Yeah. This is the same thing, coming from the same injured place. It’s a place that threatens to remove Nina and women who look like her from history, disarming them on a battleground where we’re already vastly outnumbered.
Finally, this choice just smacks of bias. With the right makeup and Hollywood magic, you could make Zoe look like Nina. I actually think Zoe kind of favors her a bit, so it definitely wouldn’t be hard. But why pass over scores of talented actresses who naturally look more the part? Because Zoe is more palatable. Because she’ll get more white butts in those theater seats. Because I guess our dark skinned sisters with SAG cards are being reserved for—ahem—other roles. Because if that audience knows that Zoe is just in costume, that she can wash off the dark makeup and return to her previously appealing self, it will make Nina’s life seem just a bit more like a distant fantasy as opposed to a harsh reality that many still face today.
But Nina was not a costume. She couldn’t simply wash it off, and she wouldn’t if she could. That’s the whole point—and with this casting job, that point has been sorely missed.
I can’t wait to see Lindsay Lohan play Michelle Obama in “The Right to Bare Arms: The Story of the First Black First Lady.” And I hear Gary Busey is going to play Barack. Fun times!
