I’m not really feeling the whole idea but to each its own….I feel like they could’ve put a little more effort into finding someone who better fit the part.

If you didn’t tell me this post was about Angelina…I would have sworn I was looking at Jennifer Lopez.

At first it does seem a bit odd, because I am sure there are women of African American or Afro-Cuban descent who could play that role but I would not say this is modern day black-face. If it were some blond-hair, blue-eyed non-talented actress, I would really have a problem. However, I do think Angelina is a great actress and as a matter of fact Mariane Pearl wanted Angelina to portray her in the film. So shouldn’t her wishes be respected?

Even though the first pic is from a distance it looks like Angelina is pulling it off. Maybe they want the movie to be huge, and get a lot of attention, so that’s why they are using Angelina, to pull in crowds. What black actresses would you all suggest?

Well. Angelina Jolie SHOULD have earned her honorary pass in the Black Community by now….

Let us ask ourselves this question:

WHO would YOU have in the BLACK COMMUNITY play this role.

I SICK of seeing Halle Berry.

What HIGH YELLOW Black Women would be able to handle this particular role? I’m thinking Vanessa Williams (Miss USA), or Nicole Ari Parker

I don’t have a problem with it.

If anybody knows anything about African heritage. All Africans are not “black”. There are three groups of Africans that I know of so far. I’m sure there are more.

They are the Africans(sp)(pronounced AF RI CANS), Afrikhans(sp)(pronounced AF RI KHAANS) and the Coloreds (mixed with the Europeans, Dutch and Spanish decent and they live in Northern Africa).

I guessing that Mrs. Pearl is colored. And who to play a better part than Angelina. Hell I don’t know what creed or pedigree she is from.

could’nt they have asked halle berry to play this part?why does she have to be white?there is eva mendes,she or halle berry could pull this part off!!

I don’t see what the big deal is. Angelina looks like Mariane in that picture and she’s a great actress.

Mariane Pearl is bi-racial so it doesn’t make a difference if a black, white, or mixed woman plays the role.

I love my people but we are a little too sensitive.

I believe Halle is playing a white woman in a biopic. Although Halle may be half white, she’s further from the woman’s complexion than Angelina is from Marianne Pearl’s. I don’t hear white people complaining about that. Furthermore, and most importantly, I don’t hear either woman bitching about the actress that will be representing them on screen.

I kinda have mixed feelings about it too…

The film is being produced by Brad Pitt’s production company…when he was married to Jennifer Aniston, SHE was orignally gonna portray Mariane Pearl…could you picture that? However, when they got divorced, the role was then offered to Angelina Jolie…

From far away, she does resemble her in the first pic though.

Please people get a life. The only other “black”person that the directors would cast is Halle Berry. Sure there’s something awkward about it but not enough to loose sleep over it. Halle is playing the part of a white female politician and everybody applauded it—-MOVE ON!!

IF Alicia Keys could act, maybe….

The PRODUCER’s of this movie are probably spending a LOT of money, so they want to get Hugh Returns…

I’m sure it was purely a business decision in choosing Angelina Jolie…

An earlier poster (keke) stated that this was the ideal of Marianne Pearl to choose Angelina Jolie, so I’m cool with their choice !

Mika said: “I love my people but we are a little too sensitive.”
____________________________________________________

Damn I feel ya on that one. Niggas know they can get in an uproar about anything!

Nicole Ari Parker is my favorite High yellow actress !!

Halle Berry is good, but she is so overworked…

I would like to see some new faces…

Hollywood seems to think that the only credible actors/actresses that we have are:
Denzel Washington
Jamie Fox
Samuel L. Jackson
Halle Berry

Where are all the GOOD BLACK(Oscar Calibur) actor’s & actressess at ????
Seriously……

Maybe thandie newton?

To THINK BLACK PEOPLE ARE SICK OF SEEING OTHER BLACK PEOPLE..Thats the problem with our culture.

I AM PISSED A WHITE WOMAN IS PLAYING HEr. IT IS HARD ENOUGH FOR BLACK ACTRESSES TO GET WORK AS IT IS. AND SOMEONE HAD THE NERVE TO SAY

“WHAT HIGH YELLOW ACTRESS”???? ANy BLack actress could have played that part. THEY GAVE IT TO A WHITE WOMAN SO WHY WOULD A BLACK ACTRESS HAVE TO BE HIGH YELLOW.

I THINK IT IS RIDICULOUS AND ANGELINA DOES NOT LOOK EXOTIC..She looks like a white woman actually she looks like her FATHER JOHN VOIGHT

SUCKS >>>IT REALLY SUCKS

Maybe Tracy Ellis Ross would have been a good pick.

#13 said:

Niggas know they can get in an uproar about anything!
______________________________________________

We are some marching, protestin’ muthaf#kas!

But we won’t take it to the house…….not the church house, but the WHITE House.

I also thought of Thandie Newton @ #15.

i’m soo glad to see all these posts. We need to be more open minded as a people and stop looking for things to throw the race card at. We have enough REAL problems in our community to deal with, without worrying about this. I say, if she does a convincing job, then so be it. It’s not like she’s playing Sojourner Truth or something. Besides, Angelina has a little black child of her own and perhaps she’d like to do a movie that can, even the slightest, relate to Zahara. I think the focus is more on the message of the movie and less on the “hey look it’s Angelina playing a 1/16th black woman.”

Even Survivor turned out to be less controversal than we’d all imagined it would be. Maybe this is a positive indication that race if FINALLY becoming less of a factor in the big picture. Baby steps, but steps non the less.

“this is a form of modern day blackface”….No…..
I don’t think that is the case here.

I doubt she sees herself in terms of color so having
Angelina Jolie (Ms We are the World Herself)play her life actually seems to be a perfect choice.

Had she identified herself more as a woman of african decent, then I would have been highly offended. But since she did not, I am not.

Look for this to come up again with Tiger Woods and Mariah Carey. lol

kind.

She’s a great actress.

With a film like this they need a big name to get people in the theater.

How many Dutch, Afro Cuba lead actresses are there with major star power?

People are really stupid if they are losing sleep over this bullshit.

WE NEED TO STOP GIVING PEOPLE OF OTHER RACES

PASSES!!!!!!

They dont give us a pass. Our culture is so tainted and we as a people are not evenmas close as other cultures. Most likely because we ARE SO WILLING TO LET OTHER IN.

SO ANGELINA ADOPTED AN AFRICAN BABY…..that does not give her a pass. 5 years ago when she was married to Billy Bob and had viles of blood around her neck..we wouldnt even be having this conversation….

A white woman can play the role, but a black woman would have to be high yellow…yall killing me.

And yes I do believe the woman did want Angelina playing her, honestly I dont know if she even has any respect for her African heritage…she seemed whitewashed in interviews. She did one in O magazine years back

Thats why its called acting who cares if she is white. Dnezel played some shakespere character who was supposed to be white. If she can play the role well who cares if she is white. and if u look at th epic she looks like the dam lady when done up anyways.

I love Angelina Jolie and I’m very excited about her portraying Mariane Pearl. We’re all not a pure anything when it comes to race, so what difference does it make? I think people just like to bitch about anything and everything.

Alot of black actress or bi-racial actress could have pulled this off.

Maya Rudolph from SNL, resembles Mariane Pearl.

If Mariane Pearl does not have a problem with it I don’t see why should I. For those who are offended by it then I guess white people should be offended that Halle Berry is about to play a white in a true-life story

Too-Tot…take the afro pic outta your hair and calm down. I don’t think it’s that serious.

Angelina looks convincing enough in that first pic, and I’m sure she’ll rock the role.

No I don’t think it’s modern blackface. That’s a bit strong.

As a few posts have said, Halle is already going to play a white female politician. I say if they can do their jobs properly, then who cares what color they are in real life?

i think she’s a good choice. i love her. she’s a great actress. marieane pearl WANTED angelina to play her

I agree with you #20 (Nakia). I think the whole survior thing was stupid to begin with. I don’t watch it but I heard about it and I was like what’s the point? As for Angelina Jolie playing an African-Cuban woman it won’t be the first time that they are having an actress play a part that does not portray their real origin.

I think that’s real fucked up to have a white actress in this role. Just like it was fucked up to get Elizabeth Taylor to play Cleopatra. I honestly think if the real Mariane wanted a white woman to portray her, then she has some serious issues herself. Angelina looks white, Mariane Pearl does not. It looks like make-up was used to make Angelina look darker, making this modern day black face. How many black actresses are portraying white women? Y’all say some of us are too sensitive. Well, some of us are also too damn passive. And while you’re naming actresses that could have played this role, what about Karyn Parsons (Hillary, FP of Bel Air). I’m sure there are many starving actresses out here to play this part. But they needed a big name. I find this SAD!!!

I think that if BLACK people wanted a BLACK female to play this role, then a BLACK person should’ve done the movie and found the right BLACK choice to satisfy the picky, civil rights niggas.

If Mariane Pearl doesn’t have a problem I don’t see why anybody should. If black people are offended by it then I guess white people should be offended that Halle Berry is set to play a white woman in a true-to life story.

AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING IGNORANT, what does Afro-Cuban mean? I know that’s what Christina Milian is but what does that mean? Does that necessarily mean black?

Plus Angelina’s mother was french and Iroquois(native american). I know that still makes her 3/4 white and 1/4 Indian but it looks like it counts for something. Angelina always looked somewhat ethnic to me.

high yella? such ignorance..i’m so disappointed with these remarks. I actually wanted to say I thought many black actresses could have pulled of this role…especially when there seems to be limited opportunities for minority actors in hollywood but after reading the comments….. i’m speechless..please stop using malcolm x’s picture..you know who you are!!!!!!!!!

This I the exact reason why I don’t like black people…if ignorance were bliss the majority of you all would be hopping and skipping to work! First off Angelina Jolie is mixed Her mother is from Persia or something like that. Second who are you people to get “up in arms” about someone elses life? Get this ish out of here “modern day blackface?” WTF? I swear some black are ignorant just plain ignorant. How can you find fault in this but you don’t find fault in R-kelly being a pedophile? Or the growing rate of HIV AIDs in our community? I mean get a life people it’s her life. If she wanted to have “Obie One Konobie” play the part who are some of you to even mention it? You either see the movie or you don’t that is how you voice your indifferences not like this. Because this way is ignorant and lowly!

is it really that big of a deal???? who really planned on watching this shit anyways????

Afro cuban are black cubans just like afro americans are black americans

Jada Pinkett.. Thandie Newton perhaps as long as it’s not Halle… Vivica Jessica Simpson or Lindsey Lohan! lol I could even see J Lopez Troy Beyer or Rosie Perez in that role *except rosie’s voice is too irritating* But they need a bankable actress and who better than Jolie? She does look a lil crazy with the curly hair.

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:05 pm

getalife said:
——————————————————————————–

i think she’s a good choice. i love her. she’s a great actress. marieane pearl WANTED angelina to play her

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:09 pm

BrightFuture said:
——————————————————————————–

I think that if BLACK people wanted a BLACK female to play this role, then a BLACK person should’ve done the movie and found the right BLACK choice to satisfy the picky, civil rights niggas.

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 2:45 pm

BrightFuture said:
——————————————————————————–

Mika said: “I love my people but we are a little too sensitive.”
____________________________________________________

Damn I feel ya on that one. Niggas know they can get in an uproar about anything!

——————————————————————————–
Bill Said:

Negros allways protesting stuff that has no significance.

Think about this story the next time you purchase a Bootleg copy of A Black Movie, and then WONDER why Hollywood (Caucasians in Hollywood) won’t back us when it comes to major film project.

Negros wouldn’t go to Idelwild when it was out..
Everybody on the block brough a bootleg copy !

Beyonce can’t even go Platinum, because she ain’t selling a lot of CD’s..Everybody has a Bootleg version of B’Day !

Why you think she putting ou singles EVERY Month
It’s Ridiculous….

it doesnt make sense for her to be playing her but thats just my opinion. i think that thandie newton lady could play it but it is a done deal right?

Ohh I just remembered wasn’t there a similar outrage in the Latino community when Jenifer Lopez played Selena? Jenifer Lopez is Puerto Rican and Selena was Mexican, but Selena’s parents thought Jenifer Lopez was the best for the role.

And remember when Madonna played Eva Peron in the movie Evita?

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:12 pm

..oh my… said:
——————————————————————————–

high yella? such ignorance..i’m so disappointed with these remarks. I actually wanted to say I thought many black actresses could have pulled of this role…especially when there seems to be limited opportunities for minority actors in hollywood but after reading the comments….. i’m speechless..please stop using malcolm x’s picture..you know who you are!!!!!!!!!

Bill Said:
Scuse me, Your offended that I used the term “High Yella” ???

What’s wrong with that term ?

If I offended you, I apologize.

I honestly did not think that was a bad thing to say…

HOLLYWOOD WANTS THE MOVIE TO MAKE MONEY.

ANGELINA JOLIE BRINGS IN THE BUCKS. ROSIE PEREZ, TROY BEYER, CHRISTINA MILIAN OR WHOEVER ELSE DO NOT.

$$$$$$$$$$ THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT. THERE ARE NO GOOD BLACK ACTRESSES IN HOLLYWOOD, THAT ARE BIG ENOUGH TO BRING IN THE BUCKS. THE ONLY ONE IS HALLE BERRY OR WHOOPI GOLDBERG OR OPRAH.

AND WE ALL KNOW WHOOPI CANT PLAY THE ROLE.

Well Halle Berry is playing a white woman in her upcoming movie, and they stated the reason was because she is a very talented actress who could pull it off… and so is Ms. Jolie if you seen some of her movies, i.e. Girl Interrupted and Gili(don’t really remember the correct spelling). But if Mrs. Pearl is cool with, fine by me.

I feel fine about Angie playing this part….Look at her! She’s got something in her, she’s not some Anglo white girl trying to pull a Showboat on us like Ava Garderner back in the day.

#45 Fiona

Whoopi Goldberg???????????????? WTF?????????

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:12 pm

TOOMUCHTOOHANDLE said:
——————————————————————————–

AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING IGNORANT, what does Afro-Cuban mean? I know that’s what Christina Milian is but what does that mean? Does that necessarily mean black?

Plus Angelina’s mother was french and Iroquois(native american). I know that still makes her 3/4 white and 1/4 Indian but it looks like it counts for something. Angelina always looked somewhat ethnic to me.

Bill Said:
Afro-Cuban Definition
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community. The term can refer to the combining of African and other cultural elements found in Cuban society such as religion, music, language, the arts, and class culture.[1]

CO-sign 110% with Bill…sheesh, why do you even care?

Care about the AIDS epidemic that is affecting our African Community right now! All of these “downlow fags” bringing home aid to their wives and children. Care about that! Care about how they let a pedophile free because the same black people protested for his release. Care about that! Care about how we are still considered 3/5 human in the consitution. Care about that! Put love and concern in you heart for these causes. Not this! Black people need to wake up. Our mind are comdition to focus on rhetoric and tomfoolery. We never focus on what right, and that’s a damn shame!

Jennifer Aniston was originally supposed to play the part but after Brad (the movie was his idea) and Angelina got together, Angelina is instead going to play the part. I don’t really think I care about who plays it because Angelina looks just as convincing as any other woman, black or white could be! I think she looks great playing the part and isn’t Mrs. Pearl mixed woman so she could get just about anyone to play her in the movie.

Um…#6, Africans are all black…some may have other things in them, but they’re still black. I”m not talking about white south Africans eithers.
In fact, since civilization began in Africa, maybe that makes them black as well.

First, I must say that I am an extremely pro-black sista. And even I don’t see a problem with this. It’s acting. She’s playing a role based on SOMEONE ELSE. The requirement for the role was probably an “ethnic-looking” woman who can act. Angie is a white girl, but she has African like features, large lips, darker skin tone, big dark eyes, etc. I think it’s fine.

Um, and #8, it would make a difference if anyother white woman were playing a woman of color..What are you talking about?? I’m mixed myself, but I”m still black and a white woman playing me in a movie wouldn’t fly.

Should white people be offended that Halle Berry is playing a white lady in an upcoming movie…

*Halle Berry’s next movie role will center on the true story of Tierney Cahill, a teacher from Reno, Nev. who accepted a challenge from her sixth grade class to run for Congress in 2000.

The actress will portray Cahill in the DreamWorks drama, titled “Class Act.” The filmmakers have taken a rare turn in casting an African American actress to portray a woman who is white in real life. Sources close to the production tell Variety that it was more important to find the right actress for the role rather than the right white actress.

In 2000, Cahill decided to grant the wishes of her students and run for Congress on the condition that they would help with her campaign. The single mother ultimately lost her bid to an incumbent, but she ended up winning 35% of the popular vote.

DreamWorks recently acquired “Class Act” in turnaround from Revolution Studios with the goal of putting it into production in May or June.

In the meantime, Berry is currently filming the DreamWorks drama “Things We Lost In the Fire,” and will next be seen in the adult thriller “Perfect Stranger,” due in theaters May 2007 from Sony.

http://eurweb.com/story/eur29012.cfm

I’m just saying. It doesn’t bother me on both accounts. Maybe Angelina and Halle can switch roles…

TOOMUCHTOOHANDLE said:
——————————————————————————–

AT THE RISK OF SOUNDING IGNORANT, what does Afro-Cuban mean? I

the slave ships drop off slaves to many different Islands, e.g Jamaica, Haiti & Cuba …

The slave ships drop off slaves in cuba too !

thus the term Afro Cuban !

#23…You are right! Marianne Pearl doesn’t know or consider herself to be black. She’s walking around looking like me with bright skin and a kinky head, but she doesn’t relate to shit going on in my world…therefore I don’t care who the hell plays her.

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:30 pm

sesamestreet said:
——————————————————————————–

CO-sign 110% with Bill…sheesh, why do you even care?

Care about the AIDS epidemic that is affecting our African Community right now! All of these “downlow fags” bringing home aid to their wives and children. Care about that! Care about how they let a pedophile free because the same black people protested for his release. Care about that! Care about how we are still considered 3/5 human in the consitution. Care about that! Put love and concern in you heart for these causes. Not this! Black people need to wake up. Our mind are comdition to focus on rhetoric and tomfoolery. We never focus on what right, and that’s a damn shame!

Bill Said:
Selah & Amen
Preach Sis !!!!

#27, I see what you’re saying, but black playing white is something that hasn’t been done a lot, so that’s why it’s kind of special for Halle to be playing this role. Whites have always played us in movies….Showboat anyone?

angelina is a good actress and i know she will bring somethiing special to the part. she also looks like her in that first pic. i dont see the problem.

if mariane isnt mad at it why should we be?

Consider this:

Marianne Pearl probably doesn’t identify with the black race…..just because she half black doesn’t mean that she’s hanging out with the brother & sisters.

And if she ASKED Angelina Jolie to represent her, that really should be the end of discussion.

Did Marianne Pearl email you and ask you for your opinion ?

I think the most important thing is that this woman’s story is properly told, and that requires great acting. I think that matters a whole lot more than just, “oh well, who cares if this woman can’t act. At least we got someone who is the same ethnicity.”

The movie is being produced by Brad Pitt….its only natural that he would want his woman playing the lead role (keeps money in the family), the studios are going to want a big name to bring in dollars. At the end of the day its all about money and lets face it only white folks are going to pay to see this movie. I’m sure there are quite a few black actresses (my fave is thandie newton or Sophie Okonedo) that could have portrayed Mrs. Pearl but hey…..One other thing, ask yourself this question, for all the outrage and what not how many of you are actually going to see this movie? How many people from the black community went out and paid money to see Hotel Rwanda (which was a beautifully acted, all black casted movie)? Hollywood goes where the money is folks.

Once again Bill, you’re right..
*Gives Bill a big hug*

If Marianne is confused….let her be! If someone hasn’t been taught about the joys of being a black woman, you really can’t get mad at them.
I’d be quite proud if Angelina wanted to play me in a movie though…She’s cute!

Bill asked: “Did Marianne Pearl email you and ask you for your opinion ?”
—————————————————–
Yes Bill, she emailed me and I gave her my blessings. She was afraid that “black people” would get their freedom rider panties in a bunch, but I told her to do her thing and don’t worry ’bout us niggas.’ :~)

I feel like whoever plays the part correctly. I don’t doubt that a black woman can do it but that is a minor part of the film. We need to pay attention to the story and not who plays the part. I believe that as long as Mariane Pearl doesn’t have a problem with it why should anyone else! As being a bi racial female with both black and hispanic in my blood it wouldn’t matter who played the part as long as they played it right and told my story well.

#33 BRIGHT FUTURE SAID:

I think that if BLACK people wanted a BLACK female to play this role, then a BLACK person should’ve done the movie and found the right BLACK choice to satisfy the picky, civil rights niggas.

Where would any of us be without those “civil rights niggas”?

Once again this shit is so SAD.

#52 and #54 Kendi:

I am not going to go there with you on this. But I must say just b/c someone was born and raised in Africa that does not automatically make them “black”. There are a group of Africans that are called COLOREDS.

You would be considered the same b/c you are as we say in America, “mixed”.

I bet you if your skin color had to play a factor in you getting a job or being on the street, there is no doubt in my mind that you wouldn’t play your “TRUMP” card!

I’m black, you can’t change that.

You on the other hand can go “half and half”, if you know what I mean.

WOW IT IS SAD THAT WE HAVE COME TO WHERE WE ARE….. AND BLACK PEOPLE ARE CONTENT

HOW CAN U SAY WHATS WRONG WITH A WHITE WOMAN PLAYING A BLACK ROLe…..YEARS AGO BLACKS FOUGHT TO EVEN BE ON THE SILVER SCREEN

i also doubt this woman is even in touch with her African culture…shes whitewashed anyway

HOW CAN U SAY WHATS WRONG WITH A WHITE WOMAN PLAYING A BLACK ROLe…..YEARS AGO BLACKS FOUGHT TO EVEN BE ON THE SILVER SCREEN

It keeps cutting off my statement–

HOW CAN U SAY WHATS WRONG WITH A WHITE WOMAN PLAYING A BLACK ROLe…..YEARS AGO BLACKS FOUGHT TO EVEN BE ON THE SILVER SCREEN

THEN ALL WE PLAYED WERE MAIDS AND BUTLERS

AND NOW IT IS HARD AS HELL FOR BLACK ACTRESSES TO GET DECENT ROLEs…that dont make us hos, on drugs, or ignorant.

LMAO @ ANGELINA BEING 1/4 NATIVE AMERICAN…THAT IS A FREAKIN JOKE, She doesnt look exotic she looks like plenty of white women I see evryday… For Chrissakes her dad is Joun Voight and her mother IS WHITE. SHIT WE ALL ARE PROBABLY 1/4 native american

ZOE SaLDANA - who is posted above here would have been great for the part.

SO ANGELINA BRINGS IN THE DOUGH…thats what people care about. NOT THAT We

AS BLACKS ARE ALWAYS

M-I-S-R-E-P-R-E-S-E-N-T-E-D

But yall slave niggas dont care….as long as its ok with master and brings in money.

YES THERE ARE GREATER ISSUES AND IF YOUR SO CONCERNED CREATE A WEBSITE THAT DOESNT HYPE GOSSIP

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 3:46 pm

BrightFuture said:
——————————————————————————–

Bill asked: “Did Marianne Pearl email you and ask you for your opinion ?”
—————————————————–
Yes Bill, she emailed me and I gave her my blessings. She was afraid that “black people” would get their freedom rider panties in a bunch, but I told her to do her thing and don’t worry ’bout us niggas.’ :~)

Bill Said:
My sister..behave yourself

lol…..

I have to say that I agree with Too Tots. Someone like Zoe Saldana would b perfect 4 that role, but realistically Hollywood is still controlled by the “White Man.” And sad & very unfortunate that after so many yrs of fighting 4 what we deserve n this country we still keep having da same conversation.

HELLO PEOPLE,

they could have gotten Thandie Newton, for one she is an excellent actress. the only reason, angie got the damn part was because, Brad Pitt is producing the shit.

THIS IS A BUNCH OF BS, UM HOW ABOUT ROSARIO DAWSON TO PLAY THE PART??? HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO

@ 15..Thats what I was thinking…They could have easily gotten Thandie Newton.

But Angelina is not a bad choice..

I’m sorry, this comment made me laugh out loud:

“And while you’re naming actresses that could have played this role, what about Karyn Parsons (Hillary, FP of Bel Air). I’m sure there are many starving actresses out here to play this part. But they needed a big name. I find this SAD!!!”

Carolina, they don’t want this to be some straight-to-video project that nobody will ever see. Yes, “Hillary” from Fresh Prince might actually look like Marianne Pearl, but what is the last film you’ve seen her in??? Does she have the acting range? Have you ever even seen her in anything BESIDES Fresh Prince, which ended years ago?

This is intended to be a big, Hollywood movie. You guys are suggesting some actresses who haven’t demonstrated the capability to even carry a film, all in the name of authenticity.

Go ahead and get mad, and huff and puff about a black person should have been playing the role. If Marianne Pearl wanted Angelina Jolie to play it, then nothing else should matter. I am sure nobody was up in arms when Halle Berry was announced as playing a white woman. It shows that the playing field is more even now. I’m NOT saying that it’s EVEN, just more even. Too Tot, I am sure even you can admit we’ve come a long way from the days of Stepin Fetchit and Hattie McDaniel. We’ve come a long way, and we still have a long ways to go. But we’re getting there.

I am sure this adaptation will be well done, and will shed light on the war in Iraq and the tragic, senseless death of Daniel Pearl. You know, REAL issues. That’s my two cents.

Movies are made to make money, Angela Jolie will bring in that MONEY.
And I don’t have a problem with her portraying this role.

Totally Off topin: This for you Bill, because you’re the best at being who you are!
http://www.youtube.com/wa...ode%3Drelated%26search%3D

http://www.youtube.com/wa...ode%3Drelated%26search%3D

Oops I meant Totally off Topic**

Angelina’s daddy Jon Voit was tippy toeing in the ethnic garden bush…. cause truth be told her french mama looks quite ethnic and dark if you ask me…

It ultimately doesn’t bother me that much. I’m glad the story is being told. Marianne is an incredible person who is no stranger to tragedy. Her father was a manic depressive and threatened suicide often–leaving her mother to constantly rescue him and pick up the peices…ultimately he was successful.

I can’t wait to see the movie.

I think Angelina looks great in that role. She is pulling it off.

IT’S FINE WITH ME. IN HALLE BERRY NEW MOVIE SHE WILL BE PLAYING A WHITE WOMAN I DON’T HER ANYBODY TALKING ABOUT THAT

I wouldn’t go so far as saying that it is modern day black face. but I do feel that it is still deep. The reality is : Unless they are entertainers or sports figures, how many movies get made about ordinary Black people who had extraordinary things happen to them? I can’t think of not one. Ms. Pearl’s case, this issue affected the entire nation, b/c it ties in to all the struggles in the Middle East etc., and teh fact that her husband was a Wall Street Journal reporter. Further more she has shown uncomparable resilience in the face of a tragedy that would have broken many, so her story appeals to the entire nation. I think taking away the fact that she is a black woman from the story is a sad thing. Unless some part of this movie shows her speaking to Afro-cuban relatives who actually look Black, judging by the pictures of Angelina, someone new to the story will never know that this figure being immortalized in this movie is also of black descent.

I have to say, that I do have a problem with this. The one time where a regular Black citizen is the central figure of a movie, and her Blackness is quietly left out. Years and years later, when someone who wasn’t born yet watches this movie, they won’t knwo that one detail. Small as it is, why is it being omitted?

I don’t know if this was done more to appeal to the mass audience who will be watching or more to just disregard what they feel is a quality they would rather not ackowledge.

on Tuesday, October 10, 2006 @ 4:44 pm

sesamestreet said:
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Totally Off topin: This for you Bill, because you’re the best at being who you are!
http://www.youtube.com/wa...ode%3Drelated%26search%3D

http://www.youtube.com/wa...ode%3Drelated%26search%3D

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Bill Said:
Thank you Honey !!

I feel you love all the way here in New Jersey !

Love ya like a play cousin !!!

How ya know I like DeBarge ??
And Guess what: I’m a BIG Switch fan..
Remember Switch (those were El Debarge’s Brother’s in Switch, Bobby Debarge singing Falsetto).

Their FIRST Album came out back in 1978
here’s a review from Amazon of the Album that I own by Switch (unfortunatly, I can’t find video)
With songs custom-made for those tender moments up at Inspiration Point (”There’ll Never Be,” “I Wanna Be Closer,” “I Call Your Name,” “Love Over And Over Again”), Switch was a hot Motown band who came on the scene at a time when that label really needed them. At the time of Switch’s debut release in 1978, Motown had lost The Four Tops, The Temptations, Martha Reeves, The Marvelettes and Mary Wells, and had also been without The Jackson 5 for a couple of years. Of the star artists that remained, only Stevie Wonder still had mass appeal with the younger crowd. Switch and Rick James were Motown’s (successful) effort at turning that trend. The creative mainstays of the band of multi-instrumentalists were Bobby DeBarge and Greg Williams, who wrote and produced the bulk of Switch’s hits. (Bobby wrote some beautiful songs with his sister, Bunny, for some of the group’s later albums.) Switch was obviously quite adept at churning out songs to get busy by, but they got down too, on cuts like “Best Beat In Town,” “We Like To Party,” “You Pulled A Switch,” and “Go On Doin’ What You Feel.” I feel the inclusion of a few songs (”I Wanna Be With You,” “Why’d You Let Love Fall,” and “This Is My Dream”) would have made this collection 5 stars. The group was outstanding in concert, and was a big hit with the ladies. Bobby DeBarge was an outstanding singer, as well as a crack writer and producer. But perhaps his greatest gift to popular music was the introduction of his brother, El. Bobby was a huge influence on his younger brother. El grew to have a singing style very similar to that of his mentor. He also became a reknowned writer and producer. Bobby DeBarge produced the first album on the family act (DeBarge) led by El. Switch’s star seemed to fade just as that of DeBarge rose. After 5 lps for Motown, Bobby and brother Tommy left Switch, and the group left Motown for Total Experience Records, before fading from sight. When El and sister Bunny left DeBarge for the solo spotlight, Bobby took their place in a four-man version of DeBarge. The one album from that union, “Bad Boys,” was a good effort produced by Bobby and brother James. Sadly, Bobby and his solo-star brother Chico were incarcerated on drug charges soon after that album. Bobby DeBarge contracted AIDS from drug use while behind bars. By the time he was released, he was in very ill health. But he released a solo album, “It’s Not Over,” before his tragic death. It had a very up-to-date sound and is worth looking for. Chico DeBarge served his time and has returned to the charts. He has insisted in interviews since his release, that he and Bobby were not involved in drug dealing and were made scapegoats. El has had tremendous highs in his career, but is a very religious man. He has kept a very low profile since his brother’s death. This compilation of the best of Switch is the legacy of Bobby DeBarge. He should be remembered for being the gifted musician and unselfish brother he was.

Thanks Again SesameStreet !!
One Love,
Your Boy
Bill

Seriously, for people to get upset over a white woman playing the role of a bi-racial woman is a bit childish. I mean gotdamn. We would not be complaining if it was a black woman playing the role of a white woman.

As black people, aren’t there more important things for us to worry about? How about the AIDS epidemic that’s killing our people? How about encouraging our youth to get college educations so they don’t rely on selling drugs for the rest of their lives? How about the gangs and the violence that are so widespread in our community? No one gives a fuck about that, right? Address the important issues. In all honesty, I don’t give a fuck what role she’s playing because I’m not making any money from it and I ain’t going to see this movie no damn way.

We are so fucking sensitive when it comes to minor shit. That’s why we can’t get any fucking where.

OMG I remember Bill…those were the good old say *sigh* Why can’t they come back? Again *sigh*

1million% co-sign with #80 Mika…you tell em girl!

I would be mad but since Halle is playing a white woman.. I can’t really complain!

btw, Thandie Newton would have been a better pick.. BUT can she carry a movie like this??? Angelina is more intense and can lead a movie.. Thandie is always the co-star.. even Halle would have been nice but she’s the obvious choice in a way…

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Marianne Pearl is also half Dutch, from what I know. That means there’s a lot of white there. So for all the people saying a BLACK actress should have played her, a white person has just as much right.

Geez, it used to be white people labelling mixed people as purely black, now it’s black people. This is no big deal, show me the “HIGH CALIBER” actress, who’s also of Afro Cuban/Dutch decent, that was totally passed up for the part.

As we all know, she looks retarded playing a woman of color. Whatever, we all know that her man is producing the film. SO there fore it has nothing to with what her skin color is or anything. Its all because she is sleeping with Brad Pitt. He had Jennifer Aniston in the front seat to play her so it was just a matter of time. Yall fell me.
Its never about how right someone is for the role anymore. They have proven that.

They should have found a new face, in my opinon. Is that so hard. we need new faces on the screen.

Opps I mean co-sign 1million% with #89 MIKA…lol my bad

Whatever….people need to stop playing the race card all the fucking time! Angelina looks just like the damn women, let it go people. If Angelina was a hade darker, people would swear old girl had some black in her….Please someone throw out a few names of light skin black women who are A list celebs, that could have played this role. Because I can not think of any….and don’t say Halle, Tracee Ross, or Thandie Newton!!!

Oh yeah I ment to also say……I AGREE WITH # 3

I don’t like Angelina Jolie as a person. In general, she is much confused about WHO she really is. Adopting orphans and being an ambassador to poor nations on one hand, and f*cking married men and breaking up marriages on the other. That being said, Mrs. Pearl is a woman of mixed decent, so I think Angelina has as much right to the part as anyone else. She is a good actress, but for the record, she is also….

An adulterer
A woman who likes to have sex with other women (as well as men I guess)
I see her as a big fake!

Halle Berry’s next film project will have her starring as a teacher turned politician. The film, titled Class Act, is one based on the true story of Tierny Cahill. Cahill, from Reno, Nevada accepted a challenge raised to her by students and ran for Congress in 2002. The DreamWorks picture is also rare because it features Berry, an African American actress playing a role of Cahill, who is actually white. Many sources have said producers were simply looking for the best actress to play the role and did not want to base that on race.

I think this is the same case! I think they wanted the best actress for this type of role and since Mariane Pearl had formed a close bond with Angelina, she trusts her the most! i think she will do a good job.

AND LET’S NOT FORGET, SHE IS F*CKING THE PRODUCER! WHO ELSE WAS GONNA GET THE PART?

What the hell does Jolie’s past have to do with anything?

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Geez, I swear…

Amen Pittboi!!! Some people act like they never heard of Jesus before.

I was upset when I first heard about this because there are plenty of talented black actresses that could have played this role. But I believe that when it comes down to the story being told, they were not looking for someone that ‘looked’ like Mrs. Pearl, but someone that could play the part well (and it helps when your baby daddy is the producer ha ha). But on a serious note, I think Angelina can pull it off because she is a talented actress and I think saying that this is modern day black face is a little harsh. Bottom line, they are looking to make money and they thought that Angelina could do just that. An actor/ actress is supposed to be able to play ANY role and if the story is convincing when it is portrayed by a woman of another race, she must be doing a helluva good job.

I am going to make the same post, I made at another BLOG about this story…….(I cut and paste)

I will not be watching the movie, but I wish it luck. Jolie, neither the topic, does it for me. BLOOD DIAMONDS- Now THAT I am going to watch when it comes out!!!!!!! THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, DEFINATELY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Angelina sucks as an actress. They should have gotten Troy Beyer to play Marianne. Troy can act circles around Angelina and she and Marianne look like they were separated at birth anyhow…lol

Give me a break ……most of the offended masses have no desire to see this film . Or even know what it’s about ! If someone was willing to give you all a free copy,most of you all would decline for lack of entrust ! Stop being so sensitive !

I have no problem with it. If Ms. Pearl wanted Angie to play her then fine…it is HER lifestory. When I have someone playing me, then I will worry about that and choose who I want.
As for Ms. Pearl being confused. Maybe she is and maybe she isn’t. In some other parts of the world people are seen as exactly what they are…Ms. Pearl would then be seen as half dutch half afro-cuban period. Maybe that is y she does not seem to act “black” enough…who knows…who really cares.
I just find it funny that everything is about race. In trini my dougla friend is considered dougla (half indian half black) in the US people hate on her if she recognises that her mom is indian…someone went as far as to tell her she just figure she better than black people cause she light and have curly hair…I was like WTF? She just said her ma indian because…well her ma indian. Is a damn shame really.

Isn’t Jibs song like topping the charts? Why care about Black facin now?

@ #108 that is so sad. When will black realize that when a person is mixed..they are just that..MIXED!!

Mixed race means mixed raced not…if it’s mixed with black the people that are mixed have no rights to claim the other race they are mixed with.

If that’s the case all the half spanish be in Outrage at Jlo’s a$$ because if we go by what our fathers are…she is Jewish not Spanish.

Black people kill me…the truth of the matter is we are still steeped in ignorance as a race!

……And had the nerve to play a Mexican

#55: I was going to point that out too. I love the fact that we are now in a time where ppl r starting to c all actors for their potential and talent in portraying characters and not colors. Back in the day it was an insult for elizabeth Taylor to play Cleopatra because there was never an effort to find someone better for that part in our community, however this is a different time and circumstance. in both Angelina and Halle’s cases they are the right actresses for the roles, regardless of skin tone. If it were a racially/social sharged storyline, dealing w/ certain issues, then the ethnicity of the portrayer would matter, but not in this case.

I am not going to call this modern day blackface. I think as long as the actress is a godd actress then go for it. And if Mrs. Pearl wanted her to play it - then there should not be a problem. I think Angelina is a great actress - and she is telling a real story not a make believe one. I will check it out no matter who played it.

Fine with me. She does look the part.

what’s the big deal??

The REAL Marianne Pearl wanted Angelina to play HER. So if SHE doesn’t have a problem with being portrayed by Angelina, then WHY SHOULD WE???

let’s be real here…Marianne Pearl is PART BLACK…she’s not even 1/2 black…Angelina isn’t exactly the WHITEST LOOKING WHITE WOMAN in the world AND she’s a WONDERFUL ACTRESS, who has a BLACK CHILD…

i’m positive that Angelina will be able to carry the part.

and if EVERYONE would be honest, if it weren’t for Marianne Pearl’s HAIR TEXTURE, NO ONE WOULD EVEN HAVE FIGURED THAT SHE WAS PART BLACK…

stop being so darn sensitive black people

I agree Jewell, but let’s call it what it really is. It’s not sensitive, it’s stupid.

I have no problem with Angelina Jolie playing the role she a good actress and look how much money and FREE publicity she has given Africa over the recent years not only with her adopting Zahara but with having her own child born in Namibia.
Some of you people are acting as if she was starring in the biopic of Whoopi Goldberg. If Marianne wanted Angelina, it’s her life story or would you rather see Jennifer Aniston in that role? I know who I prefer in the film and it ain’t blondie.

Hey, I say, if she was the best woman for the job and nailed the audition, then that’s just what it is. Stop trippin’. Increase the love, stop the hate!

I think that people have forgotten that BRAD PITT’S production company bought the rights to this story YEARS AGO, when Brad and Jen Aniston were still together…

BLACK PEOPLE were NOT worrying about Marianne Pearl’s story BACK THEN…WHITE PEOPLE bought the rights to the book and wanted to make a movie about it…NOT US…

so why NOW are some black folks SOOOO UPSET that a white woman is portraying a woman of color

I’m sorry, I don’t consider her a BLACK WOMAN, and I doubt if SHE considers herself a black woman

She’s probably one of the people like Dwayne “The Roc” Johnson who considers herself a “woman of color”…just because your hair is a little different, doesn’t make you a BLACK PERSON…

Who on the site thinks Mariah Carey is BLACK???…Probably VERY FEW people…it’s the same with Marianne Pearl

Marianne Pearl has MORE Latin and European roots than she has African roots…Hell, her husband was WHITE…just let it be black people

Be glad that her story is being told and that it’s going to get the attention it deserves

It’s wonderful thing to be proud to be Black, but some people take it too far, to the point that some can’t even ‘welcome’ and ‘appreciate’ others…

Wow #99 Dee Dee sure is being VERY JUDGEMENTAL about Angelina…if Jennifer Aniston said that Angelina didn’t break up their marriage, then WHO THE HECK ARE YOU TO SAY THAT SHE DID???

Tell me some of YOUR DIRTY SECRETS #99, so we here on CL can cast judgement and THROW SOME STONES AT YOU…

TO #52..you said “All Africans are BLACK”…HUH???

They are??? When??? I guess someone needs to call Charlize Theron and let her know!! I’ve met people from Africa who ARE NOT BLACK, but they ARE AFRICAN…there’s a difference, and there’s NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT DIFFERENCE

There are plenty of non-blacks who are African…

I agree some people take the race card too far. I would be a little upset if she was portraying the African American struggle of a Civil Rights activist, BUT the subject matter is about this woman losing her husband.

There’s no color in that situation because all races have lost someone due to this bullshit war so you can relate to that no matter what ethnicity you are.

BE EASY FOLKS.

I think it’s sick, I like her as an actress but it makes NO since to me I KNOW that could of found a black actress to play the part PERIOD

#121 LOL, you are correct. Charliz Theron is more African than most of us African Americans. Just a thought to consider that people are wrapped around the color thing than nationality, but to tell the truth Americans are not the only one.

excuse my typo I ment they

When are we going to stop this entire thing with race? I think it has gone too far and we should rise above all this nonsense! First, Angelina is an accomplished actress with real talent. Did anyone ever stop to consider that the reason she got the part was based off her ability to deliver? Second, Angelina has a very exotic look and her look is versatile and she is able to transform her look into virtually any look! I think she would play this part very well and its time to look beyond race and consider reality. Which in this case a woman lost her husband! Period. The end of the story!

#68..It doesn’t matter that Africans consider mixed black folks “colored”…When they get to America, they’d still be black. Been there, seen it, and understand where you’re coming from though.
Also, no I can’t go “half and half”…..How old are you and how come you don’t know how the world really works?? Black is black and American blacks have mixed blood already. There is no half this or half that when the police are arresting your ass.

Also, you can play a trump card all you want..it doesn’t matter how much of you is black. When you look black, you are the same as other black folks with two black parents. It doesn’t matter if you’re only half or not.

Ok, Bill, why did I think Switch and DeBarge were the same group??? LOL I’ve got some SERIOUS studying to do. LOL

#93…Nobody has to label you black when you’re mixed….It’s just a fact. Deal with it! All this “best of both worlds” bullshit is killing us as a people. If this were slavery, we’d all be slaves no matter if Massa was our Daddy or not.

#120, just because Angelina said she was not screwing this woman’s husband, does not make it true. Jennifer Aniston’s just protecting her image. I think what happened there is pretty clear, I’m not buying the smoke and mirrors. What I am saying is, I’m not surprised about Angelina playing a woman of mixed race since she seems to have an overall identity crises. I have no ability to judge her, I’m stating my opinion, as I see things. If you don’t see it that way, that’s your business, or I should say, your opinion. And as for dirty secrets, why don’t you go first? I’m glad Angelina is spreading her good will over in Africa but I am sure Jennifer Aniston and Laura Dern would have appreciated her NOT spreading her legs for their men.

#110…J-Lo’s father is Puerto Rican….get your facts straight! He is just lightskinned. He’s not Jewish..and for the record, being Jewish isn’t a race.
“Mixed” is not a race either. Do a history lesson. If you notice, it’s only those “mixed” folks who have issues with being black that get mad when you call them black.

Wrong #115! I live in NYC and have seen Mrs. Pearl in a particular drug store in Manhattan..she had a bonnet on and I could still tell she’s black. She may have light skin, but she looks like many sisters you see on a daily basis. We could all use that argument you just presented…..”If it wasn’t for our hair texture”. That is B.S.

LOTS OF YOU PEEPS ARE NOT GETTING IT STILL,

WE HAVE COME FAR IN THE PAST TWO DECADES!!!!!

A FEW DECADES AGO BLACK ACTRESSES WERE DOING BLAXPLOITATION AND OTHER LOW BUDGET MOVIES BECAUSE OF THE PARTS.

I FEEL THIS BECAUSE I AM AN ACTRESS AND IT SUCKS THE ROLES THAT WE GET AS BLACK ACTRESSES.

There was a huge thing on this and Tachina Arnold, Lisa Rey, Vanessa Williams (soul Food), and a host of other black actresses had a whole forum on the roles that we get.

I dont think we should just let that kind of stuff go

WE AS BLACKS LET TOOOO MUCH GO..

What happen to REPARATIONS…oh let it go, we integrated already.

STOP JUST BRUSHING SHYT OFF…

… so she adopted an African child AND….SHE is loaded..she probably has a black nanny caring for her.

Black Hollywood’s heyday: on the big screen, Hattie McDaniel and Stepin Fetchit played stereotypical servants to icons like Katherine Hepburn and Clark Gable. Film historian Donald Bogle’s latest book documents their glamorous lives off-screen

No one tells the story of Black Tinseltown like Donald Bogle. From the writing of the classic best seller Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks (1973) to his definitive 1997 biography of Dorothy Dandridge, this film scholar has made Hollywood his town. In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams: The Story of Black Hollywood (One World, $26.95), his latest must-read, Bogle turns his attention to the public splendor and private pain of beloved entertainers like Lena Horne, Nat “King” Cole and Dandridge. Here Bogle, who teaches film at New York University, spoke with ESSENCE editor Janice K. Bryant about the dazzling and fleeting world our pioneering stars created.

ESSENCE: In Bright Boulevards, Bold Dreams, you evoke the excitement of the neighborhood surrounding L.A.’s Central Avenue, home to Hattie McDaniel, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Lionel Hampton and other legends. Why did you find this important to explore?

DONALD BOGLE: I’ve always wanted to know what Hattie thought about every day when she left the set of Gone With the Wind (1939) and ripped that bandanna from her head.

OH, and Mariah is black too!
Just ask her…I have.

This woman is nothing more than a light-skinned black. Lisa Bonet could have played this role. Why would you cast a white actress to play a biracial woman of African/black descent. Hollywood is a trip.

Kourtney: Mariah is white !

You’ve got issues Jewell.
That poster mentioned that she wasn’t talking about white South Africans.
Also, what do you think “latin” roots are?? AFRICAN roots! Duh!
It’s obvious you have a problem with blackness..and stop making those ridiculous posts!

You’ve got a point #134..many of us are so confused and are so quick to forget the damn past…it makes a big difference when white folks are STILL playing people of color’s roles…even though I personally have no issue with Angelina and this role. I actually like her. My problem is with many of these folks who want to sit up here and believe Pearl’s widow isn’t African just like the rest of us.

You’ve got your facts twisted #137..Mariah knows what she is and it isn’t white. She’s not confused anymore..actually, she never was.

Great point #136…I can’t believe so many of these brainwashed folks on this site are sitting up here saying she isn’t black…saying that white folks have just as much right to play a black woman..that is bullshit. Like somebody else said, can I tell the police man I’m only half black when they arrest me?

tyo #131 Dee Dee…don’t even try to throw the same question back at me…YOU ARE THE ONE STILL JUDGING ANGELINA….NOT ME…
and NOW you’re getting crass by talking about ‘gapping legs open’…just like i said before…YOU’RE JUDGING A SITUATION WHICH NONE OF US NO ANYTHING ABOUT….

Wateva, African Americans play africans all the time with those fake ass accents, who cares, its called acting, they pretend to be pple they’re not.

OH YEAH…AND TO #133 Kourtney…who cares if you saw her in NYC?? Did you talk to her and ASK HER if she considers herself a black woman??? NOOOOOO YOU DID NOT…

TO #138 Nikki Jones YOU’RE AN IDIOT….I AM A PROUD BLACK WOMAN

I’M GLAD GOD CREATED ME THE WAY HE DID…I HAVE NO ISSUES WITH BEING BLACK, AND THAT’S WHY I’M NOT MAD AT ANGELINA FOR PLAYING A GREAT ROLE AND PORTRAYING A STRONG WOMAN OF COLOR

“Why hold your hands out for reparation when we cannot even accomplish elevation?”

What are you saying #134, that we need our former masters to throw us a bone? It didn’t happen to you… the person that should preaching that message is probably passed away. My greats got our land through much ado fighting for it and working hard and I can go visit it everyday if I want to. They accomplished that through knowledge of who they were dealing with and getting some form of education.

You want reparation, get into a schoolbook, become successful and UPLIFT YOUR PEOPLE!

Spike Lee did not buy the rights, Tyler Perry did not, BRAD PITT did, and it’s an irrelevent subject matter what some people are getting butt hurt over. You want to do something make a major motion picture or even an independent on George Washington Carver ( I went to Carver Academy) or somebody important to us as a people.

I would be upset if Angie Jolie was playing Rosa Parks, but what significance does this woman have on us. NONE

BE EASY…

I do not like this at all. If anything, they could have gotten the actress who played Don Cheadle’s wife in “Hotel Rwanda”, her name is Sophie O. (I’m not sure how to spell her last name) to play Marianne Pearl or even Thandie Newton or Naomie Harris. With all of the African-American, Latina, and Mixed actresses out there, they could have at least gotten one of them instead of picking a caucasian woman. The same thing happened with “Honey”, who is suppossed to be a young light-skinned African-American woman, but instead they get Jessica Alba who is Mexican and French, they could have given the role to Christina Milian or Zoe Saldana who are both trained dancers. This is very disapointing.

Jewell, whatever….I’m calling it like I see it. Bitch is a homewrecker and she got this part because she is SCREWING BRAD PITT! If he were not doing the casting, I am sure this part would have gone to any one of many other qualified BLACK actresses.

Furthermore, I can’t respect this woman. She can talk till she’s blue in the face about feeding African orphans, but all I can see is that she has a pattern and an affinity for men who are already committed to other relationships.

By uplifting I mean when is the last time you stop to give a homeless man a twenty instead of spare change, when is the last NAACP meeting you attend, mines was two months ago.

When is the last time you did not degrade a black man because you feel he was broke or good for nothing or talk about that girl on welfare?

When the last time you visited African or researched your family tree?

AIDS is a real issue, this movie is not.

Is this arguement seriously going on? Does anyone have any idea what Marianne’s opinion of herself is? NO. Because not one of us has spoken to her. Race is not the issue of this movie. Perhaps Marianne lives her life as a woman and embraces both races that have made her. It is possible that race has no importance to her. She is a woman first. A woman who lost her husband in the most gruesome way, in the most public way. Does it really matter who represents her in the movie? Black people love the blind casting that happened with Grey’s Anatomy and the movie where Halle plays an obviously white woman. But now that the shoe is on the other foot, everyone has a freaking problem.

As stated above…if black people were so concerned about the casting how come a black person didn’t buy the rights to this story? Because black people didn’t really care…perhaps some peripheral sympathy but no obvious interest. Ask yourselves why.

People are so quick to pull the 1 drop theory but I have never heard white people say that. They recognize that if a person is of mixed race then it their right to identify with one, both, or all of their racial makeup. Halle considers herself a black woman…but her mama is white. That’s fine. White people aren’t up in arms about it. Honestly, all the white people I know don’t care about race. It’s interesting.

It’s 2006…get over it.

I don’t see the big deal.

jessica alba played a black woman. jennifer lopez always plays white women. *shrug*

Jewell, you idiot…I didn’t have to talk to her. You made a comment about just seeing her and not knowing she was black..You’re wrong.

You’ve got a great point #146..but I’ve gotta admit..I loved Honey. Lonette McGee is a black woman who’s really light, so I didn’t give it much thought about Jessica being cast.
Good point though Brian…why is J-Lo ALWAYS white in her films??? Ummmm No, baby girl! I once had someone argue me down when I told them Jennifer wasn’t white.

Siobhan…you can’t “identify” with being white just because you are part white…you’re a person of color if one of your parents are…Anyone who says different is lying to themselves.

“Why hold your hands out for reparation when we cannot even accomplish elevation?”

What are you saying #134, that we need our former masters to throw us a bone? It didn’t happen to you…
—————————————

In 1920, blacks owned 14% of the nation’s farms; today, there are only 18,000 black farmers, representing less than 1% of all farms. The 1980s my dear saw the largest decline much in part to the USDA that instigated forclosures and eminant domain…there could be a justification for reperations looking at the last generation of which many of parents belong. EASILY.

#134 So what IF she has a black nanny looking after her child at least the child is being washed, clothed and feed and not left for dead somewhere. I don’t know Angelina personally but I have respect for her and what she is trying to achieve in life, she gives 1/3 of her earning to charity (she makes about $15mil –$5mil to a good cause).

Yes she has made mistakes in her life no-one is perfect but at least she has changed and she seems to have a purpose now. You never see her at fashion shows or at any other celebs events trying to give promotion to herself and when she does it is normally for charity.

Like #145 said she is not playing Rose Parks. Mariane Pearl has made no significant impact our community after all Daniel Pearl was a white man and so is Brad Pitt it’s his film he can cast who he wants.

Jezz #134 you’re acting as if they are remaking the Color Purple.

It’s always weird when Hollywood casts people of one descent to play in a role completely opposite what that person actually is, but modern day blackface-Ido not believe this is! They are telling an interesting story here. There are much bigger things going on in the world to get outraged about besides this, like the fact that nuclear weapons are being tested in a country not so far from here! Or that our government is a sesspool of liars, cheats, frauds, thieves, and pedophiles. Just a few things to think about.

Stop pretending like this woman is all black. She isn’t. This is really a dumb thing to argue. Mrs. Pearl has more white blood in her than black blood. I could understand if they cast a white woman to portray Coretta Scott King, but damn! All they did was cast a white woman to play the role of a woman who also happens to be part white in a movie that has jack shit to do with race in the first place. Give it a rest.

Put away those tired arguments. We’re talking about someone portraying another person in a movie. This has nothing to do with racial profiling and what the cops are going to think of your black ass if you get arrested. Stop reaching for reasons to make this a race issue.

Like it or not, Mariane Pearl has white in her. It’s time for black people to upgrade their thinking out of Jim Crow days, because you better believe black people are the only one’s bitching about this petty issue. It’s 2006, People. Everyone has the right to acknowledge every aspect of their ancestry, especially if that ancestry makes up the majority of who they are. Just because Mariane Pearl has African roots does not mean she has to parade around in a dashiki hating her Caucasian roots. Don’t rob this woman of a part of who she is. If she feels Angelina Jolie best represents her on screen (And Jolie seems to be doing a damn good job) then let her be. Angelina Jolie isn’t playing a woman of another race, because both of them have similar roots in common. Why? Because Ms. Pearl is part white! How many times do people have to say that?? Deal with it.

And frankly, all this Thandie Newton, Jennifer Beals, Lisa Bonet and all those other B and C list actresses you guys are listing needs to stop. This is a big budget film and they wanted a BIG name to star in the movie. I think Jolie was a good choice. The only mixed-race A-list actress that could have done this role is Halle Berry. And sorry, but my girl is busy making other movies.

She looks like Marianna Pearl in the transformation. That is what counts.

#157- Thank you! could not of said it better myself.

IT SEEMS LIKE A NEVER ENDING BATTLE WHEN WILL HOLLYWOOD LEARN THAT BLACK PEOPLE CAN DO MORE AND ARE FAR MORE TALENTED THEN PLAYING BALL GAMES MOVING CROWDS BEING SUPPORTING CASE PLAYING VILLIANS GUNS SEX YOU KNOW THE STEREOTYPES ABOUT US NOW IN TRUTH I THINK JOLIE IS A GOOD ACTRESS AND MARIANE PEARL CHOSE HER TO PLAY THE PART BUT I WAS THINKING MORE GLORIA RUEBEN THEY LOOK MORE ALIKE UP CLOSE TO ME AND SHE VERY GOOD AT HER CRAFT JUST MY THOUGHTS

Wrong #157…she does not have more white blood…did you measure her?? Hell to the no..what’s your problem?? Being “all black” doesn’t mean much considering most of us aren’t. You’ve got major issues. I don’t give a damn who they cast in this film, but to sit up here and say Mrs. Pearl isn’t a woman of color and of African descent is just dumb…it doesn’t matter if she’s got Dutch in her or not. Hell, so do I! Big fucking deal.

Ooooh, #160…hadn’t considered Gloria Reuben..that wouldn’ve been dead on..but then again, this is who Mrs. Pearl wanted and at the end of the day, Angie brings in big numbers at the box office.

Amber…why? Why does it have to be that way? Why couldn’t you identify with being white if you’re half white? It’s 2006…why are we all still living in the past bringing up some stupid ass rule that was forced upon us so long ago? I hear a lot about white people enslaving us, forcing their mentality upon us…that was years ago. No one is enslaving me. No one is enslaving you. I’ll be damned if someone is trying to make me think a certain way. I have a mind of my own and can make my own decisions. People talk about spanish people having black in them. Sure they do…but it’s so far removed and they no longer identify with that. They identify with their hispanic heritage and don’t want to be pigeon-holed into ticking white or black on the census form. They have their own identity now…and it’s neither white nor black but hispanic.

Ironically, the woman ANGELINA is portraying does not have her ever so “popular” FULL-LIPS. The woman in fact had thin lips. And Angelina is “WHITE” with a CURLY hair piece on…C’MON…(I dont see CUBAN, or any other ETHNITCITY in ANGELINA)

Out of all the actresses out there, sorry but I dont think she was the BEST. They might have picked her for the “CELEBRITY FAME” aspect she has behind her name. They sure as hell could have done better than her.

People go to far with this type of thing.First, they said Brad was racist for talking about Zahara’s hair and now this. If we are not outraged that Halle is a playing a white woman in her next pic why should we care about Angelina playing this woman..(esp when her husband is behind the film)When we stop thinking in terms of color and just who is best for the part and will bring more awareness to the part then we will have accomplished something. They are the least Racist people in Hollywood.Get a life!!!!!

Nikki…wrong!

Did you even read my post? Nowhere did I say this had not African roots. What I said was that she has just as much (if not more) caucasian roots. And, considering that the majority of Afro-Cubans consider themselves mulatto, and there are no pictures of Mrs. PEarl’s daddy floating around the net, it isn’t illogical to assume that the majority of her ancestral make-up is white.

Yes, the majority of African-Americans have a mixture of different blood in them, but there’s no comparison, because Mariane Pearl is at the very least half-white AND can trace her caucasian roots whereas most black people can’t. AND she has damn-near white skin and hair that looks like you could barely get away with calling it kinky.

I’m not saying that people should deny her African roots, but too many black people think that anyone with a drop of black blood in them needs to glorify that to the point that they deny everything else about them. And that isn’t right, either.

Who cares about anything anymore anyway…..color doesn’t matter, race doesn’t matter, sexual orientation doesn’t matter, history doesn’t matter. Who cares. Nothing matters about anything anywhere anyhow. Nothing matters to a fool. Tom Hanks is a great actor, lets have him play Martin Luther King in a Steven Spielberg directed picture and then all the coons and sambos can get mad when a minority of blacks voice a slight bit of displeasure that won’t make a difference any damn way, lol. Hell, in 10 years Tom Hanks can probably play the part with no wig or makeup and people still wouldn’t give a damn. They didn’t for “Passion of Christ” and many other “historical” movies. It entertains me how black people have been labeled as “sensitive”, lol, when they are by far the least sensitive people on the planet earth. These other races blow each other up and go to war when they get offended while blacks just picket or at worst, destroy their own neighborhoods. Whatever, who cares, it doesn’t matter any damn way.

**Correction to my last post**
I believe it’s Mariane’s mother that’s of Afro-Cuban decent. Not her father. I could still be wrong, though.

Judah, I was wondering when you were going to show up. This topic screams you.

Then again, you’ve said before that you’re not too fond of interracial relationships anyway. lol

Halle Berry is portraying a white teacher who ran for office. And it’s a true story. I think they just want someone who is right for the role, she was prolly the best who auditioned for it.

I don’t have a problem with it. I think Angelina will do a great job. She’s a talented actress.

If white people are not allowed to portray white characters, than black people are never gonna get ahead in Hollywood. They will never be cast for a white woman part.

Halle Barry is portraying a white teacher in an upcomming movie and no one is arguing with that. Beside as said above, the woman she is portraying is okay with it and Angelina is a GREAT actress. She is also the mother of an African baby!!!!

U go Angelina. I just hope Hollywood decides to return the favor!!!

And as far as that nonsense about Angelina having to play the role because it’s a “big budget” movie, please. You’d be better off saying that she’s playing the role because Brad Pitt is producing it. There are many instances in Hollywood where big budget motion pictures casted virtual unknowns in starring roles (i.e. The Godfather, Star Wars, E.T., Titanic, etc). It just that they were caucasian unknowns or lesser actors at the time: Pacino, Mark Hamill, DiCaprio, etc. They could’ve done an accurate talent search if they wanted to, like they did for those movies but they didn’t. It is what it is, “…only 2 or 3 black stars at a time please.” That’s not even getting into the Hispanic blackface that they’ve done for years in movies like Scarface and Carlito’s Way but that’s neither here nor there. The hispanics can be even more docile than blacks because they love BLANCO, lol.

Honestly I don’t give a flying f*** about who plays her. People need to stop focusing so much on race.

Whoopi Goldberg was a virtual unknown who got chosen to star in a big budget film in around the same time as most of those films you listed, Judah.

I don’t think it has very much to do with some huge thing about Hollywood not wanting more than a few black stars at a time, but I will say that Jolie being married to the producer probably did have a bit to do with it. But still, there’s no denying that she’s an oscar winning actress who is very respected in the industry.

HAUTIA 145

You took what I said out of context. I believe we as a people let too much go. And the land you have is nothing compared to the land the top execs of the tobacco, pharmaceutical, milk, and other industries that our forefathers were never owners of. Did you see the commercial with the great grandson of Ford?

Ford, the car company. Well most fortune 500’s are generational and that money is old mnoey and has been passed on. Our people dont have that. We started from scratch so Im sure you do have land, My family does too. Not just US Property either, we dont even have to go there. My point is WE STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO , yet niggas are content , still stuck in the box…with that Willie Lynch syndrome.

AND SWEETY
I DONT NEED A BONE…..I have elevated myself and my community I OWN A BUSINESS WE got a little piece of the pie and were happy. Come on, if I DID HAVE THE FINANCIAL SUPPORT AND INVESTMENT TO PUT OUT A GREAT STORY I WOULD

WOW SO HALLE GETS A WHITE ROLE, HALF OF YOU ARE SO CONTENT AND COMPARING It like it is the same. Why dont you compare that as a timeline in history. How many black women have played White roles ???? NOT MANY
HOW MANY WHITE WOMEN HAVE PLAYEd BLACKS?? 2 MANY TO COUNT

HALLE GETTING A ROLE is damn near a historic moment , Its so RARE, it should not be compared to Angelina getting a black role. When sisters do get white roles, it IS HARD WORK, and RARE

SOME people even have the nerve to say she is not that famous or even that significant. Why should that matter? WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO BE A Historic figure ?

THOSE WHO TOOK my reparation comparison too far, you may not be getting my point. It may be because we have a difference of opinion. It may be because I have studied Film and Theatre and I live it. So it affects me and it is something that I am very concerned with. Positive images of Black women are RARE. And good roles ARE RARE.

Brad got the big bucks so hes casting his current fu*&
point blank

im tore b/c ill holler racism in a minute, but for me this doesnt feellike racism or black face b/cshe’s doing it to inform people and there’s not a maliscious intent to it.

the movies not gonna be funny its like to inform not entertain,

if u say she’s on some “blk face type shih” then u might as well say every white girl w/ curly hair and a huge ass is also

She looks ridiculous! What with the Spray on tan? Angelina is actually darker than Mariane Pearl! This reminds me of the old Westerns…. paint white actors brown ,slap a black wig on and call them “Indians”

One night i was watching the news, and they talked about Daniel Pearl being executed….it was the first time it was done in the war at that point…they said that online they had the video of the execution. They linked it to the news website..so i clicked on it, the wholetime i was wondering if it was a good idea or not. I just couldnt believe they would hav eit…so the video is loading..the whole time im psyching myself out of watching it, then when i was abot to stop the video they showed the terrorist litterally cut his head off…

WHO CARES IF ANGELINA JOLIE PLAYS HER, IF MRS. PEARL WANTS HER TO , THEN HONOR HER DECISION…THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE.

FIRST of all this being made into too much of a big deal. SECOND to all saying how white or non ethnic Angelina Jolie is (and this may have already been said) SHE IS PART IROQUOIS INDIAN!

Part = maybe 1/4

Not all afro-cubans are mulatto or light skinned!!!!
The idea of a white appearing woman playing a black appearing woman is what is confusing to most.
Alot of black appearing people are actually biracial or multiracial, so it’s not about M. Pearl being part dutch so therefore a white woman can play her? it’s about her appearing black and the opportunity should be given to a black appearing actor because these roles are hard enough to come by but hey..i don’t make the rules…

Also about people talking about the casting of Cleopatra, they now know Cleopatra was of Greek decent and there is even speculation she couldn’t even speak Egyptian. Just thought I bring that up.

Pittboi: I think it does matter to us blacks [that really care] who was picked for this role. This might be petty and Jim Crowish (as you called it), but all of this is said with validation. Marianne Pearle might have features of a white woman but it is totally unambiguous that she has black roots. For Hollywood to cast a white actress to play the role of a biracial woman is a slap in the face of black actresses. I think it takes away from credible black actresses who are dying for a role like this. No one can deny anything that’s black or diluted with black. Hollywood has been doing this for years. How can there be 2 or 3 major black actors compared to at least 10 major white actors ? How can there be only one major black actress in Hollywood compared to 20 white actresses ? Hollywood is truly racist. They have yet to show an authentic interracial relationship film involving a black man and white woman. Which clearly makes up the majority of interracial marriages and relationships regarding the two races. It’s still considered taboo. I would hate to see the cast choice for an autobiographical film of Corretta Scott King. Who will they cast……Gena Rowlands ? Or what about a remake of ‘Imitation of Life’? Who will they cast as the biracial daughter ? Angelina again ? Jessica Alba ? Jennifer Lopez ? If so, the future of black actresses is will be non-existant.

Isn’t Angelina Jolie’s mom mixed or something? I mean, it is kind of obvious looking at her that she isn’t purely Caucasian. Anyway, I don’t think it is a big deal at all that she is playing this role. If Forest Whitaker can darken his skin up to play an African dictator, and as other people have mentioned, Halle Berry can play a white women, it really isn’t a big deal that a very ethnic looking “white” woman is playing someone of multiple ethnicities.

i actually think that black people play the race card all the time because as a whole, we are a fucked up race….i hate to say it but its true….this is not modern day black face….modern day black face to me is 50 cent, CMurder, and all the rest of the rappers who’s only goal in life is to sell drugs then start rapping about the drugs they sold and the people they’ve killed….putting up false images just to make a million dollar paycheck…losing their identity and not evening knowing who they really are anymore because they have turned into the character they are portraying…black people dont stand together anymore….we are too busy turning up our noses at the next person, talking about the next person or putting down anybody we dont like or know and then turning and playing the race card or saying the white man is holding us down….WE are holding ourselves down….black men go to jail and get killed more than anyone else on the planet….and we arent trying to do anything about it but say its the white mans fault….this may sound off the sub, but its not….its all full circle….people will be more proud to have even the slightest drop of black in them once we come together and be the strong race that we were meant to be….if we were the same black race of the sixties, that stood together, had each others back, gave a damn about the next person of color simply because they were black, instead of being constant haters of each others, then maybe this topic wouldnt be on the blog….i love being black, and i try to make a difference in my life as well as other black peoples lives, so i can say this before you comment on it….but the truth is, sometimes my own people dissapoint me so much and make me feel so ashamed just by the things they do all the time….my point is, maybe she picked someone that fits the other half of her identity because thats what she feels more comfortable with….maybe she’s not happy with our race enough to do all she can to make sure ya’ll give rave reviews and great comments on concreteloop and crunkanddisorderly….maybe she’s just doing her and this is what makes her happy and she could care less what her other half thinks because it aint like we stick together anyway….shit if she did pick a biracial actress, ya’ll would still find something to hate about….she would be too dark or too light….or too overworked…too celebrated….something….just a thought..

#185- No her mother is not mixed. She’s white. You people kill me. Just because she has full lips and a tan doesn’t make her ethnic or ethnic looking. And you act like it’s a big jump for Forest Whitaker to play someone darker than him. It’s call makeup dumb ass.

White folks gotta take every damn thing..

186 MYOWNOPINION: Thank you !

MAYBE NO ONE ELSE WANTED THE PART
MAYBE SHE GOT IT CAUSE ITS HER MANS COMPANY THATS PUTTING IT OUT..WHY DOES TYLER PERRY HAVE TO PLAY ALL THOSE DUMB ASS CHARACTERS ? HE CANT GET A WHITE WOMEN FOR AT LEAST ONE ?

THE WOMAN CAN ACT SO LET IT BE..MOST OF YALL WONT SEE IF IT HAD HALLE IN IT ANYWAY UNLESS THEY PUT SOME RAPPERS AND LOTS OF GUNS A FEW VIDEO HOES….WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Well most if not ALL Black people are mixed if we were not we would not be called Black we would be African.

Anyway did you guys have a problem with Al Pacino portraying a Cuban person in Scarface hmmmmm I GUESS NOT.

Hell if SHE WANTED Angelina to portray her than SHUT THE FUCK UP>

Jarhead:
I don’t think that this is a major issue for black people [that care, as you say], for the simple fact that Mariane Pearl herself is happy with Angelina Jolie playing her in the film, and that’s all that should matter. I think that it’s offensive that BLACK people who don’t know her are saying she’s “whitewashed” because she’s acknowledging the part of her that is, in fact, white. The one drop rule was something that was originally imposed on us by white people; it’s sad to see that’s it’s now black people that are doing the stigmatizing.
Don’t get me wrong, if I felt that there was a mixed female actress of high caliber that was obviously getting the shaft for the role, I would think it was a little odd, but not racist. Honestly, I would think it was more of an issue of Brad Pitt wanting to cast his wife as the lead before I ever thought it was an issue of racism. Black people really need to start thinking critically before they start tossing that word out. While I’m not saying racism doesn’t exist in Hollywood (because it does, on some levels), I don’t think it has anything to do with the fact that there are about 2 or 3 black actors for every 10 white actors. People seem to sometimes forget that black people are indeed still a minority in this country. So those numbers are not all together indicative of racism.
Rarely are major leads in big-budget films given to new people. I mean, it happens, but it’s not the rule. This fact has nothing to do with race. It seems to me like they wanted a big, well known name for the lead role, and there really are no major mixed race actresses who fit the profile right now. Besides, as I said in my post, nobody really knows the detailed lineage of Mrs. Pearl, but it’s given that at the very LEAST she’s half white, and she *looks* white. People need to stop applying the one drop rule here: a white person has just as much right to play this part as a black person (a mixed person would be ideal, but a mixed person isn’t black either in this case; they’re mixed, a different group all together), especially considering that this movie will have little-to-nothing to do with race issues. From what I know, this is a movie about how she dealt with the tragic death of her husband.
Now, what if her Afro-Cuban mother is also half white (which could very well be the case, as most Afro-Cubans are of mixed lineage)? That would mean that Mrs. Pearl is less than half black, and mostly white. How would everyone feel then?

Mariane is of Afro-Cuban and DUTCH ancestry, and was raised in Paris, France.

Would you guys be happy if a Dutch woman portrayed her? Or How about a Black French woman?

Since she was raised in Paris and NOT in America.

187

Angelina Jolie is 1/4 Iroquois on her mother’s side.

All I know is that Bianca Lawson tried out for a role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Cordelia and she got the part, but she turned it down to do a movie and they gave the part to Charisma Carpenter ( who is Mexican and Native American).

So it is not always racism. And I do not think that she should hide her DUTCH side and deny her the right to choose WHO she wants to play her.

This is why black actors and actresses can’t find work. If its not a singer/rapper…then its a damn white person taking the roles!

Now you guys know how we feel when we see an American portraying a British character.

I always wondered about the Al Pacino who is Italian playing a Cuban in Scarface. Were people upset about that?

umm Natalia do you read? Mariane wanted Angelina to play her.

All I know is that Bianca Lawson tried out for a role on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as Cordelia and she got the part, but she turned it down to do a movie and they gave the part to Charisma Carpenter ( who is Mexican and Native American).

______________________________________________________

Really that was kind of bad luck for Bianca cuz Cordelia was like a main character.

I don’t get this, why is everybody saying that they could have given the role to one black actress or another? It’s called auditioning. I don’t think any of the actress named so far are as versatile as A.J to be honest. Black Americans think that they’re being slighted at every turn. In Hollywood they really don’t give a damn about who looks right it’s about dollars and Angelina is a box-office heavyweight. She never disappoints. I can bet you dollars to donuts that if a black actress were playing this role most of you wouldn’t even see it. Blacks have put out a few hard hitting meaningful films and we don’t support them and then we end up with dumb shit like “White Chicks”, “Little Man”, “Get Rich or Die Trying” and a host of other things that we turn out in droves to see. It all comes down to the dollars. See how fast Sumner Redstone got rid of Tom Cruises dumb ass, nobody said it was because he was white. If it had been Denzel acting a damn fool all over t.v everybody would bring out the race card not that he was simply acting a fool. Everything is not about race people and honestly I have to look long and hard at someone who is always bringing out the race card. That’s so easy to do it’s harder to really go deep and see yourself for what you really are. Yes, we are black but we are so much more, much, much more. Please, pleeeease find out what your “more” is.

197

“I always wondered about the Al Pacino who is Italian playing a Cuban in Scarface. Were people upset about that?”

Yeah, there were loads of Cubans upset about that movie. The entire Cuban population of the city of Miami didn’t want the movie to be made, much less one of their own star in it.

Well, if this is an Oscar worthy film they are not expected it to do really well at the box-office . I mean most Oscar worthy films don’t. So that doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with it.

it doesnt bother me. she can be versatile and play any role no matter the ethnicity or religion or whatever. i think she’s approaching the role with the utmost respect and understanding for mariane and daniel pearl. though, the point of the movie is not focused on mariane’s afro-cubanoness, it is still a major part of who she is and how her character is shaped. angelina was chosen for the quality of her abilities not her ethnicity.

pittbboi said:
——————————————————————————–

Stop pretending like this woman is all black. She isn’t. This is really a dumb thing to argue. Mrs. Pearl has more white blood in her than black blood. I could understand if they cast a white woman to portray Coretta Scott King, but damn! All they did was cast a white woman to play the role of a woman who also happens to be part white in a movie that has jack shit to do with race in the first place. Give it a rest.

Agree 100%. Well said, this is so not about race. I could see if they cast a man, then we’d have something to talk about.

I don’t really have a problem but my question is they couldn’t find an afro-cuban actress or upcoming actress to play the part?

But that movie was based off the original Scarface movie in the 50s? wasn’t it? The main character was White I wonder why they changed the main charater to Cuban.

Since she is mixed couldn’t the same argument be made if they had cast a black woman to play her?
Wouldn’t dutch people be able to say why did they cast a black woman to play this dutch woman who also happens to be black too?

Too much focus on color, Lets start focusing on the person instead.

Well, if this is an Oscar worthy film they are not expected it to do really well at the box-office . I mean most Oscar worthy films don’t. So that doesn’t have ANYTHING to do with it.

____________________________________________________

I agree with this Angelina is not really a box-office heavyweight unless she is in an Action movie, Mr. Mrs Smith, Tombraider.Those are called blockbusters anyway and are expected to make a lot of money. A lot of Oscar worthy films do not make a lot of money. But they are not expected to.

The French could say the same thing and ask why the hell is an American playing the part of a French woman.

Ehtnicity is Afro-Cuban and Dutch, but they used a White woman.

Nationality is French, but hey used and American.

So could they find an Afro-Cuban and Dutch, French Actress?

#182 ur right i was watchin espn tonite and they were running a thing about hispanics in besibol and soem of those cubans/dom reps were darker than me lol!!

yes angelina isn’t of afrocuban decent, but they did a good job of making her look just like her.

name a black actress that looks similar to marianne as much as angelina does.

be happy they didn’t go with the original choice of jennifer aniston. that would have been WAAAAAAAAY off

Okay…..She Angelina looks nothing like this woman. Oh well Power to the people Angie!

If Marlon and Shawn Wayans played as white women, whats wrong with Angelina playing an Afro-Cuban woman?

go head angelina but i mean idk…..the next person in mind that u know they would let play is halle n halle is too busy running after her man and is played out…

but its not like the woman was a legend or a famous black person

They have an American playing a French woman lol.

if mariane has no problem with it then we should be fine with it…

Black people want to adopt/claim anyone whose brown with curly hair. I’m not sure but I wouldn’t be surprised if this woman did not think of herself as black/african american, so why are we arguing over this. Like someone said before; I could see if it was Coretta………then we would have a problem.

Im sorry was everyone else busy? Every other mixed heritage actress was busy of course!!! Yeh becuase they get soooo much mainstream work innit….*kmt* Look, yes she has done alot for Africa, but so has Bill Gates and his various charites, you dont see him playin Nelson Mandela in any documentries!…Im only playing but you kno what i mean…it starts here…We just need to keep our eyes open das all, any how it becomes a regular thing, we gona have to make our selvs heard..ya dig?

this is my opinion, send me hate mail if you want… (the “return to sender” option is a favorite of mine) anyway…

what’s the big deal? come on now, when you look at the both of them, angelina did kinda pull her look off. and isn’t this what mz. pearl wanted?

food for thought… how can we expect racial equality when we keep playing the race card our damn selves? we expect to be accepted and embraced yet we continue to separate ourselves. we dont want our races to matter, arguing that race shouldn’t determine what we are able or not able to do. then we turn around and bitch bout someone else’s race not being good enough. double standards, no way around that. and lisa bonet? are you serious? come on now… they trynna make money, if you saw lisa bonet in this role, you’d be less apt to see it. angelina’s in demand right now. you cant hate them for lookin out for their own stacks. sit there and tell me you wouldnt do the same? when it comes down to it, the only color we really care about is green.

oh and on a second note… for all that “can i tell the police officer im only half black when he arrests me?” nonsense… omg are you serious??? i guess you could tell him that if you wanted, but the real question here should be WHAT WAS YOUR DUMB ASS DOING TO BE GETTIN CUFFED IN THE FIRST PLACE???

get it together, i mean damn! did you think about that before you opened up to say it, big dummies. like chris rock said… “YOU AINT SUPPOSED TO BE IN JAIL, DUMMY!”

and i guess all the white people they be arresting on the daily must only be gettin cuffed after they tell the 5-0 that they’re half black? yeah, that MUST be IT!

damn yall be making my blood pressure sumpthin else!

nothing wrong with angelina playing the part….I agree though Thandie Newton would have done it well also.

I don’t see the big deal, she’s an actress and thats her job…to act. Since when did being an actress require one to play a character of only that actor’s race?

While I would have rather seen Thandie Newton tackle the role, I have reservations about stating that Angelina Jolie shouldn’t play the role because she’s white. Think about it, the case could be made that Halle or another actress of color should only get “black” roles. If the scenario were reversed, and a black actress were receiving a role some would perceive to be for a white woman, would we have a problem with it. Mariane Pearl reportedly signed off on Angelina playing the role, so if she has no issue with it, who are we to judge. Also, it is possible that Mariane doesn’t see herself as “black or bi-racial”. Individuals from other parts of the world have different views of what it means to have african blood

Are you guys familiar with Shakepeare’s OTHELLO ??

Shakepeare was a favorite of My English Lit Professor, and I soon would loose mysealf reading Othello….

Othello was a black character created by Shakepeare !
My FAVORITE adaptation is the One by James Earl Jones.
I also enjoyed the resent movie, staring Lawrence Fishburn (Directed by Oliver Stone)

My favorite quote from Shakepeare’s Othello -
“Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely
but too well; Of one not easily jealous,but being wrought perplex’d in the extreme

Othello or The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare written around 1603. The first known performance of this play was on November 1, 1604, at Whitehall Palace in London.

Synopsis
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
Othello, a Moor who has just eloped with the fair Desdemona when the play opens, leaves Venice to command the Venetian armies against the Turks on the island of Cyprus, accompanied by his new wife and his lieutenant, Cassio. When they arrive, they find that the weather has destroyed the Turkish fleet. Iago, a standard bearer, repeatedly tries to undo Othello, finally succeeding when he plants Desdemona’s handkerchief on Cassio, managing to convince Othello that his wife has been unfaithful with the lieutenant. Othello kills Desdemona out of jealousy, before Iago’s wife, Emilia, eventually reveals that Desdemona’s affair was but an invention of Iago’s. Iago immediately kills his wife also, and Othello then commits suicide in grief. At the end, it can be assumed, Iago is taken off to be tortured and possibly executed.

Othello’s race
“Othello and Desdemona in Venice” by Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856)Although the play is very much concerned with racial difference, the protagonist’s specific race is not clearly indicated by Shakespeare. Othello is referred to as a “Moor”, but for Elizabethan English people, this term could refer either to the Berbers (or Arabs) of North Africa, or to the people we would now call “black” (that is, people of sub-Saharan African descent). In his other plays, Shakespeare had previously depicted both a Berber Moor (in The Merchant of Venice) and a black Moor (in Titus Andronicus). In Othello, however, the references to the character’s physical features do not settle the question of which race Shakespeare envisaged.

In his Arden edition of the play, E.A.J. Honigmann summarises the contradictory evidence. The various uses of the word ‘black’ (for example, “Haply for I am black”) do not help, since ‘black’ could simply mean ’swarthy’ for Elizabethans[1]. Iago twice uses the word ‘Barbary’ or ‘Barbarian’ to refer to Othello, apparently referring to the Barbary coast inhabited by the “white” Moors. Yet Iago also calls him ‘the thicklips’, which seems to refer to black physiognomy. Honigmann says that since these comments by Iago are all insults, they need not be taken literally.[2]

Honigmann also notes one piece of external evidence: an ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary with his retinue stayed in London in 1600 for several months and occasioned much discussion. Honigmann wonders whether Shakespeare’s play, written only a year or two afterwards, might have been inspired by the ambassador. [3] Also, it should be noted that a real Othello would more likely be a Berber or Arab than of entirely sub-Saharan African ancestry. On the other hand, sub-Saharans have visited the Mediterranean long before the time in which the events of the play are set, and a portrayal of Othello as sub-Saharan adds much to the feelings of alienation and suspicion that the audience must sense from him — here is truly a stranger in a strange land, which makes his psychological plight all the more striking and his final inability to trust his wife the more “explainable” if he is constantly reminded of the fact that the two of them are from what would then be considered almost literally two different worlds. A Barbary Arab would not experience the same emotions; he might not be trusted but he would not be considered totally alien by the Venetians. Therefore when a Barbary Othello cannot trust Desdemona, the audience would be more likely to blame him and not pity him.

Popular prejudice among average readers and theatre directors today leans towards the “black” interpretation, and more “realistic” Othellos have been rare.[4]

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Othello thus constantly challenges the link between a physical signifier and what is signified by it. For example, Iago – whose job as standard-bearer is to hold a sign of loyalty to Othello – says, of pretending to like the Moor: “Though I do hate him as I do hell pains/ Yet for necessity of present life/ I must show out a flag and sign of love/ Which is indeed but sign” (Act I, scene i, ll. 151-154a). Desdemona, too, sees a distinction between signifier and signified, saying she “saw Othello’s visage in his mind” – not in his actual face (Act I, scene iii, l. 247). The play thus argues that the relationship between signifier and signified is arbitrary; the plot itself hinging on the significance of an utterly “made-up” sign – a handkerchief made to signify infidelity.

When Iago tells him Desdemona is an adulteress, Othello cries “Her name, that was as fresh/ As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and black/ As mine own face” – leading to a suicidal conclusion: “If there be cords or knives/ Poison or fire, or suffocating streams/ I’ll not endure it” (Act III, scene iii, ll. 383b-387a).

White / Black
The most basic aspects of traditional Western symbology – that white signifies purity and black signifies evil – are repeatedly challenged in Othello. One example is in the character of Bianca. Her name in Italian means “white”, yet, as Iago tells the audience, her name is again “but sign” of purity, as she is in fact “a housewife that by selling her desires buys herself bread and clothes” (Act IV, scene i, ll. 95-96). Ironically, just before Desdemona pleads with Othello that she is not a whore, Bianca too protests to an accuser that she is “no strumpet, but of life as honest/ As you that thus abuse me” (Act V, scene i, ll. 122-123)– leading the audience to realize that, just as with Desdemona, the only evidence anyone has that Bianca is a whore is Iago’s word, and Cassio’s (he calls her a “customer,” whore {Act IV, scene i, l. 120}).

Heaven / Hell
Heaven nevertheless remains a signifier of truth, and hell a signifier of misrepresentation in the play. The words thus recur frequently throughout Othello, as Othello struggles to join other signifiers to them: for example he says to an innocent Desdemona that “Heaven doth truly know that thou art false as hell”. This shows strong contrasts between the two.

Other critics, most notably in the later twentieth century (after F. R. Leavis), have focused on Othello. Apart from the common question of jealousy, some argue that his honour is his undoing, while others address the hints of instability in his person (in Act IV Scene i, for example, he falls “into an epilepsy”).

Here’s a review of Oliver Parker’s “Othello” staring
Lawrence Fishburn !!!

Othello
Oliver Parker’s sexual thriller suffers from the presence of Shakespeare’s racial sensibilities and the absence of his poetry.

Alan A. Stone
Iago launches the first act of Shakespeare’s Othello by shouting into the stillness of the Venetian night, “The old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” With that Negrophobic alarm, Shakespeare’s most cunning and mysterious villain rouses Brabantio, the father of Desdemona, and exposes the raw nerve of White racism — the archetypal fear of the sexually triumphant Black man. Laurence Fishburne is the first actor I have ever seen bring to the role of Othello the smouldering sexual vibrations that keep this nerve pulsating.

Fishburne is certainly far from the best actor to have played the part: Laurence Olivier filmed his own stage version; Orson Welles constructed a flawed but brilliant film; James Earl Jones toured on stage in the part. And all these actors gave heroic dimension to Othello: Olivier gave him effrontery, Welles fury, Jones dignity. Fishburne now gives him sexuality. Though he may not read the lines as well as his predecessors, his visual presence on the screen is stunning. Exactly as director and screenwriter Oliver Parker intended, Fishburne’s Othello is heightened so that he is at least cinematically equal to the Iago of Kenneth Branagh — arguably the English-speaking world’s greatest living actor. On stage, without the artifices of the “magic lantern,” without closeups of Fishburne’s face, and with all of Othello’s poetry to be spoken, this production would have been a disaster. But Parker reconceived Shakespeare’s as a sexual thriller, and knew — in his first feature film — how the camera could help.

Filmmakers have a bag of tricks unique to their medium, which audiences now take for granted, but which were once astonishing. Biographers report that Wittgenstein insisted on sitting in the front row at movies because he wanted to be overwhelmed by their images. Sartre shared his childhood movie-going passion with his young widowed mother. As he explained in his autobiographical Words, it was their fantasy-land escape from an austere reality. Later he would analyze the medium to demonstrate how much more mind control over the audience the movie has compared to the stage play. In the theater the stage set is fixed in time and place; members of the audience are free to look wherever they choose. They need not attend to the actor who is speaking, but can focus on a piece of furniture, a minor actor, or the spotlighting of the stage. In the darkened movie house, a member of the audience can only close his eyes or submit and follow the moving images on the screen. The actors are larger than life, and a director can force the entire audience to watch a single face on the screen waiting to be kissed. The separate members of the audience are constituted as an anonymous collectivity of voyeurs peeping through the camera’s keyhole. The director who commands the camera thus has more power over the audience than any actor, and the camera’s compelling visual images have more impact than the actor’s words.

But Shakespeare is primarily about words; an actor’s challenge is to speak the poetry, capture the deeper meaning, and sustain the dramatic intensity. One might therefore expect the film versions of his plays to be disastrous. Not so. There have been many marvelous films of Shakespeare plays. Olivier and Branagh both did Henry V in versions that rival each other but surpass any stage production. The same can be said of Zeffereli’s Romeo and Juliet, Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar, and Peter Brook’s magnificent King Lear. Director Oliver Parker’s film falls far below this standard, but then Shakespeare’s Othello is a peculiarly challenging text.

Fifty years ago, Paul Robeson played Othello on Broadway to wildly enthusiastic audiences. But Othello has become a notoriously difficult stage play to perform and it can be painful, even distasteful, to watch. It is the only Shakespeare play about which many thoughtful people have said that they prefer Verdi’s operatic version. The problem in every modern performance is that Othello is so unreflective, Desdemona so helpless, and Iago so mysteriously evil that the painfulness of the storyline is unmitigated: There is no one with whom the audience can identify and empathize. Unthinking jealousy compounded by racism is a better formula for the stylistics of an opera than an engrossing theatrical performance.

Comparison with the Merchant of Venice is instructive. Both plays are set in Venice, the great maritime city-state of Marco Polo and Andrea Doria, an empire of its time, which imported ethnic and racial diversity along with commercial goods; this made the Rialto a natural setting for tales of racism and anti-semitism. But as in Shakespeare’s other plays that invoke racial and ethnic stereotypes, these Venetian plays reveal the cultural biases that confine even Shakespeare’s genius. Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, is saved by stealing some of her father’s fortune and running off with a Christian spendthrift. And, although audiences remember Portia for her line about mercy, she strips Shylock of every single penny and his religious identity as well, forcing him to convert to Christianity on pain of death, much as the Inquisitors of the Church did to his brethren. Although Shylock has his great speech (”. . . does a Jew not have feelings . . .”), Shakespeare wastes little sympathy on him. The audience was meant to be amused by the judgment meted out to this vengeful Jew.

Although Othello has been assigned nobility and great poetry, he is one of Shakespeare’s most unreflective characters. Unlike Shylock, who reflects on his status as a Jew and is bitterly aware of his degraded position as such, Othello never questions his Blackness or reflects on his precarious position in a world of White men. Othello acts, overreacts, has epileptic seizures, suffers terribly, but does not reflect. Taking Iago’s bait of jealousy without caution or consideration, he flashes into violence against his innocent bride. Bradley, the famous Shakespeare scholar, says that “Othello’s mind, for all its poetry, is very simple. He is not observant. His nature tends outward. He is quite free from introspection, and is not given to reflection. Emotion excites his imagination, but it confuses and dulls his intellect.” (It is no answer to say that Othello is a warrior; after all, Macbeth is a much bloodier warrior, and he reflects on his situation.)

Recognizing Othello as different in this way is not the same as understanding why Shakespeare conceived the Moor as so simple and unreflective. Reading the Venetian plays, however, one might well conclude that though Shakespeare understood almost as much about anti-semitism and racism as we do today, his knowledge about Jews and Blacks was narrowly circumscribed by stereotype.

Thus the difficulties for 20th century audiences. Thus, too, the standard tactic of the directors seeking to reach them: give the roles of Shylock and Othello to actors of enormous talent and star power in the hope that the actor will transform the character and give it grandeur. Lawrence Olivier did this with both roles brilliantly but it was a theatrical trick, not a solution to the fundamental problem of the stereotyped protagonists.

Oliver Parker had a different idea. Cognizant of Othello’s empty unreflectiveness, he filled the void with sex and violence, all of it realized through Fishburne’s visual presence — made all the more stunning because someone had the ingenious idea of tattooing the side of his shaved head, making him unforgettably iconic.

Fishburne will be remembered as the wife-battering Ike Turner of Tina Turner’s autobiographical What’s Love Got To Do With It?. The film had a great impact in England and Fishburne’s performance earned him the role of Othello. Parker was looking for a Black actor who would give Othello an Ike-Turner-edge of sexual intimidation and violence. The idea was to make the erotic relationship between Othello and Desdemona the emotional fulcrum of the play. Parker’s experience playing Iago in repertory had convinced him that for modern audiences the play had become unbalanced and the relationship between Othello and Desdemona had lost its dramatic energy. Othello was supposed to be Shakespeare’s most psychological play, a drama of private passions, but the diabolical evil of Iago and his hatred for the noble Othello was more intriguing to modern audiences than the almost platonic love relationship between the noble Moor and his childlike Desdemona.

Fishburne’s physicality and his stilted American speaking of the lines make him the embodiment of the alien “other” summoned from the racist’s nightmare of miscegenation. The casting for all of the other parts is bold, creative, and in line with this premise. Desdemona, in particular, is not the blond-haired ingenue we have come to expect in traditional productions. The sensual, dark-haired Swiss actress, Irene Jacob, has been given the role. And although Shakespeare’s Othello says “she loved me for the pains I have suffered,” this Desdemona, speaking in heavily accented English, conveys the full measure of erotic chemistry that can precipitate a sudden elopement.

This is not Shakespeare’s Desdemona, who asks Emilia, her maid and Iago’s wife, whether women are ever sexually unfaithful to their husbands. Desdemona cannot believe the truthful answer; that is the measure of her virginal naivete. Parker has sacrificed all these innocent lines. Irene Jacob’s heavily accented reading labors over her few lines; like Fishburne, she earned her part because of her erotic screen presence. Critics who object to this heavy-handed vulgarization of Shakespeare’s play must concede that in the 20th century, when ten-year-old children are sexually sophisticated, Shakespeare’s Desdemona would be something of a joke.

An ambitious director might have bitten the bullet and cast a very young girl as Desdemona. But adding discrepancies in age to racial difference would have provoked even greater outrage than Irene Jacob’s fleshy and sensuous Desdemona. She is an erotic match for Fishburne on the screen and Othello does not have to be crazed to imagine her making love to another man — especially after Parker inserts a scene in which Othello watches Desdemona dance with Cassio, with a spark of sensual pleasure in her eye. All of this makes Othello’s jealousy more believable.

Though Parker sacrifices the complexity of the play and most of its greatness to make it coherent for modern sensibilities, Branagh’s Iago somehow survives, and with new dimensions. Othello and Iago in Shakespeare’s play are in a certain sense more intimate than the Moor and his bride. An orthodox Freudian reading of the play uses this intimacy to resolve the mystery of Iago’s evil nature into his repressed homosexual attraction to the vibrantly sexual and brutal Moor. And in the film the body language between Fishburne and Branagh implies dominance-submission, sadism-masochism.

Fishburne may not accept the Freudian reading, but an improvised scene demonstrates his psychological understanding of the relationship. In a show of brute strength he holds the scheming Iago’s head underwater until the man almost drowns. According to Freudian formulas, the subordinate Iago first feels sexual jealousy because he has projected his own repressed passive and masochistic desires onto his wife Emilia; his first soliloquy of revenge tells the audience that Othello “has done my service in Emilia’s bed.” In his own paranoid mind a victim of sexual betrayal, Iago has the blueprint of the idea to make Othello believe he has suffered the same fate.

The Freudian interpretation, as usual, overstates the case, but the play certainly suggests this motive for revenge. Iago reiterates the charge in his second soliloquy. Furthermore, when Emilia realizes what Iago has done, she immediately attributes it to his unjustified belief that she had betrayed him with Othello. The attribution comes so quickly that Iago must have accused her of betrayal. And Fishburne’s Othello would seem to justify such beliefs. He is the kind of man Iago would take pleasure in hating.

Several stage actors have played this Freudian Iago, most notably Christopher Plummer. His Othello (James Earl Jones) stabs him in the groin at the end of the play to punctuate this reading. Branagh’s Freudian gesture is less obvious. In his conniving interchanges with Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello, his Iago sometimes assumes a seductive feminine demeanor, wooing them with yielding words and promises. There is a particularly striking scene after Othello’s arrival in Cyprus where the celebration of the Turkish fleet’s destruction has become a drunken orgy. In a cart rocking above them the camera reveals, without being overly graphic, that a couple is having intercourse while below a gleeful Iago embraces Roderigo and deviously sets him on to further machinations.

But if Branagh’s performance suggests repressed homosexuality, he is too great an actor to let Freud dominate Shakespeare. His mercurial Iago has not one great motive but rather several, all suggested in Shakespeare’s text. He has served Othello faithfully for many years in campaigns of war only to have Othello appoint Cassio, an untested soldier, over him — at least so he claims. Thus Iago has been doubly wronged by the Moor; resentment and envy abet sexual jealousy. So Cassio is a perfect target against whom Iago will foment Othello’s jealous rage. Furthermore, the play gives us reason to believe or suspect that Cassio is from the ranks of Italian gentlemen while Iago is a self-made man. Such parvenus fare poorly in Shakespeare’s plays; they are overreaching and flawed in character, and even when they are wronged they end badly. Iago, one of these, is not just a vengeful malefactor, but a con man and a thief as he manipulates Roderigo, Desdemona’s embittered suitor, to sell all he has and “put money in your pocket,” most of which ends up in Iago’s purse.

Branagh’s Iago is also caught up in the momentum of his own improvisations, as in his evil deeds he mirrors the inexplicable creative genius of his creator. Iago, like Hamlet, is one of Shakespeare’s many imaginary selves — this one can imagine unimaginable evils. When Othello finally grasps the full extent of Iago’s malevolence, the Moor demands an explanation but Iago, in a fitting show of intransigence, takes a vow of silence. And Othello understands that this is as it should be. Iago is a perfect villain who will not give us the satisfaction of fully knowing his reasons — he offers neither confession nor contrition. Evil can have no complete explanation. Branagh, who did one of this century’s greatest Hamlets on stage, has now given us a superb Iago on film.

But Branagh’s triumph may have defeated Parker’s film. His Iago is everything but what this film needed — a blood and guts racist. Parker describes Branagh’s performance as down-to-earth rather than “diabolical” — but he did not come down to the prosaic level required by the screenplay. One cannot escape the feeling that the guileful Kenneth Branagh knows where all the great actors before him have gone and now charts his own course. Parker’s frequent closeups of Fishburne’s glowering dark eyes keep Branagh’s Iago from stealing the whole show. But Iago can be found in Shakespeare’s play; Parker created Jacob’s Desdemona and Fishburne’s Othello.

Parker thought out very carefully every detail of his screenplay and if Shakespeare purists disapprove, as surely they must, it is not because Parker fails to understand the beauty of Shakespeare’s poetry or the tragedy of Othello. Fully realizing Shakespeare’s genius, Parker and Branagh aim to bring more people into his temple. Branagh certainly knows how to do traditional Shakespeare but he also realizes that a production that will pack the largest theater in London does not translate into the medium of film and will not pack the movie houses. And he realizes, too, that British actors with the training and skill to read Shakespeare’s lines may have neither strong screen presence nor box office drawing power. Moreover, his theory is that the problem cannot just be laid on the shoulders of the film-going audience. An outsider from Belfast, he believes that some of the blame belongs to narcissistic English Shakespeare traditionalists.

He tried to break the English mold in his film version of Much Ado About Nothing by including American movie stars. But try as they might, Denzel Washington and the other Hollywood actors simply could not master Shakespeare’s language. Shakespeare’s comic scenes in the play are based on a lunatic but ingenious sequence of malapropisms which carry the opposite meaning of the speaker’s intention. The humor was entirely lost in Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves’ American translation, even if one knew the arcane lines being spoken. Nonetheless, the high-spirited musical-comedy feeling of the film did succeed in attracting a new audience to one of Shakespeare’s less well-known comedies, and grossed almost $50 million at the box office. Branagh is now doing a four-hour film Hamlet with a most unlikely array of Hollywood actors. It will either be a disaster, or a miracle.

Parker’s Othello succeeds better than Much Ado About Nothing in integrating its diverse and non-Shakespearean actors, but at great cost. The film opened in the aftermath of the O.J. Simpson trial, and some of the film’s backers must have been thanking their lucky stars expecting to cash in on the American craze. But if the television drama fascinated the public, Oliver Parker’s did not. Othello is not a bad film, and it is cinematically beautiful, but it has failed to find a new audience for Shakespeare and is very far from an enlightening interpretation of one of his most difficult plays.

If Shakespeare’s own Othello was the Elizabethan stereotype of an African savage, Parker’s version is the modern stereotype of the inner-city Black. Parker’s Othello has no fall from innocence, no defining tragic moment, and Fishburne offers no more than his physical presence. Parker hoped that sexual passion would bring emotional coherence to a play that has puzzled Shakespeare critics for two centuries. But he addresses the racial problem by eliminating Othello’s grandeur and Desdemona’s innocence — a solution that required him to sacrifice most of their poetry and the miracle of their love.

Othello by most accounts was the tragedy written after Hamlet, when Shakespeare was at the height of his powers. But unlike Hamlet with its Ghost, Macbeth with its witches, or Richard III with its bloody scheme of royal succession, Othello is an un-Shakespeare-like tragedy without supernatural forces or great political-historical significance. And is there any other noble hero in the Shakespeare canon who hits his wife in public, treats her like a whore, and kills her with his own hands? Shakespeare’s script prepares us to be shocked by that public blow — the tragedy’s defining moment. The old warrior Othello loves Desdemona because she pities him, not because she excites him. And the Moor gives assurances in every respect that he will be gentle with his innocent bride. Othello is the very antithesis of Iago’s Negrophobic black ram. Far from Fishburne’s incendiary Othello, Shakespeare’s Moor assures us that the days of his hot-blooded youthful excesses are finished. He can conduct the war against the Turks without being distracted by his new bride. Frank Kermode compares Othello and Desdemona in the first act of the play to Adam and Eve before the fall. Be that as it may, when Othello strikes Desdemona the audience sees the beast in man revealed, and that savage beast is a Black man. Shakespeare’s Othello speaks sublime poetry but he confirms Elizabethan stereotypes of race.

But the failure of Parker’s film is less severe when measured against the Olivier and Welles films. Pauline Kael might now prefer to expunge her rhapsodic review of the Olivier production from her collected works. She opined that no Black actor, not even Paul Robeson, could bring to the role of Othello what Olivier had. But an Othello in black (or brown) face is an affront to contemporary sensibilities. And the brilliant Olivier production, as Kael herself admits, “isn’t even much of a movie.” Branagh described it as a narcissistic English interpretation of Shakespeare. Orson Welles is not English, but in black face he is today as out of place as Olivier, and his Othello is more notable for its exotic cinematic style than its substance. The failure of all three films suggests that Shakespeare’s play may have no contemporary cinematic solution. And this is because it was written for an audience that could accept racist stereotypes as truisms without acknowledging their own racism.

I mentioned earlier that many people prefer Verdi’s opera to Shakespeare’s play. Shakespeare’s poetry, surely, is at least the equivalent of Verdi’s music. The most useful insight into Shakespeare’s Othello emphasizing the poetry comes from Bradley’s lectures. Though he acknowledges all of the play’s difficulties — the pain and dismay produced in the audience by the sudden explosion of savagery that comes from the noble Moor — he makes brilliant excuses for Shakespeare’s racist stereotype. He quotes with approval Swinburne’s line that “we pity Othello even more than we pity Desdemona.” He acknowledges that no rationalization satisfactorily explains this unsettling tragedy and that the many troubling issues it raises “cannot be decided by argument.” More simply, I would say, no solution will make the racism of Shakespeare and his audiences disappear.

But Bradley’s consoling insight is that Othello may be Shakespeare’s greatest poet and if we read the play and its poetry “with all our force” we will feel these objec- tions less. Parker’s Othello does not and cannot provide us that consolation. Unfortunately, with all its technical powers over mind, the medium of film has found no way to heighten, or even to convey, poetry’s magical powers.

She’s a great actress….why not?

Sorry for the Long Post, But Othello ,A Play that Shakespeare wrote about a BLACK Man’s Jealousy, love, rage & sexual prowlness,is SO Good !!

Shakespeare wrote this play back in 1603.

If you get a chance, Watch Lawrence Fishburn adaptation (Oliver Stone Directs).

You will NOT regret it
Peace

@6, coloreds also live in Southern parts of Africa, namely Namibia and South Africa.

I agree with most of the people who have made a comment she looks just like the woman. And believe it or not Angelina Jolie is a good actress. Stop hating…..

You all can’t be serious? I really don’t see what the big deal about this is. She is a good actress, and the woman who she is playing doesnt seem to have anything against it. It is about telling the story with the best actor/actress you can. It is really sad that this needs to be put out there like a racial thing. Hell Hallie is playing a white woman in a new movie coming out….you don’t hear white folks up in arms about it do you? Damn….

RACE IS ALWAYS AN ISSUE, RATHER FEEBLE-MINDED PERSONS WANT TO BELIEVE IT IS OR NOT.

ALSO, WHOEVER TRULY BELIEVES THAT THIS WOMAN HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH A.J. PLAYING HER IS A ROYAL DUMBASS…BRAD HAD THE FIRST SAY-SO, AND WTF CARES WHAT THAT WOMAN HAD TO SAY ABOUT IT….WHAT ELSE COULS SHE DO BUT GIVE “HER BLESSING”.

FINALLY….WTF???? THIS SHOULD BE A SHOWTIME/HBO/LIFETIME/CBS/NBC/FOX/ABC/LMN MOVIE!!!!! SHIT…I DIDNT SEE WHEN THE LEVEES BROKE….ON THE GODDAMN BIGSCREEN—AND THEY SAY RACE ISNT AN ISSUE…HELL YEA IT’S 2006 AND RACE IS STILL AN ISSUE.

FURTHERMORE, IF “TALENT” IS SUCH A BIG ISSUE, THEN WTF DIDN’T DENZEL, OMAR GOODING, OR TERRANCE HOWARD GET PICKED FOR SOME OF THE LARGEST BOX-OFFICE ALL-WHITE CAST SHOWS? B/C THEY WERE BLK???????

my people my people…where did we go wrong!

#228

I understand that as well, but all in all they are there and they are not all “black” as some would intentionally ASS-U-Me.

#14..maybe Nicole could have pulled it off…and what’s wrong with Halle??? I dont believe that she should be playing a blk woman anymore than I beleive that A.J. should be playing an Afro-Cuban (is she really Afro???)….but then again, I dont know wtf this movie is going Hollywood…there are better stories to be told…yes I am a proud American, but I am also a proud BLACK American and I can think of plenty of more positive/tragic BLACK stories that could be told on big-screen as well…not just ones about Drug Lords, boxing/sports coaches, and other criminals….sure Ali and Ray were good, but what about the Oprah Winfrey story! Maya Angelou! Langston Hughes! Good-gried all we have is “King” and “X”…wat about Coretta and Winifred(sp?)….even Cosby….place a wht mutha in one of these films as a blk and Oh yes…All lHECK IS GOING TO BREAK LOOSE!!

That said…I will not be spending my $9.45 bto go see this movie, though I am sure that it will do extremely well in the box office…this woman, like all others deserves the right to tell the story of herself and her husband

Bill i am back to co0signing with you I understand where alot of the outrage is stemming from, however if Marianne Pearl said she wanted Ms. Jolie-Pitt to play the part then who are we to argue? Yes it may irk some peoples sensabilities but rrrrr ummmm aaaaa story aint about yall so there.

#234:

$9.45, damn. You better get hip to the matinee or better yet $5 Tuesdays.

See black ppl do try to save a little. lol

# 3 I completely agree with your comment.

Angelina looks beautiful in the first pic.

# 3 that comment is on point. For those who may thought I put # 31, I put # 3.

I love Angelina, however they should have found someone that fit the part fully. I guess they wanted to ensure that which ever actress that was awarded with the role, would possess the capabilities to express the various emotional episodes that came with such events. However, I’m also sure that someone of a mixed racial background could have pulled it off, if they had only took the time to audition people.

yes the boy is back
*
dont hate!!! I think she can do the role…….She has a black kid!So no rasism there….. Joli is a good actress too. But they fixed her up with all that make up n ish she kinda do look black :o…
But there is something about Joli***…Who cares about her past….Who would adobt a kid from other countrys now-a-days. I guess thats why they picked her for the role. She is a good spirit & good acter!

@#231…
I agree with you on some of what you had to say! You are right race is an issue, and I am not “feeble-minded” enough to not see that. I just don’t think race is an issue here. I also agree that there are much better things to put out there than this story! I think “when the leaves broke” should have gone on the big screen so that we could put Bush on blast for not doing his job! I personally think that the decisions there had everything to do with race, and ignorance in the government!!

And Denzel and Omar and Terrance have there talent. They have had their box/office smashes and do their thang! They have reached all different characters, not just drug lords and sprots figures.

I don’t care how great of an actress Angelina Jolie is, she is starring in a movie based on a REAL woman who is Black. Yeah yeah yeah…she’s only “half Black”…but the world doesn’t see her or most half black people as anything BUT BLACK!

Some of yall are killing me with the cosigning of this movie…talking about acting is acting.

So you mean to tell me when they do a movie on George Washington…it’s gonna be okay for Denzel Washington to play his ass because acting is acting?!

I really don’t understand some of you people.

But it has been done for years.Woman use to play men and vice-versa. They could paint Denzel white just like they make Angie look Black. It is about acting and feeling the emotion of what is happening, and I don’t think race has anything to do with that. Hell I say let Denzel play George!!! I love Denzel and wouldnt be mad at anything he played in…(Except for The Man Inside) that movie sucked!!

I read on another blog…and I for one minute don’t think it’s true I’m just throwing it out b/c it relates to the topic…but I read that Josh Hartnett (a white actor) is supposed to playing George Washington Carver in an upcoming film. Would anyone of ya’ll (especially the ones on here saying that it’s not about race, but about talent) have a problem with that?

@ 157 Boo! Nigga Boo! YT is concerned about it. They dont want nothing to do wit yo black ass believe that!

@ 167 Yay!

Someone brought up a very interesting comment, and I can’t help but piggyback..

When was the last time YOU as Consumer went to PAY to see a BLACK MOVIE ??

The reason why I ask is because a LOT of Black Movies are being COPIED and soold (botleg copies) while the movie is STILL out. Case in Point: Idewild

Yes, I know, Whites buy botleg copies too, but whites supporttheir own kind, no matter how dumb the movie is !!

Since their is such a small percentage of Blacks that go to the movies, could this possibly be the reason why Hollywood would rather have a marketable White Woman like Angelina Jolie play this role rather than a Thadie Newton

White People logic is: They ain’t going to see the movie ANYWAY, so what difference does it make…

Just wanted to throw that out there..

Peace

If race didnt matter why did Angelina darken herself? If it was only about talent why did she spray paint herself dark and put the curly wig on. She should have stayed her lily white self.

And all black people in the western hemisphere have mixed ancestry whether they look it or not. What does being 1/4 this and 5% that have to do with it. None of it adds up white and that is the measuring stick.

There was something else I was gonna mention…but I cant remember…

Anyway, actually I dont care about this movie. I like Angelina, but she, as well as Halle and J-Lo are not great actresses. They are beautiful to look at and you hope they do well. But acting? Come on!

Angelina Jolie is one of those stars who actually acts, cradle of life was bs, but she a great actress. which black actress could do it? maybe the black actors weren’t interested in funding that project. that project seem to be coming out of there pockets (angie & brad). someone suggested they could get better choices. who better? do u see ethnic actresses going to war-torn countries give aid? do u see ethnic superstars adopting ethnic children from ravished countries? i think the are busy ‘blinging and cristaling’… who better? please tell me, waiting…

blk dds said:
——————————————————————————–

#234:

$9.45, damn. You better get hip to the matinee or better yet $5 Tuesdays.

See black ppl do try to save a little. lol

LMAO—That IS the matinee!!! Afterwards, its 15.00 @ the regal! LOL

242:
“Yeah yeah yeah…she’s only “half Black”…but the world doesn’t see her or most half black people as anything BUT BLACK!”

Oh yeah? Then why is it that only black people are raising hell about this movie? No, the biggest enemy of black people these days are not white people, but black people themselves.

#249

that’s messed up

@ Bill–I am the first one to pay to see a blk movie, jic that question had me as a target…and yes, I will buy the bootleg, too to keep me entertained until the Blockbuster version comes out….It really has nothing to do w/ buying the bootleg or not, tho.

If something stinks, I wont go see it! Case in point: (mind you, I ONLY pay to see BLACK-Cast movies (at least 1-2 KEY blk ppl)…Ill wait to see others when they come out on DVD)….Waist Deep? Domino? Phat Girls? WHY???? WHY??? WHY??? would I pay my money to see this Tom Foolery…. I cant justify taking my hard-earned cash to go see these movies AT ALL!

Madea’s Family Reunion? Diary of a Mad Black Woman? Something New? Four Brothers? Heck YES!!!!! I will pay time and time again (and refraimed from buying the bootleg)to see these type of movies (with blk cast members)….I’ve seen most of Jamie Fox’s Movies, I WISH Lakawana Blues would have come out (although I think Idlewild is just that movie under a diff. title and w/ more action)….I love Hill Harper’s movies, LL’s movies (even IN ToO DEEP—there was a point)….Eve’s Bayou…Martin LAwrence Movies….u feel me?

So, no I will sit my blk behind at home and pop in a load of DVD’s into my player, pop some corn or heat up some nachos, turn the lights off and get a blanket (maybe invite some folks over) and blast my TV theatre style b4 I pay to see non-sense…and until Hollywood realizes that WE like POSITIVE, COMEDY, and basically STORYLINES!!!!!!!!!! then I will do just that!

~One luv!

247:

Grow up. You’re acting like Angelina Jolie spray-painted herself chocolate brown. It’s about looking the part. And the truth is they didn’t have to do much to her to make her look like a woman who is only half-black at the MOST.

#251—I kno! lol—I could pay to go to Union Station but there’s too many teeny-boppers and horny boys there (even though Mat. is $5.35 and reg. is $9)

PPL PLEASE CUT OUT THE NONSENSICAL SUGGESTIONS IT JUST MAKES U SOUND STUPID… THE ONLY SENSIBLE SUGGESTION OF AN ALTERNATIVE ACTRESS IS THANDIE NEWTON… PEOPLE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ACTRESSES… WE NOT TALKING ABOUT BEING IN BLACK FILMS… WE TALKING ABOUT ACTING… ACTING SO GOOD U DON’T EVEN NOTICE THE COLOUR OF THE PERSONS SKIN… MOST OF BLACK ACTORS PINHOLE THEMSELVES INTO ‘BLACK FILMS’ AND ITS BITCHING TO GET OUT… PPL LIKE HALLE, KERRY WASHINGTON, THANDIE, AND SOME OTHERS IMMERSE THEMSELVES INTO ROLES THAT ARE ACTING ORIENTED… NOT TYPE CASTED… STOP DOING THE ‘MADEA’ ‘DELIVER US FROM EVA’ ‘LITTLE MAN’ ‘BOOTY CALL’ AND EXPECT SPIELBERG, SODERBERG, SCORSESE TO CALL U UP… BREAK OUT OF THE NONSENSE, DO SOME INDIE FILMS WITH SCRIPTS, SO U CAN SHOW UR RANGE… EVEN SPIKE LEE STOPPED… HIS LATEST FILMS ARE MORE SCRIPT AND ACTING ORIENTED THAN ‘BLACK POWER’ ORIENTRED…STOP BITCHIN ABOUT NOT GETTING PARTS… TAKE THE SMALL PARTS SOMETIMES SHOW UR TALENT… LOOK AT TERRENCE HOWARD, HE’S ON HIS WAY TO BEING RIGHT NEXT TO DENZEL, HES NOT MAKING ANY KINDA MONEY AT THIS TIME, BUT HE HAS THE OSCAR PPLS ATTENTION CUZ HE ACTS… DON’T ALWAYS DO IT FOR THE MONEY… SOME WHITE ACTOR ‘BIGGEST’ AND MOST RECOGNISED FILMS WERE DONE FOR LITTLE OR NO MONEY… ETHNIC PPL ALREADY KNOW WE GOT IT HARD, WE ARE A FEW STEPS BEHIND… STOP BITCHING AND TAKE A STAND… ACT DAMN IT…

#253—I understand your point (although I dont side with it) However, I can understand 247 as well because no amount of tanning would yeild such a “brownich-yellow tint” at the same time, ppl go to tanning booths all thetime and some come out orange. LOL—–oh well!

PS: Angelina plays in mostly adventure films….I dont believe that she can act very well! Ppl have previously discussed how they were sick of “Dancers with CD’s”, well I’m getting there about Stuntmen/body doubles with acting careers!:-)

#255—That’s bullshit and if you cant smell it I suggest you use a whole tub of Vix Vapor Rub to unclug your sinuses, boo boo!

WITH SO MANY BLACK ACTRESSES IN HOLLYWOOD THAT NEED GOOD ROLES…..
WHY WOULD THEY CAST A WHITE WOMAN…………….

MONEY!!!!!

and deliver us from Eva was a Horrible Movie—but since when should blk ppl neglect issues and realness of who they are—sh1t—cuz we werent in the blk dahlia or in her shoes, now it’s poor acting (although tyler does need better acting in his movies)? GTFOH with that! FYI: MOST of the movies that you prob consider “good acting/good” were actually written and sold by ppl of color (not just blk ppl)..get a grip…and since when…fvck it…Im OUT

256:

I’m not saying they sprayed her with simple spray-tanner, but it’s not like they had to transform her into Whoopi Goldberg, either. Angelina Jolie’s natural skin tone isn’t very lighter than Mariane Pearl’s natural skin tone (that picture above is not a very good example, as she’s pretty pale there. Look here: http://www.skinz.org/cele...na-jolie-wallpapers-1.jpg).

And I’m tired of the whole “Jolie only does action movies” thing. Angelina Jolie has starred in many more dramas and indie flicks than action films, and she won her Oscar for her role in “Girl, Interrupted”

MissInform-ER u need to calm down… ppl of colour must be able to argue rationally agreeing to disagree, we not talking about production we talking about acting… raw talent… thanx pittbboi, guess most ppl don’t watch indie films… its in her blood, go watch some jon voight films… ppl of colour need to step out of the box… its already said we don’t like to read… open ur minds, we can be more rounded… we don’t always have to watch the wayans bros… there’s so much more out there…

I’m bored and armed with a copy of photoshop, and this argument really is ridiculous. So I apologize in advance for this, but geez, black people are really taking this over the top. I could see if they were trying to make THIS movie:

http://pics.livejournal.com/swaggled/pic/0000rdtb

But damn! They’re not doing something THAT drastic.

^^^^^^
I agree PITTBBOI!! its is being blown way out of proportion!!

lol @ pittbboi… sweet very funny and ironically she has a film called funny girl…

on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 @ 1:43 pm

MissInform-ER said:
——————————————————————————–

@ Bill–I am the first one to pay to see a blk movie, jic that question had me as a target…and yes, I will buy the bootleg, too to keep me entertained until the Blockbuster version comes out….It really has nothing to do w/ buying the bootleg or not, tho.

If something stinks, I wont go see it! Case in point: (mind you, I ONLY pay to see BLACK-Cast movies (at least 1-2 KEY blk ppl)…Ill wait to see others when they come out on DVD)….Waist Deep? Domino? Phat Girls? WHY???? WHY??? WHY??? would I pay my money to see this Tom Foolery…. I cant justify taking my hard-earned cash to go see these movies AT ALL!

Madea’s Family Reunion? Diary of a Mad Black Woman? Something New? Four Brothers? Heck YES!!!!! I will pay time and time again (and refraimed from buying the bootleg)to see these type of movies (with blk cast members)….I’ve seen most of Jamie Fox’s Movies, I WISH Lakawana Blues would have come out (although I think Idlewild is just that movie under a diff. title and w/ more action)….I love Hill Harper’s movies, LL’s movies (even IN ToO DEEP—there was a point)….Eve’s Bayou…Martin LAwrence Movies….u feel me?

So, no I will sit my blk behind at home and pop in a load of DVD’s into my player, pop some corn or heat up some nachos, turn the lights off and get a blanket (maybe invite some folks over) and blast my TV theatre style b4 I pay to see non-sense…and until Hollywood realizes that WE like POSITIVE, COMEDY, and basically STORYLINES!!!!!!!!!! then I will do just that!

~One luv!

Bill Said:
Thank you four your response.
I respect your position & opinion.

Yes, actually that question was directed to you

I’m glad you didn’t take offense.

I think you & I have agreed to disagree, and that is always a good thing….To RESPECT another’s opinion even though it differs from yours.

A good debate is good for the spirit, so YOU keep posting away.

I ain’t mad at you

I respect you.

Peace,
Your boy,
Bill

on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 @ 1:46 pm

OddOne said:
——————————————————————————–

PPL PLEASE CUT OUT THE NONSENSICAL SUGGESTIONS IT JUST MAKES U SOUND STUPID… THE ONLY SENSIBLE SUGGESTION OF AN ALTERNATIVE ACTRESS IS THANDIE NEWTON… PEOPLE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ACTRESSES… WE NOT TALKING ABOUT BEING IN BLACK FILMS… WE TALKING ABOUT ACTING… ACTING SO GOOD U DON’T EVEN NOTICE THE COLOUR OF THE PERSONS SKIN… MOST OF BLACK ACTORS PINHOLE THEMSELVES INTO ‘BLACK FILMS’ AND ITS BITCHING TO GET OUT… PPL LIKE HALLE, KERRY WASHINGTON, THANDIE, AND SOME OTHERS IMMERSE THEMSELVES INTO ROLES THAT ARE ACTING ORIENTED… NOT TYPE CASTED… STOP DOING THE ‘MADEA’ ‘DELIVER US FROM EVA’ ‘LITTLE MAN’ ‘BOOTY CALL’ AND EXPECT SPIELBERG, SODERBERG, SCORSESE TO CALL U UP… BREAK OUT OF THE NONSENSE, DO SOME INDIE FILMS WITH SCRIPTS, SO U CAN SHOW UR RANGE… EVEN SPIKE LEE STOPPED… HIS LATEST FILMS ARE MORE SCRIPT AND ACTING ORIENTED THAN ‘BLACK POWER’ ORIENTRED…STOP BITCHIN ABOUT NOT GETTING PARTS… TAKE THE SMALL PARTS SOMETIMES SHOW UR TALENT… LOOK AT TERRENCE HOWARD, HE’S ON HIS WAY TO BEING RIGHT NEXT TO DENZEL, HES NOT MAKING ANY KINDA MONEY AT THIS TIME, BUT HE HAS THE OSCAR PPLS ATTENTION CUZ HE ACTS… DON’T ALWAYS DO IT FOR THE MONEY… SOME WHITE ACTOR ‘BIGGEST’ AND MOST RECOGNISED FILMS WERE DONE FOR LITTLE OR NO MONEY… ETHNIC PPL ALREADY KNOW WE GOT IT HARD, WE ARE A FEW STEPS BEHIND… STOP BITCHING AND TAKE A STAND… ACT DAMN IT…

Bill Said:
That was JUST so Logical,and well stated
PREACH !!!!
I would throw my shoe at you if I could !!!

@246 Bill
even if i buy bootleg movies
which i have in the past (but the quality of the pictures havent been that great lately)
am i not supporting my brothers and sisters on the street when i hand them my money?
at least i know that money is going to them
and even if illegal at least they are getting their hustle on

Denzel Washington played Caesar on BROADWAY and isn’t the character White.

Usher is playing Billy Flyn on BORADWAY isn’t the charater White

They made the Honeymooners into Black people. NUFF SAID.

It kills me that people are VALIDATINg Angelina because SHE ADOPTED A BLACK CHILD. SO DENIRO HAS MIXED KIDS…. DOES THAT GIVE HIM THE RIGHT TO PLAY A BLACK ROLE.

THERE ARE SO MANY BLACK ACTORS WHO FOUGHT HARD FOR US TO GET QUALITY ROLES>

MANY OF YOU ARE TOO WISE OR UNEDUCATED TO EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE STRUGGLES OF BLACK ACTORS AND ACTRESSES.

THE POINT IS … YES ITS ACTING , BUT IF EVERYONE FELT LIKE THAT in the past

AISHA so your content because a handful of blacks have played whites?????

COMPARE THAT TO THE WHITES WHO HAVE PLAYED BLACKS INDIANS AND ASIANS…who got payed for those parts.

Better yet open a history book and read about the struggles of black actors back in the day

I didnt mean too wise , I meant young and uneducated

Everyone who keeps mentioning money DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT FILMS. IF THIS IS AN OSCAR TYPE MOVIE THAT IT ISN”T EXPECTED TO MAKE A LOT OF MOVIES IF THEY DID THEY WOULD BE CALLED BLOCKBUSTERS. “SHAKES HEAD”

Damnit Too Tots! It’s not a “black role”!!! It’s the role of a woman who is more WHITE than black in a movie that has shit to do with what race she is anyway!

Great Point Aisha, Too TOts calm yo ass down.

keep getting cut off!

IF EVERYONE IN THE PAST FELT LIKE ITS JUST ACTING…

then THERE WOULD STILL BE WHITE PEOPLE PLAYING OUR ROLES TO THIS DAY. WE WOULD HAVE NO BLACK ACTORS….

THEY FOUGHT FOR US AND THEN YOU SLAP THEM IN THE FACE…

THATS LIKE US SAYING WE DONT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOLS NOW, AFTER THERE WAS A HUGE STRUGGLE FIGHTING FOR US TO INTEGRATE INTO THEIR SCHOOLS.

YES ITS ACTING…BUT ITS NOT ABOUT THAT ITS ABOUT THE STRUGGLE THAT BLACKS HAVE HAD TO GET QUALITY ROLES THAT PORTRAY US POSITIVELY AND ACCURATELY.

The woman may consider herself more white than Black and you are calling us uneducated.

If I am not mistaken thisis a French, Dutch Afro-Cuban woman.

So there is no need for an AMERICAN or A Black or WHite woman to Play her.

on Wednesday, October 11, 2006 @ 2:40 pm

Nix said:
——————————————————————————–

@246 Bill
even if i buy bootleg movies
which i have in the past (but the quality of the pictures havent been that great lately)
am i not supporting my brothers and sisters on the street when i hand them my money?
at least i know that money is going to them
and even if illegal at least they are getting their hustle on

Bill Said:
Hey Nix

Okay, let’s Flip the script for a minute…
Suppose you or your husband recorded a CD with Trini Music, and you were signed to VP Records.

Now, your walking down Flatbush Avenue, and some African Dude is selling a Bootleg copy of your CD

How would YOU Feel ???

It’s the same Thing as if you purchased a bootleg copies of Idewild.

That’s all I’m saying…

My issue is that they should’ve gotten a FRENCH actor to play her NOT an American.

SHERRY

I am CALM and educated on the topic.

YOU JUST VALIDATED IGNORANCE…

so a couple of blacks played white roles..so its ok…

PLEASE READ A history book

Thank you NIcole all of you are mentioning AMERICAN BLACK Actresses who can play her, BUT THE WOMAN IS FROM FRANCE SO THERE SHOULD BE A FRENCH WOMAN PLAYING HER>

YOU ARE IGNORANT THERE HAS BEEN MORE THAN A COUPLE OF BLACKS PLAYING WHITE ROLES> DUMBASS

Too TOTS you seriously need to read the HISTORY OF FILM AND THE AMERICAN POPULATION.

AND MAYBE LEARN MORE ABOUT MARIANE PEARL TO KNOW THAT SHE IS PART DUTCH AND SHE ISN”T EVEN AMERICAN.

# 15 NOW THATS WHATS UP! I LOVED HER IN MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE IS BLACK SOMEWHERE

Halle Berry is about to play a white woman
Raven SYmone is about to play a White Teen
Keyshia Knight was in a movie called Pollyanna the ORIGINAL character was White.

Exactly, Lydia.

And another thing, this woman is French. That’s another thing to consider. A lot of people are forcing American ideas and history into her life.

In France, race is a whole other ball game. France is the country that embraced Josephine Baker as the incredibly talented, sexy, triple-threat black woman she was when white AND black people from her OWN COUNTRY spat on her. I can tell you from the experiences of my grandfather (he is also bi-racial, French, and immigrated the US) that in France, race relations worked just a bit differently. Being of mixed-blood wasn’t the taboo that it was at one time considered to be in the United States.

Mariane Pearl may be of mixed blood, but she comes from a country where it was more acceptable to embrace your caucasian roots. So it’s not a slap to the face of black actresses for her. For her, it’s a part of her life that she’s comfortable with. Black Americans have no right to take that from her.

Queen Latifah is playing a role in Hairspray that was originally a White Character.She also Played a character who was originally white in Chicago

Lucy Lui Played in Charlie’s Angel they all were Originally WHite

Halle Berry Played Catwoman who was Originally White.

Thank you Pittboi, this woman is from FRANCE they have a different idea about race than AMERICA.

SHERRY SINCE YOUR SO SMART>>>HOW MANY BLACKS HAVE PLAYED WHITES VERSUS WHITES PLAYING EVERY OTHER NATIONALITY..

You keep calling me names and telling me to calm down but yoo have no facts. I studied Theatre and Film and know the struggles black actors and actresses have gone thru..Apparently you are cool with the little progress we have made and if all blacks had that attitude We actresses wouldnt get any work.

Sweety I am in this business so I know first hand. My mother and grandmother were and still are in the theatre and film and I KNOW THE STRUGGLES THEY WENT THRU……

#254

I don’t know NE thing about the Regal or Union Station.

Where I’m from its the Showcase or the Rave and I doubt if it is $15.

And if it’s after matinee time……it’s definately somebody else’s money I’m spendin’….ya feel me.

REESE
SO SHE IS PART DUTCH…There are black people who are Dutch. Black people were shipped everywhere to be slaves…..Germany, Latin Countries. I KNOW AMERICAN HISTORY…but that isnt my point. MY point is the struggle Blacks have had in the industry…POINT BLANK

Maybe Too Tots should read a history book about France .lol.

NO shit sherlock, I am from England.

Her Nationality is FRENCH

BUt her ehtnicity is Part Dutch

THere is a Difference.

How about the struggles of overweight actors or the struggle of women just getting the role of the sexbot,wife or girlfriend
I am majoring in theatre also.

How about the struggles of people with disabilities

or the not so attractive people

or NON -American actors who get thier roles taken away FROM AMERICANS>

My sister has a mental disability and she wants to be astar , but can she?

Or how about the struggles of OLDER women in general.

I know the struggles, of Blacks in theatre , I am currently in a Black theatre class.

But I am not stupid enough to see that EVERY thing is racist. Especially in a country -FRANCE that have a different ideas of race than AMerica. Like Pittboi said you as an Black american can NOT force our ideas on other countries. If you want to do that yo would be just as bad as the White people who took slaves and FORCED their ideas on us.

I hope you also realize that there are a lot more WHite people in America than Blacks. You do realize that right.

Forcing your ideas on others not a good look.

Regardless of her COUNTRY OF ORIGIN she still has African roots..that isnt evEN MY POINT

FUNNY HOW MY POINT OF HOW PAST ACTORS WORKED HARD FOR US to get our own roles AND IT IS A SLAP IN THE FACE - IS BEING TURNED INTO HER BEING FRENCH AND DUTCH.

I DIDNOT EVEN SAY THE ACTRESS HAD TO BE FROM AMERICA….

mY POINT IS iM SURE BLACK ACTORS ARE roling in their graves…

mY MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER HAVE BEEN IN THE FILM INDUSTRY FOR YEARS AND HAVE HAD HEARTACHE AND ANGUISH OVER THE ROLES THEY WERE PRESENTED OR ROLES GIVEN TO NON ETHNIC ACTRESSES..

WTF DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH HER BEING FROM A CERTAIN COUNTRY..THERE ARE BLACKS IN EVERY COUNTRY

sherry what about it…the question is about race IN THIS POST SO THAT IS WHAT I ADDRESSED…NOT SOME OTHER SHYT YOUR BRINGING UP BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO POINT

i DONT THINK EVERYTHING IS RACIST AND SWEETY I WAS NOT BORN IN AMERICA….SO WHAT R U SAYING..NONE OF YOUR ARGUMENTS HAVE VALIDITY
___________
basically i feel lik ewhat jarhead said and if u dont agree oh well

Pittboi: I think it does matter to us blacks [that really care] who was picked for this role. This might be petty and Jim Crowish (as you called it), but all of this is said with validation. Marianne Pearle might have features of a white woman but it is totally unambiguous that she has black roots. For Hollywood to cast a white actress to play the role of a biracial woman is a slap in the face of black actresses. I think it takes away from credible black actresses who are dying for a role like this. No one can deny anything that’s black or diluted with black. Hollywood has been doing this for years. How can there be 2 or 3 major black actors compared to at least 10 major white actors ? How can there be only one major black actress in Hollywood compared to 20 white actresses ? Hollywood is truly racist. They have yet to show an authentic interracial relationship film involving a black man and white woman. Which clearly makes up the majority of interracial marriages and relationships regarding the two races. It’s still considered taboo. I would hate to see the cast choice for an autobiographical film of Corretta Scott King. Who will they cast……Gena Rowlands ? Or what about a remake of ‘Imitation of Life’? Who will they cast as the biracial daughter ? Angelina again ? Jessica Alba ? Jennifer Lopez ? If so, the future of black actresses is will be non-existant.

bill
shhhhh how do you know i get my bootlegs on the ave
lol

in all fairness i would be ok with it
its not like the govt dont sneak into my pockets now
BEFORE I EVEN GET MY DAMN CHECK
at least as an artist i would see advance money
but anyway to my understanding the record companies are the biggest crooks out there so i can buy beyonces cd’s or janets cd’s but their real money comes in from concerts, endorsements, etc…

im pretty some people are natural entrepreneurs but lets face it the real reason most put out their own clothing lines, shoes, perfumes etc…
is mo money mo money mo money
and if they were getting sufficient funds from just selling albums alone they wouldnt be bothered

It’s said that you think people with disabilities is just some other shyt that just shows what kind of person you are.

NOT SOME OTHER SHYT YOUR BRINGING UP BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO POINT
___________________________________________________

IGNORANCE AT ITS BEST

MY SISTER IS NOT SOME OTHE SHIT NEITHER ARE PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND THE OTHER THINGS I MENTIONED.

Everybody in Brooklyn cops cd/dvd bootlegs off the ave…

Heck People drive in from Jersey to copy Gucci off the Ave..
Those African’s are Legendary and real NICE with their prices (3 DVD’s for $20) !!!

WHy the hell would you want to buy those cds anyway?

The music industry does not make as much money as the movie industry regardless or not if their cds leaked or not.

A rapper was talking about on tv, that is why they have to do other things like, concerts shows etc.

Because even if you go Diamond you still have to pay for the videos, manager etc. Whereas an Actor can get paid 10-20 million for a role.

AISH AND SHERRY ..you guys are really ignorant..YOU DONT ADRRESS THE POINTS I MAKE YOU JUST TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF CONTEXT..

I NEVER MENTIONED THAT THE ACTRESS SHOULD BE AMERICAN AND BASICALLY I SAID THE OTHER SHYT DOESNT MATTER BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT SAYING ANYTHING ABOUT THE POINT I AM TRYING TO MAKE..YOU KEEP BRINGING UP OTHER SHYT.

I SWEAR DEBATING WITH YOU IS LIKE DEBATING WITH BUSH

do u even UNDERSTAND MY POINT?

I could’ve sworn I said I am in a Black theatre class and I know of the struggles, but they are not the only ones. hmmmmm maybe you can’t read.

GOTTA LOVE BROOKLYN!

me - BLACK ACTRESSES HAVE STRUGGLED

YOU- WELL WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES.

ME - IM TALKING ABOUT THE POST HERE, NOT ANOTHER ISSUE,THE FACT THAT THEIR HAS BEEN A HISTORY OF THIS AND IN THE PAST IT HAS BEEN A MAJOR PROBLEM AND STRUGGLE.

YOU - OTHER RACES HAVE STRUGGLED.

CMON STOP JUMPING TO OTHER ISSUES BECAUSE YOU CANT ARGUE WITH THE FACT THAT THIS WAS AND IS AN ISSUE FOR MINORITY ACTORS AND ACTRESSES

YEAH SHERRY BUT WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH MY POINT?????

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I KNOW OTHER PEOPLE STRUGGLE BUT THE POST IS NOT ABOUT PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES OR OTHER ISSUES..AND MY POINT WAS NOT EITHER…DUDE ARE YOU BUSH’S DAUGHTER?

You have some nerve when you are not even adressing the other SHYt as you call it, and none of the sutff that you are bringing up is relevant to the convo either we are talking abot this role and this movie and actors , but you are bringing up STUFF that happened a long time ago.

ANd if you say it is relevant to the topic

then I think that gays , overweight and all the othir things Shelly mentioned is relevant too.

Point Blank I ‘m not about to sit up here and argue with you becasue you think that EVERYthing is racist and I am not going to try and FORCE my ideas on you.

Becasue I don’t see anything wrong with her playing a character who is not fully Black anyway and who gave her her blessings.

NOw that is the issue. You keep bringing up stuff that happened years ago. Yes Blacks have struggles along with a whole lot of other people , but in THIS CASE I don’t see what the big deal is.

@ Bill—do I sense sarcasm? Lol

Anywho—yes, in about every area that counts (even if previous blogs) I do agree with you that we pretty much agree to disagree…normally if I can understand where someone is coming from, then I can pretty much respect their postion, but since I can’t (w/ u in this topic) then I can’t. (or maybe I wont, but I think of myself as pretty fair-minded)

@PittBBoi—I thought AJ sucked in Girl Interrupted as well (yet, I Liked the movie—just a little weird) and in a few other dramas, I also thought she sucked (these are ALL of which I saw her in)….nuthing about those performances was stellar…so, to me, she is a stunt double with a movie career….also, I was agreeing WITH you on the coloring thing….i mean, ppl do it all the time in Tanning booths all the time.

***This whole scenario reminds me of the Ice Cube produced show Black/White on ABC Family Channel…where the families switched races…I thought that was hella wrong on BOTH sides of the equation—and VERY stereotypical…***

I think instead of focusing on the past the ONLy thing would be relevant is talking about this PARTICULAR movie not about other struggles or the struggles of 10-20 years ago.

SO IMO NONE OF YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT THE TOPIC AT HAND

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

AISHA AND SHERRY ..IF YOU CANT SEE THAT BLACK ACTESSES STRUGGLED TO GET ROLES IN THE PAST AND WE STILL STRUGGLE TODAY THEN IM WASTING MY ENERGY ON IGNORANCE.

THE PAST DOES AFFECT US ….IN THE PAST WHITE ACTRESSES WERE CAST AS BLACK WOMEN CONSTANTLY AND BLACK WOMEN COULD NOT GET WORK……

IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THIS POST!!!!!!!!!

I don’t see anything wrong with it. If Marianne is okay with it then that is HER being portrayed and NOT us.

Point Blank I ‘m not about to sit up here and argue with you becasue you think that EVERYthing is racist and I am not going to try and FORCE my ideas on you.

Becasue I don’t see anything wrong with her playing a character who is not fully Black anyway and who gave her her blessings.

NOw that is the issue. You keep bringing up stuff that happened years ago. Yes Blacks have struggles along with a whole lot of other people , but in THIS CASE I don’t see what the big deal is.

THIS IS WHAT I SAID AND THIS IS WHAT YOU SAID

AISHA AND SHERRY ..IF YOU CANT SEE THAT BLACK ACTESSES STRUGGLED TO GET ROLES IN THE PAST AND WE STILL STRUGGLE TODAY THEN IM WASTING MY ENERGY ON IGNORANCE.

THE PAST DOES AFFECT US ….IN THE PAST WHITE ACTRESSES WERE CAST AS BLACK WOMEN CONSTANTLY AND BLACK WOMEN COULD NOT GET WORK……

IT HAS EVERYTHING TO DO WITH THIS POST!!!!!!!!!

——————————————————————————–
AS YOU CAN SEE IA CKNOWLEDGE BLACKS STRUGGLING IN THE PAST , but she keeps bringing it up and refuse to acknowledge the situation at hand with THIS MOVIE AND THIS ROLE>LMAO

TOO TOTS you should write MAriane a letter and express your opinions, you are a little to hyped on the internet over people you don’t even know.

Frankly in THIS movie and THIS situation , I don’t see the big deal.

Mariane Pearl (born Mariane van Neyenhoff)

Mariane is of Afro-Cuban and Dutch ancestry, and was raised in Paris, France. She is a freelance journalist who met Daniel Pearl while he was on assignment in Paris; they married in August 1999. They lived in Bombay, India, where he was the Wall Street Journal’s South Asia bureau chief, later traveling to Karachi, Pakistan to cover aspects of the war on terrorism.

Thankx Wikipedia.

So… what does African American actresses have to do with a FRENCH woman and a WHITE man?

Proves the point that some people’s arguements are truly baseless. The only thing AMERICAN about the production is Brad and Angie.

“Well, she’s Afro- Cubano. There should be a BLACK person playing her…”

If that was the case then Dorthy Dandridge could have been played by a Nigerian and see how many black people would be quick to say “Hell No” or like Whitney would say “Hell to the Naw… they need to go purify in the river and rethink them thoughts!!!”

Not saying that black women don’t need more positive roles in the industry, because I loathe Gabrielle Union’s role in Nip/Tuck, but fight the battle where it needs to be fought. Like a discussion on GABRIELLE UNION’s role in NIP/TUCK. Now she really set us back so decades… “You gotta buy me off from masta’s so I can belong to you another f’ing WHITE MAN!!!”

This is definitely blown out of proportion and why is the topic changing to a history of America…ummm that really doesn’t have much to do with this post.

Anyway, I’m not interested in seeing this movie.

wHAT IS SO DIFFERENT ABOUT THIS ROLE?

ANGELINA IS A WHITE WOMAN , PLAYING A MIXED RACE CHARACTER

WHAT ELSE HAVE I SAID WAS RACIST? I DONT THINK EVERYTHING IS RACIST. THE FACT IS WE HAVE A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION. I AM AN ACTRESS, MY MOTHER IS AN ACTRESS, MY GRANDMOTHER WAS AN ACTRESS. THIS HITS CLOSE TO HOME. I HAVE FRIENDS WHO COULD HAVE PLAYED THE PART.

I AM WELL CULTURED AND EDUCATED AND KNOW THAT IM TIRED OF SEEING WHITE ACTORS WITH PAINTED BLACK FACES AND AFRO WIGS

HAutia someone already posted that.

Should White Actors Be Allowed To Play Characters Of Other Races?

Mounting local ordinances in Britain barring white actors from wearing dark makeup in order to portray characters from other ethnic groups have resulted in the cancellation of the musical South Pacific in Rotherham, touching off an angry debate over such bans, the British Guardian newspaper reports. The ban applies to performances in all public buildings, including schools. A similar ordinance in another city prevented actors playing slaves in Showboat from wearing dark makeup last August. Mark Pemberton, chief executive of the National Operatic and Dramatics Association (NODA), told the newspaper that such regulations were an over-the-top reaction and that in many areas non-white actors to portray such roles simply are unavailable. He warned that the result is that such classics as West Side Story will simply not be produced any longer. However Topher Campbell, of London’s Talawa black theater group commented, “It is fundamentally racist to have white actors ‘blacking up’ for black parts. That belongs to the 19th century.”

It’s VERY obvious…as I stated that It DOESNT MATTER A FLYING HELL WHAT THE LADY WANTED….SHE IS NOT DISHING OUT ANY CASH AND IT IS VERY NAIIVE FOR PPL TO SUGGEST THAT SHE HAD ANYTHING TO DO WITH AJ OR JA (ha ha, they are complete opposites!) BEING CAST TO PLAY HER….IT WAS PRODUCTION/CASTING’S DECISION….IF SHE WANTED HER STORY TO BE TOLD—friends w/ Brangelina or not—IT WAS GOING TO BE PRODUCTION’S WAY OR NO WAY!!!!!!!!!

Also, enough with this “blind-casting” mumbo jumbo….the term means that a character has no physical affiliation to live up to: I.E.: Grey’s Anatomy….I dont see Isaiah Washington all made-up in white make-up nor do you see Patrick Dempsey all blackened-up….Kate Walsh doesnt have tape around her eyelids to portray an Asian and Sandra Oh hasn’t had her eyelids surgically implanted or her hair died blonde so that she can be a white woman!!!!!!

So for ppl who say that you should “believe tha character” no matter who plays it…looks at the dynamics of G.A. (there may be better examples, but this is the first to come up in my mind.) Do you not believe that IW is a head surgeon b/c he is Blk..or that KW is a good resident b/c she is blonde???? Blind-casting means that you get ppl who can portray the life/role of the character….and that the CHARACTER does not (INITALLY, anyways) have an associated RACE!!!! Thanx!

I’m sick of us saying that EVRYTHING is racist some things are,but this isn’t do anyof you know what Racist mean. uummm I don’t think so. A Mixed woman playing another mixed woman with the other mixed woman’s blessing is not Racist.

If you guys didn’t know ANgelina is mixed and part FRENCH and Iroqius.

Halle Berry is playing a white woman in an upcoming movie. Will the African American community get upset about that? I think not. DOUBLE STANDARD.

Please excuse the above typos, etc…. (for my last post)

Too Tots is hypocrtitcal bringing up other shyt that doesn’t have anything to do with this movie.

MISSINFROMER

There is a difference she did not cast AJ., BUT SHE GAVE HER HER BLESSING, A LOT OF PEOPLE DON”T DO THAT.

FOr example, RagingBull, the real person did not give his blessings.

The original WIlly Wonka the Author of the book did not like it or give his blessings

MISSINFORMER there are a lot of people who don’t give their blessings , but she did. sure she did not cast her, but she gave her blessings.

#327…I am upset about that! It makes no Dayum sense…y??? Okay, so she is half-white—-that doesnt make her white just as sure as her being half-black makes her all black! I have no double-standard here…..it would have been fine if this were not a biopic and Halle were portraying a character who went through all of this….but this is a real woman…I’m sure just the same that she “gave her blessing” to Halle, but what alternative did she have? Money talks!

There are equally talented WHITE Actresses that could have played this woman (Michelle Pheifer—chick from Dangerous Minds)—-y choose a woman who CLEARLY does not even Look white? When ppl start doing strange things like this, it makes me worry for the future Hollywood….what, now is everyone going to be depicting another race? This is B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

ANGELINA JOLIE IS NOT MIXED SHE IS WHITE WITH A LIL INDIAN AS MOST AMERICANS HAVE A LLIL INDIAN BLOOD

#329 & 330—I clearly see your points….However, mine may not be as clear as I would like it to be… and I am not sure how to word it right now, so I will think of it and then re-post. At least I can conjure up this: It doesn’t, in the least bit seem coincidental to me that at first, Brad’s former wife was supposed to play this role, and now, Angelina Jolie (his live-in girlfriend) is filming for the part…I jsutthink she gave her blessing to Brad, he is the common denominator.

Hautia:

That isn’t Gabrielle Union in Nip/Tuck. That’s Sanaa Lathan.

And I personally think she’s acting her ass off on that show. Just because she’s playing a slut doesn’t mean she’s “setting black people back”.

And Too Tots, honey, it’s really hard to believe you when you say you’re educated when you type in all caps.

Why is it that, when someone says mixed-race, all you can see is the black? I swear, black people are the only ones who do that, nowadays. This French woman does NOT have to appease our American sensibilities. She may not have had a say-so in the casting, but the fact that she has gone on record saying she’s glad Angelina is playing the role is enough.

Too Tot, you can be so offensive.

Angelina Jolie is not “white with a lil indian”

She’s is 1/4 indian. Believe it or not that’s a lot. That means one of her granparents is full indian. That means she can trace her roots. and considering a lot of traits skip a generation, I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets a lot of her looks from that grandparent.

http://www.cinemovies.fr/...s/d/daniel_pearl_couv.jpg

here’s the cover of the woman’s book.

Yes, she sure does look black as tar, don’t she…

Totots Angelina is French, Canadian , Native American and German ( we don’t use the word INDIAN anymore)

If that ain’t mixed I don’t know what is.

For someone who claims to be so educated you should know that INDIAN is an offensive term for Native Americans.

LOL @ Pittbboi—She looks gorgeous on that cover!!!!

#334 I’m sorry Sanaa, and I wouldn’t like if a White woman would have played that role and that’s just me being a female. But her being BLACK should make her aware as how we are present in roles today, like Player’s Club, a movie I couldn’t stand to sit through and didn’t.

Then Lisa Raye and other want to have a forum about our role in the industry, but you choose to iniate your big screen career in those particular roles. Don’t develope morals now.

The script could have easily been about a Woman more less Black one coming into power and marrying out of … LOVE, but then again that’s not good drama, I guess.

Let’s just AGREE to DISAGREE.

Her exotic good looks may derive from her mixed ancestry which is Czech, French-Canadian, Iroquois and English.

This is from IMDB NOT WIKIPEDIA( WHICH IS NOT ALWAYS ACCURATE CUZ ANYONE CAN CHANGE IT)

A MIXED PERSON CAN BE ENGLISH AND FRENCH. SO ANGELINA IS A MIXED WOMAN PLAYING ANOTHER MIXED WOMAN>

And why do ppl keep saying that this woman is “half French”—it is not a race, it is an ethnicity—-you are either all or None….same w/ Hispanic, German, Indonesian, etc…..you can be Wht and German/Native American….or half Blk, half white and Hispanic & French….u can pretty much be anything you want to be and say it how you feel…but in all correctness, you CANNOT be part French! Ethnicities are all or none you can have more than one but not less that a whole! but hey that’s just IMHO

Excuse the typos

WHoare you talking about? Mariane is from FRANCE so her NAtionality is French and she is WHOLE FRENCH cuz she aint’ AMERICAN.

341:

I think people are pointing out the fact that she’s French because, well, France is another country and SOME people *cough*too tots*cough* seem to think the black experience is the same no matter where you’re from. And that isn’t the case at all. ESPECIALLY when you look as white as Mariane Pearl does. I have white friends who didn’t even know she was part black at all until I mentioned this mess.

Not pointing people out but I have to disagree. There is no racial divide in France in terms of “Oh, that’s a black Frenchmen”. They are known as an open community.

“French” is a nationality, and not a specific ethnicity.”

Thankx Wikipedia.

That is in their constitution. Lord do I wish it was in ours.

Pittbboi—thanx! Now, I see. And, I fully agree with you that the Black experience is not the same all over the world…I took German for 4 years and I learned that Afro-Germans and blacks/African Americans lead different lives (and are even treated differently when in Germany)…so I can fully understand your POV.

#343—I was talking about ppl who are saying that Angelina and Marriene are “part French”…PS: even is French weren’t her Nationality, she’d still be French if she had French heritage—so they are different.

That’s exactly the point I think people are trying to make, Hautia.

Okay, sometimes I have to break it down so I’LL understand it.

Thank you for telling me I have the general concensus.

#345….read the disclaimer….Wikipedia is NOT by any means a validated source of Information….if it were then many ppl are effing up their Constitution….

IE: I have several White Friends who claim the following:

race: white/caucasian
Ethnicity: French
Nationality: American

***They have grandparents who were born and raised in France. but neither their parents nor they were raised in France, however, it is a part of their heritage. Maybe you are correct though, but saying that you have European Ancestry (ethnicity) is just as vague as African….where from? what part of Africa? What country?***

So, I cannot change my mind about French being BOTH ethnicity and a nationality….I’m just stubborn in this manner….

Just like some Jewish ppl believe that if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are NOT Jewish—because they think that Jewish is a RELIGION

While other Jeweish ppl feel that Jewish is an Ethnicity and a RACE!

***Plz excuse all typos!

PITTBOI I DIDNOT SAY THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IS THE SAME IN EVERY COUNTRY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT STILL AMAZES ME HOW WHAT I SAY IS BEING TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT ….

GEESH

Me again…Surprise, surprise!

#345….read the disclaimer….Wikipedia is NOT by any means a validated source of Information….if it were then many ppl are effing up their Constitution….

IE: I have several White Friends who claim the following:

race: white/caucasian
Ethnicity: French
Nationality: American

***They have grandparents who were born and raised in France. but neither their parents nor they were raised in France, however, it is a part of their heritage. Maybe you are correct though, but saying that you have European Ancestry (ethnicity) is just as vague as African….where from? what part of Africa? What country?***

So, I cannot change my mind about French being BOTH ethnicity and a nationality….I’m just stubborn in this manner….

Just like some Jewish ppl believe that if you believe in Jesus Christ, you are NOT Jewish—because they think that Jewish is a RELIGION

While other Jeweish ppl feel that Jewish is an Ethnicity and a RACE!

***Plz excuse all typos!

SHOULD A WHITE WOMAN PLAY A BLACK ACTRESS ..CONSIDERING THIS HAS BEEN AN ISSUE…

IN MANY COUNTRIES NOT JUST AMERICA!!!!

WHY do other races put on black faces when playing us but when we play the part we dont paint a white face or slant our eyes?

Hollywood shuffle: with white men calling the shots, Black women have no reel power
Essence, March, 1997 by Isabel Wilerson
A willowy actress the color of earth is making her way through the golden dream set of a Hollywood premiere. She has just had her big break, starring in a docudrama about starlets trying to make it in the big time. And this is the celebration, the glorious bath of hugs and backslaps and half-jealous exclamations of “Dahling, you were fabulous!” The woman in question has the cheekbones of an African sculpture and the full goddess lips that some blondes in Hollywood pay a whole lot of money for. She is trying to get her bearings when a White agent pulls her aside to give her some advice. “Listen,” he says, convinced it’s for her own good. “You’re obviously the most talented girl up there. But you’re not going to work in this town. You’re a nigger Black, and in this town, we like the Vanessa Williams type.”

This is what actually happened to Tyra Ferrell, who, after that unwanted advice 13 years ago, went on to a solid acting career, playing the single mother who loses her son in Boyz N the Hood, the proper love interest of a White storekeeper in Jungle Fever, the glamorous owner of the beauty shop in Poetic Justice and the wife opposite Wesley Snipes in White Men Can’t Jump, among other roles. If the world were a different place, today she would probably be a Black Susan Sarandon to Angela Bassett’s, say, Meryl Streep. But the world–and Hollywood, according to more than a dozen Black actresses and directors interviewed about their experiences–has yet to figure out what to make of Black women and how to present full and accurate portrayals on-screen. And it has less to do with the Tyra-versus-Vanessa, dark-versus-light craziness the small-minded agent alluded to than with what Hollywood will do with either one of them.

Hollywood is a complicated machine that sends the rest of America an image of itself through the eyes of the White men who run the place. And for Black women, that historically has meant being cast at the margins as either caretaker to the White characters or as a sassy bit of exotica. It is a measure of Hollywood’s narrow vision of Black women’s roles that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated only 14 Black women out of nearly 700 nominations for best actress and best supporting actress in the 70 years since the first Oscar was awarded for the 1927-23 film season. Only two Black women have actually won and never as leading ladies–Hattie McDaniel for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind and Whoopi Goldberg as the screwball psychic in Ghost. Ultimately, both were rewarded for playing caretakers tending to the needs of the White lead characters.

Just as race relations are more muddled and contradictory in the 1990’s, with Blacks present in virtually every aspect of American life but few in control of very much–and most still struggling to survive–so is the big Hollywood mirror. Clearly we’ve come a long way from the days when Black characters were summarily edited out of movies in southern theaters or when the best role a Black woman could get was being maid to Miss Scarlett. On its face, the past year or so was a time to celebrate: Waiting to Exhale opened number one at the box office and made more than $65 million, thanks in part to the legions of Black women who went two and three times to make sure it did well. It was a Black woman (Whoopi Goldberg again) who presided over last year’s Oscars. And a whole new class of young Black actresses seemed to be everywhere in major roles, from Theresa Randle in Girl 6 to Vanessa Williams in Eraser to Halle Berry in The Rich Man’s Wife to Queen Latifah, Vivica Fox and Jada Pinkett in Set It Off.

“Black women historically have been presented as either subhuman or superhuman. says Dianne Houston, the first Black woman nominated for an Oscar in directing for her short film Tuesday Morning Ride. “Now we are starting to emerge as simply human, and that’s a wonderful thing.”

At the same time, there’s another bittersweet reality. Last year no Black actors or actresses were nominated for an Oscar during a time with perhaps more major roles for African-Americans than in recent memory. The post-Exhale explosion of sista movies many Black actresses hoped for hasn’t materialized. Some say the Hollywood powers-that-be still dismiss the success of Exhale as a fluke. But, more disturbing, some of the most talented Black actresses say that no matter how strong a part they get, one thing does not seem to lead to another like it does for talented White actresses. Because, old-timers say, the world according to Hollywood starts with the White hero (Schwarzenegger, Cruise, Harrison Ford, take your pick) and adds everybody else like interchangeable Lego pieces.

“Hollywood has perfected the formula of the White male hero with the White girlfriend and the Black male mentor or sidekick with no visible love life,” says veteran TV actress Ellen Holly author of the recent memoir One Life. “You see Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman in Seven, or Harrison Ford and James Earl Jones in Clear and Present Danger. You see the White hero making millions, positioned against a young White female nobody they can hire for spit and a Black celibate sidekick. Where is the Black woman in this? Scrambling.”

cARE TO READ THE REST HERES THE LINK:
http://www.findarticles.c...64/is_n11_v27/ai_19136206

And for Black women, that historically has meant being cast at the margins as either caretaker to the White characters or as a sassy bit of exotica. It is a measure of Hollywood’s narrow vision of Black women’s roles that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated only 14 Black women out of nearly 700 nominations for best actress and best supporting actress in the 70 years since the first Oscar was awarded for the 1927-23 film season. Only two Black women have actually won and never as leading ladies–Hattie McDaniel for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind and Whoopi Goldberg as the screwball psychic in Ghost. Ultimately, both were rewarded for playing caretakers tending to the needs of the White lead characters.

aND NOW HALLE

Loretta Devine is mulling this over in front of a plate of chicken and dumplings at an L.A. restaurant. “For us, we always have to start over,” she says. Just the day before she had auditioned for a role she did not think she would get. She has a master’s in fine arts from Brandeis, and after 20 years in the business, after Broadway and even after Exhale, she still has to go out for casting calls and wonder if “she’ll get it.” She is taller and thinner than you expect, and not easily recognizable at first because of the braids hanging down her shoulders and because, in her eminent practicality, she is driving a Ford Contour, which it’s hard to imagine somebody recently in a major motion picture driving. In her baby-powder voice, she explains the reality: “You may have been a star in the show, and the next month you’re auditioning with the people who were extras. And it can be embarrassing if you’re not ready for it.”

Too Tot! I like ur research and the way you logically (which I cant seem to do here) think! Wat’s ur AIM SN again???!! —Very interesting articles…thank you!

Should a MIXed woman play another Mixed woman . YEs.

Since the end of the Second World War, France has become an ethnically diverse country. Today, approximately five percent of the French population is non-European and non-white. This does not approach the number of non-white citizens in the United States (roughly 15-25%, depending on how Latinos are classified). Nevertheless, it amounts to at least three million people, and has forced the issues of ethnic diversity onto the French policy agenda. France has developed an approach to dealing with ethnic problems that stands in contrast to that of many advanced, industrialized countries. Unlike the United States, Britain, or even the Netherlands, France maintains a “color-blind” model of public policy. This means that it targets virtually no policies directly at racial or ethnic groups. Instead, it uses geographic or class criteria to address issues of social inequalities. It has, however, developed an extensive anti-racist policy repertoire since the early 1970s. Until recently, French policies focused primarily on issues of hate speech—going much further than their American counterparts-and relatively less on issues of discrimination in jobs, housing, and in provision of goods and services.

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/cusf/analysis/race.htm

Sorry I took so long I was looking for a credible source you can rely on. I KNEW from personal experience because my father took me and they thought me silly to say I’m AFRICAN American. For the record, I think Wikipedia is a wonderful tool.

Thanks Hautia Wikipedia is great , but the their are a lot of BSers on there too a lot of time people don’t site their sources, like I could go on their and say Mariane is half latino.

Also I’m not saying that there is no racism in France. I’m not saying it would be nice to say I’m american like my white friend. I love my heritage and believe you me I can trace back and I pride myself because I know where I actually come from, but if I’m African American, what is my white friend because he doesn’t go “Well, I’m caucasian American.”

I’m just saying if we identified as one nation, maybe it would release “some” tension between the race.

I think tootots ifailing to realize or don’t want to admit that both of these women are mixed.

THERE NOT THE SAME MIX..

So its preferable to you if a woman mixed with black and korean is played by a latin and white woman …hey there both mixed so whats the big deal…

What I think you fail to realize is that has nothing to do with the point i am trying to make. Once again another person wants to take what I said out of context and not address the real ISSUE..

OK so Angelina is 1/4 Indian…..

WTF are her Afro roots….

Remember John Voight is her dad and her mom is supposedly 1/2 native american

WOW HERE IS AN ACTUAL ARTICLE ON THE DEBATE

http://www.mixedmediawatc...gs-is-not-like-the-other/

http://www.mixedmediawatc...gs-is-not-like-the-other/

GREAT COMMENT:
I disagree about it just being an issue of there being few roles for women of color. The film is about real life, a moment in history. If a film of the assasination of JFK were filmed with Denzel Washington as Bobby Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald would that be okay?

Similarly, if Nancy Reagan thought it was important to get a wide audience to see a biographical film about her husband’s first years in office and she wanted a popular older actor to play Ron, do you think it would be reasonable if Morgan Freeman played the role?

Regardless of what Ms Pearl thinks, when someone is creating a film about a real life moment, they should try to bring as much truth to the project as possible. Race matters in the U.S. If someone decides to make an interracial couple single race(d?), then that takes away a lot about their relationship. Lots of people say race doesn’t matter in a relationship, but they’re kidding themselves. It plays out in subtle and sometimes direct ways. Skirting the issue does a disservice to everyone.

Posted 17 Jul 2006 at 12:55 pm ¶

I disagree about it just being an issue of there being few roles for women of color. The film is about real life, a moment in history. If a film of the assasination of JFK were filmed with Denzel Washington as Bobby Kennedy or Lee Harvey Oswald would that be okay?

Similarly, if Nancy Reagan thought it was important to get a wide audience to see a biographical film about her husband’s first years in office and she wanted a popular older actor to play Ron, do you think it would be reasonable if Morgan Freeman played the role?

Regardless of what Ms Pearl thinks, when someone is creating a film about a real life moment, they should try to bring as much truth to the project as possible. Race matters in the U.S. If someone decides to make an interracial couple single race(d?), then that takes away a lot about their relationship. Lots of people say race doesn’t matter in a relationship, but they’re kidding themselves. It plays out in subtle and sometimes direct ways. Skirting the issue does a disservice to everyone.

Posted 17 Jul 2006 at 12:55 pm ¶

I suppose there are times when I think race blind casting is fine, but it seems to me that White people are usually the ones chosen in these race blind casting cases. There are exceptions–Rosie Perez in White Men Can’t Jump would be one.

However, it seems to me if we are representing a real person it would be nice to find someone who resembles them, which means the vast majority of the time the person is going to be from the same race.

I also wonder if the people casting this were uncomfortable with the idea of portraying an interracial relationship. This case is pretty pathetic.

Also, the whole notion that Angelina Jolie is mixed race. Oh, please. If your going to use that loose criteria-somewhere way back in their ancestry somebody was Indian–then I’m mixed too. We can’t say that it doesn’t matter that I was raised as a White person, look like a White person, and receive all of the privileges of a White person. I understand that there are White looking mixed race people, but there is a difference between living as a White person and looking like a White person.

You know I don’t have a problem with this. When Brad and Angelina adopted a black child that comes from a family destroyed by aids,not for publicity, a la Maddonna, but out of love and a big heart, so her and Brad earned more than a few get out of jail cards with me.A lot of us aren’t doing that, black or white, so a big “whatever” to those who want to diss her on this, many white celebrites wouldn’t even think of playing a black/multi cutural woman any way in fear of it hurting their image. Her name will pull in more viewers and get an important message across and that’s what it’s all about information correct?

What exactly is living like a white person?

and i wouldn’t call having a NATIVE AMERICAN GRANDPARENT waay back in your acestry.

IT IS NATIVE AMERICAN AN D NOT INDIAN YALL ARE SOOO IGNORANT.

Living as a white person ie the priveleges of being white in a racist society.

Wow since a white woman brings in more money , why not casts all white women in black roles?

Heck Jodi Foster brings in more money than Angela Bassett. So now its all about the benjamins

Tracy Ellis Ross or whatever her name is could have played this role

Too Tot, your comparisons are…stupid. Will you please move on to something else?

This isn’t the same as having Denzel Washington play a Kennedy on screen. That would be a matter of an OBVIOUSLY BLACK actor playing the role of an OBVIOUSLY WHITE person. People need to stop throwing those comparisons into this argument. It’s not the same.
Angelina Jolie is playing the part of a woman is bi-racial and looks mostly white.

“Regardless of what Ms Pearl thinks, when someone is creating a film about a real life moment, they should try to bring as much truth to the project as possible. Race matters in the U.S.”

Wrong for two reasons. One: it isn’t about how true the “making” of the film is to the actual events and people. It’s about how true the film ITSELF is to those events…which is why they darkened Jolie and gave her curly hair. Sometimes you can’t be as true as possible. I mean, if we’re going to take it there, where the Afro-Cuban and DUTCH female actress (from France) that could have played her? Face it, you’re just upset that the actress chosen wasn’t black, because all your arguments can be turned against you.

Two: Why should Mariane Pearl give a damn about the race dynamic in the US? The woman is from France.

“If someone decides to make an interracial couple single race(d?), then that takes away a lot about their relationship. Lots of people say race doesn’t matter in a relationship, but they’re kidding themselves. ”

Not only can this argument not stand on its own two feet, it doesn’t even belong in this topic. The point of this movie isn’t how Mariane and Daniel Pearl overcame the obstacles associated with interracial coupling. This is a story about the death of her husband. Her race doesn’t matter. It’s not the focal point of the film.

So just because her race isnt the focal point it is ok to cast white women over black actresses

ANGELINA JOLIE IS OBVIOUSLY WHITE

“Two: Why should Mariane Pearl give a damn about the race dynamic in the US? The woman is from France.”

_____

That IS A SAD STATEMENT…

I AM IN THE US AND I CARE ABOUT THE GENOCIDE IN AFRICA
JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE IS IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY DOESNT MEAN WE SHOULDNT CARE

id feel a way if this woman was black but she isnt, she is mixed, half italian or white i dunno. angelina’s lips are bigger than hers and her skin aint that much different in shade so she can almost look mixed, it aint like they paintin her black, shit

Brad Pitt is the producer. This role was orignially supposed to go to Jennifer Aniston and now it’s going to Angelina Jolie. This about him thinking that he should just cast whoever’s he’s with in his films. If he was dating Lucy Lui, I guess Marriane Pearl would be Asain?

I have no problem w/ this in theory, but the fact that they found the need to make her skin darker is just ridiculous. IF “race is so unimportant” then just make her character white. The idea that you can just put someone in makeup and voila their bi-racial…black…whatever, is so insensitive.

angelina gets ripped, but mariane WANTED her to play the part… why folks gets getting hyped?!

BTW…Please don’t fool yourselves into believe that race is not an issue in france. Trust me, It is..I know this from PERSONAL experience.

I agree with you too tots I am a black actress in my late forties and I have dealt with so much adversity in this industry. Parts of single black moms, drug addicts, street walkers, and the black sidekick are just the norm for us. Now in the past 5 or 6 years we have moved forward this seems to be setting us back!
It seems a lot of the younger generation is ok with this because they have not had to deal with what their elders have and have taken advantage of the situation. This also seems like Brad is casting his main squeeze which many producers do.

I think AJ is beautiful, her acting is ok, and of recent her celebrity star is shining because of all her humanitarian efforts. I do not belive this should cloud Blacks into thinking she is one of us and is great for the role. Mrs. Pearl is clearly of African decent. There are people all over this world of African decent. Most DARK people in the world have the same struggles. Latin races even have light/dark issues.

Black women struggles have been so jaded. It sucks this black woman will be seen as a white woman. And its funny how people keep saying she is 1/4 Nativa American. So What. When she was tombraiding, and doing all those other movies you werent saying that. She was and is a white woman. I am a Black woman. A Black actress who has been struggling to get great roles that lift the image of Black women as ho’s, lazy, single moms, big and thick, and nannies.

We had to fight to get where we are so why accept this just because she ADOPTED an African, hell shes loaded and she adopted a Cambodian. Should she play a cambodian woman in her next film because she IDENTIFIES with the race?

Ms. Pearl sees dollar signs with Angela as most Jewish or White Hollywood Producers.

Also it seems to be a double standard.

When WHITES PLAY BLACKS they put on dark makeup and kink their hair.

We dont paint our face white and put fake prosthetic pointy nose to be white.

Its like us Black People are seen as characters in everyday life.

Leave it up to kids nowadays and I will be playing mammies and nannies in the near future while Angela takes Tracy Ellis Ross’ part on girlfriends because Tracee Ellis is mixed and so is Angie (1/4 Native Amer.) plus she has an African child so she is soo perfect for the role!

Wow since a white woman brings in more money , why not casts all white women in black roles?

Halle Berry brings in more money than a lot of Black actresses.

Angelina Jolie Does NOT even look White.

Wow since a white woman brings in more money , why not casts all white women in black roles?

Halle Berry brings in more money than a lot of White actresses.

Angelina Jolie Does NOT even look White.

Does not look white?

And that should not be criteria.

Looks white to me.

http://www.lifeorsomethin...apers/01_800×600.jpg

http://www.aboutfilm.com/...es/g/girlinterrupted2.jpg

Seems to me like the one BLACK actress everyone keeps comparing Jolie to is HAlle Berry.

Is she the token Black actress.

So Halle has broken barriers. Hattie MacDaniel broke down barriers in Gone with the wind. That doesnt validate her being the nanny. The only roles availeble to black women at that time. THere are not a hosts of black actresses in the real Hollywood!

I can only frown that people are mad that someone is bringing up the past. We must learn from the past. If a Black producer were to come up with a story about JFK or Marilyn Monroe and had a black actor/actress in mind, it probably would be more difficult to get outside investors and backing. The industry is run by an elite. And there IS a lot of old money someone mentioned earlier.

Halle is all we have. Thats it! Can we get some more?
Look back at the Oscar winners.

We have not come that far to not question these type of things. We have not come That Far people

Thandie, Hallie, Lark Voorhies, lisa ray, sanaa lathan, kerri Washington, Lynn Whitfield, Zoe Saldana, GINA TORRES, NAOMIE HARRIS, Vanessa Bell Calloway, JADA PINKETT SMITH, Nia LONG

all should have ben considered
im not own with it but brad is producin so shouldn surprise

Okay I read some of the responses, but I’m not even going to ween thru the bad to get to the good, so I’ll say this….
If she requested Angelina, then this case is closed.

What it all boils down to is talent…. not nare one of ya’ll could tell me that Lisa Raye, or …. let me think of another D-Listed actress… could pull off a role like this. I thought ‘ACTING’ meant that you are supposed to step outside of yourself, become someone else. Black women and their struggles to become ‘elite’ actresses…who do you hear complaining? Do you hear Vivica who will jump in anything thing that is being recorded complaining? Do you hear Jada Pinkett-Smith…she’s running round with her rock band… Do you hear Nia Long complaining…nope she’s running round thru malls with Reggie Bush….But let’s talk about those that don’t settle, let’s talk about those that are making things happen instead of waiting…Latifah is MAKING MOVIES, which is why she is the queen. You don’t see her yapping about problems getting respectable roles, she creates them for herself. Who else, Taraji (however you spell her name)making moves, Sanaa Lathan…about to take it to an entirely different level (I guess we’ll here people complaining about her being on Nip/Tuck soon)
I say this is closing, quit complaining and DO SOMETHING! Hell You Tube and MySpace are set up for everybody to be famous, so quit all the G.D complaining….
Before anyone tries to call me out, I am a african american female from the SOUTH…now that’s definitely a case closed!

Case isnt closed yet.

Are you saying not one black actress could pull off the part. These women donr choose to be D List (so you call them) Sweety, Most of those actresses can and could play the role and have played deeper roles.

Considering how ignorasnt people are of Hollywood and the casting process their needs to be a reality show.

So she chose Angelina. Who were her other options? Jeennifer Aniston. Please she chose the big money .

Regardless black actresses have it bad and you busting out their social life doesnt mean a thing.At least their not in the tabloids doped out.

Halle’s playing a white woman and now Angelina a mixed one..I can’t bring myself to care since both of these movies sound like they are going to be boring.

First they don’t like the Black Child’s Hair.

Then the B*tch goes on national tv and says that the Black Child is “difficult”.

Let’s remember our history with this racist honky white couple.

Now some black folks give them a “pass” because hey we should be grateful the White Massah Adopted a Black Child! Woo hoo! Oh yeah! Bring down da house for dat one!

They are the Most Racist & Annoying Couple on earth. Just becuase they adopted a black baby don’t mean that they ain’t racist.

Open your eyes.

So, all black folks can be portrayed by Paris Hilton now, right? Because all it takes is spray on tan, and som curly haired wigs.

Voila! Black person! Because that what she looks like to me.

MARIANNE PEARL LOOKS MIXED/BLACK thats why this is shoking. If she looked white (like mariah etc) i could understand angelina playing the role but beacuse MP looks mixed its difficult to understand why they would use a white woman to play her anyway.

Furthermore there are soooo many Black actresses that NEVER get work despite being incredibly talented (VANESSA WILLIAMS, ANGELLA BASSET)are examples. Such women should be playing a role like this and qualify for the role!

391:

…Exactly how do Venessa Williams and Angela Basset qualify for this role? They don’t. You could even use make-up to make Angela look like Mariane Pearl.

People are just pulling out random black names out of a hat now.

@ 163 — What you said is inaccurate. African culture is all up and through Latino culture, just like it still exists in African American culture. Why don’t you read up on the subject before you make such an ignorant response.

Better yet, visit a Latin American/South American country, and you will see how wrong you are.

@186 — you damn right!!!

#385—plz dont tell me they considered LisaRaye??? SHE CANNOT ACT WORTH A DAMN! How in THEE heck can Tisha Campbell come onto YOUR sitcom as just a re-curring character and out-act you, the leading lady! Elise Neal was better too, but ppl where more interested in the Robert/Necee dynamic so Tia had to go. I’m just saying, if I were mentioning, black, talented actresses, I would not consider LisaRaye b/c she weakens the fleet (just like Gab. Union IMHO—but they do keep type-casting her in the same slut/bitchy roles)

***I know this is a strong, sensitive topic in this thread, so ppl plz feel free to ignore my comment and keep posting along other relevant lines****

LOL this is funny that people are still talking about this. Who the hell cares, she is a mix-raced person, whoever plays her is whoever plays her. If the people who pay for the movie wanted Halle or Nia, Vaneessa, angla….then guess what they would have, but they thought Angelina would be good for the role. If you don’t want to see the movie just becuase they didnt cast a Black actress, then dont see it!! It is not that serious.
People keep throwing out that they had to “spray-paint” her black and krimp her hair, and that black actresses dont throw on makeup to look lighter and sh*t…common Angelina could have just sat in the sun and tanned and looked as dark as the Character she is playing. Hallie Berry looks straigh white in the new movie she is playing….stop playing the violin, and talking about slavery, and blah blah blah…its 2006 and yes race is still an issue why? cause of topics like these and dumb people with dumb comments..on both ends! Let it go….she is a good actress. It is a movie…she is french dutch afro…whatever she is mixed and so is most the world. She doesn’t look like a black woman..she looks like a mixed raced woman, so anyone who can look like her whether makeup applied or not and is a good actress can do the job. Are we going to throw a pitty party for Halle when she turns herself into a white woman?? well guess what she is a white woman, and she is a black woman so she could play any damn role she wants for the simple reason that she is good. If Denzel played a part of a white man, which he has, then why are you not crying about that?
What you are forgetting is this movie is suppose to honor an innocent man, who was murdered in a horrible and graphic way that the world was able to see. This should honor him, his willingness to put himself in danger to get a story that we all would have read or seen on TV. Unfortunatly he died, and we arent going to honor that and see the movie cause they didn’t cast a black woman…that says a lot about your integrity!

#389—cosign!!!…I always wondered why ppl think that just b/c others adopt blk children that it gives them a “pass”…that’s royal Bullshit!….esp. when they say things like “Oh, she’s so exotic…I love exotic races”…so now you use a good-intented insitution such as adoption to fancy your own sick, twisted desires to accumulate exoctic ppl??? (may be that is a little harsh)….but they are PEOPLE!!!!!!!! not things! How many American Babies has she adopted??? I dont think she has adopted any! And I highly freaking doubt that it’s because she wants to be oh so helpful to blk Africans…

Case in point: Josephine Baker: TONS of adopted children from virtually every continent, incl North America (and some US citizen children)….so y should I feel the need the given AJ AND BP a Pass since she “does things for the African community”…she does sh1t for herself….and those comments were very extra and unneccessary about Zahara’s hair—if he wanted to plug Carol’s daughters, just plug it…dont use her as a segway.

Boogie—I think you referenced a line from one of my posts….and your are a Damned fool if you believe that race is not an issue—if it werent an issue then it would not be on ANY forms that have to be filled out—be it optional or mandatory, boo boo! And I kno that racial info is used for statistics and demographics, but WHAT THA HECK WOULD YOU NEED STATS FOR BY RACE IF RACE WERE NOT AN ISSUE….GO ON WIT YO BAD ASS SELF AND BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL….AND YOU’RE A HELLA FOOL IF YOU THINK ANYONE CAN TAN TO THAT COLOR—THAT IS A COLOR ENRICHED BY SKIN PIGMENTATION OR THRU SPRAY….IF SHE TANNED, SHE’D BE RED OR BRONZED, NOT YELLOW!

Have a nice day, tho’

…and yes, I was bothered by Halle portraying a wht women, when there are clearly other white actresses that can play this woman and portray her story.

Bottom line:

I work on a conspiracy theory for some issues (not all race related AT ALL):

(1) First, Hollywood bigbois give Halle this role and let it hit the press that they want “talent rather than looks”—in a freakin’ docudrama??? GTFOH—THIS IS A REAL PERSON

(2) They figure, if we let them see a woman who has black in her/ is of African American descent doing this, then they will have no recourse for repremanding us for what the future Hollywood holds; WHT’s as BLKs….with a little vice versa

(3) IDIOTS fall for this and some otherwise str8-headed ppl—so long as we make it clear that the actual person “blesses” this person playing this role ($$$$ rules this world—easy pay-off)

(4) Voila—Blks will be called biased and their own ppl will feud a war against those that fail to see it Hollywood’s way!

~END OF STORY

Crazy? I know, but hey, It’s the inclination that I;m most apt to take at this time.

@MissInform-ER
I never said I didn’t think race is an issue, actually I said it is an issue….I was not disagreeing with you on that sista!

Missinformer:

What does Zahara’s hair have to do with this? Stop reaching. If it weren’t for Zahara’s hair Brad Pitt would have no reason to plug Carol’s Daughter. White people can never even comment on something black without people calling racist. He has a black daughter, he’s a white man. What’s the problem? I swear black people can be so paranoid. Your conspiracy theory is nuts. Yes, they paid off Mariane Pearl, the mostly white woman, to have a white woman play her? Very smart.

This is not about to turn into an epidemic of white people playing black roles. STOP ACTING LIKE MARIANE PEARL IS BLACK! She’s not. She’s half black at the MOST. Heck, she doesn’t even look THAT black. She’s a bi-racial woman–which gives HER the right to associate with WHICHEVER side she wants. Saying a black woman should have played her is just as skewed as saying a white woman should have played her. And Thandie Newton does not have the star power, point blank.

You’re not about to see George Clooney play Martin Luther King Jr. in a movie.

You’re not about to see Bette Midler playing Oprah Winfrey.

You’re not about to see Denzel playing Elvis.

Those are extreme cases and you all know it. The fact of the matter is you have a white woman playing the role of a woman who is mostly white herself, WITH the said woman’s permission. You can’t tell me Angelina Jolie doesn’t look like this woman without much help.
http://img.dailymail.co.u...10/jolie_450×373.jpg

And I can’t stand it when black people try to discredit Brad and Angelina by saying “all they did was adopt a black baby ’cause she’s exotic”. If this were Madonna, I’d believe that, but Angelina Jolie is a major humanitarian, spending most of her time in that region and donating MILLIONS of dollars of her OWN money to charities. Black people themselves aren’t even that giving. But, oh yeah, she’s only doing it because she thinks black people are exotic. yeah right.

** sorry, that link is broken

http://img.dailymail.co.u...10/jolie_450×373.jpg

@PITTBBOI
I agree with you brotha, Everyone makes cracks about Angie and Brad adopting a Black child because its the new band wagon to jump on!! well ANgelina was doing this long before anyone else jumped on. She does a lot and I mean a lot for those countries she is a humanitarian a good will emassador. who cares what kids she adopts or where they are from at least she is taking these kids out of the horrible situation they are in, and giving them a better life. She donates millions and millions of dollars to these countries, she donated a lot to Katrina, she actually goes over there and helps, she doesnt just sit at a press conference in LA saying how it needs to change. She is there in the grit and grim making things happen.
I am not her # 1 fan or anything, but she is talented, and has a big heart, she just steals peoples husbands…lol…just playin!!
How many other actors and actresses do you see doing the things she is doing?? She is doing more than any white or black actor or actress besides Oprah!! Stop the Hating!! damn

Halle is better suited for the role. I don’t understand the whole Angelina craze! WTF, she slept with another woman’s husband, and now she has this “larger than life” persona. I just don’t get it.

Pittboi

What do you mean how would Angela bassett and Vanessa Williams be candidates. THEY ARE GREAT ACTRESSES!

Angelina Jolie has hardly done anything THAT moving. Remember she is better known for being a humanitarian than AN ACTRESS.

WHEN SHE WAS MARRIED TO BILLYBOB AND WORE VIALS OF BLOOD AROUND HER NECK AND FRENCH KISSED HER BROTHER SHE WAS WHITE AS SNOW WHITE THEN….NOW SHE CLEANED UP HER IMAGE ADOPTED SOME MINORITY KIDS AND SHE IS “OUR SAVIOR” PULEEZE..

BRAD AND AJ HAVE GONE A LIL TOO FAR..THEY ARE NOT THE BLACK COMMUNITY

I am surprised at the anger around Jolie’s selection as the actress in the new movie about the Pearl family; apparently it is a huge issue to many people that that she is playing a bi-racial woman. I’m at a loss to get my head around this. Do you also object to Halle Berry being selected for the role of Terry Cahill, a white woman in real life?

The message of the movie and the sacrifice of the Pearl family falls to the wayside when people make it about something completely unrelated to the story of his kidnapping and killing - like race.

PEOPLE LOVE TO COMPLAIN. NO MATTER WHO WOULD’VE BEEN CHOSEN TO PORTRAY THIS WOMAN IN THIS MOVIE, SOMEONE WOULD COMPLAIN ABOUT IT. SHE’S TOO LIGHT, SHE’S TOO DARK, HER HAIR IS TOO SHORT, HER HAIR IS TOO LONG, HER EYES ARE TOO FAR APART, HER NOSE IS POINTY…………….SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST NEVER SATISFIED. I PERSONALLY AGREE WITH A LOT OF YOU, HOLLYWOOD IS ABOUT MAKING $$$! ANGELINA=$$$$$$$$$$$!
SURELY THERE IS SOME OTHER ISSUE THAT WE COULD BE DEBATING BESIDES MARIANNE/ANGELINA SAGA! HEY HOW ABOUT Rep. Mark Foley……………He’s in some deep ish!

LMFAO @ #405..

Last time I checked Ang and Brad don’t walk around with “we are the black community” t-shirts….lol
But I do see them doing a hell of a lot more than the “black community” in Africa, if you want to be honest about it!

405:

“What do you mean how would Angela bassett and Vanessa Williams be candidates. THEY ARE GREAT ACTRESSES!”

Did I say they WEREN’T great actresses? NO. Are they as dark as my mama’s brownies fresh out the oven? YES. Grow up and move on. Saying that a black person should have played this role isn’t any better than a white person playing this role, as the woman is a MIX of both. Next y’all are gonna say Denzel should have played the part. Angelina can pull off looking like Mariane Pearl. Vanessa and Angela can’t. Period. Name a bi-racial **A-LIST** star that could pull off looking like her besides Halle Berry(and no, Thandie Newton is not a big star).

“Angelina Jolie has hardly done anything THAT moving. Remember she is better known for being a humanitarian than AN ACTRESS.”

Ummmm…I think her dozens of films, Academy Award, 3 Golden Globes, and 2 Screen Actors Guild Awards say differently. Clearly you don’t know movies. NEXT

“WHEN SHE WAS MARRIED TO BILLYBOB AND WORE VIALS OF BLOOD AROUND HER NECK AND FRENCH KISSED HER BROTHER SHE WAS WHITE AS SNOW WHITE THEN….NOW SHE CLEANED UP HER IMAGE ADOPTED SOME MINORITY KIDS AND SHE IS “OUR SAVIOR” PULEEZE..

BRAD AND AJ HAVE GONE A LIL TOO FAR..THEY ARE NOT THE BLACK COMMUNITY ”

I had a snide remark about how utterly stupid this comment is, but I decided to remove it so I wouldn’t get banned.

1) Angelina’s past has nothing to do with this. Again, cast the first stone if you’re so perfect. Oh wait, I don’t think you are. Like it or not, people can change. And just because she wears a vile of blood on her neck does not mean she’s out for yours.

2) Nobody ever called her “Our Savior” but you.

3) How many people out there do YOU know that donate one-third of their total income to charity? Especially if that amount is millions of dollars? Do YOU spend your time in those affected regions, organizing grassroots reform and convicing other people to donate billions of dollars to charity? Somehow I doubt it. I think it’s safe to say that she’s gone a little farther than “ADOPTED SOME MINORITY KIDS.”

Watch the news, read a book, do some research.

As pro-Black as I am, I really don’t give a flying fuck about AJ playing this woman.It’s unfortunate what happened to her family, but I’m not going to see it, so who plays in it doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. If we feel so strongly about AJ playing a Black woman, then let’s not see it…don’t even buy the bootleg.

Maybe Mrs. Pearl doesn’t see herself as a Black woman, and that could explaing why she doesn’t have an issue with a white woman playing her in the movie, but guess what…that’s HER loss. She’s the one missing out on a very important part of herself

And about Afro-Cubans, or Afro-Latinos for that matter…I don’t think some of you have a real grasp on the concept. It’s not as if these people are half African and half Latino (although some are), it just means that the are future generations of African slave, who are immersed in Cuban culture. Afro-Latino culture is no different than African-American culture. I hope I explained it clearly.

PITTBOI - as dark as …excuse me you have serious issues…Angelinas pales ass isnt exactly a perfect match~

Bill Gates donates his money in the same well as well as other entertainers and athlestes who get less publicity.

Sweety you are lost. You are a young man in a world where you have become accustomed to the bullshit and media you see. Have you heard of PROPOGANDA…

Probably not, seems like you believe everything you see.

And you still havent named a specific movie or role where AJ was that awesome. Wow she got awards. How many black shows are even considered for Golden Globes? Come on the industry has an agenda and black actresses are not it.

Pittboi is probably the same BOY running around with a she devil with blue eyes and blond hair.

DO YOU EVEN KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THEATRE AND FILM? How about your culture? Sure you want Affirmative Action to go away also huh, how about our voting rights….lets flush that down the drain 2.

“WHEN SHE WAS MARRIED TO BILLYBOB AND WORE VIALS OF BLOOD AROUND HER NECK AND FRENCH KISSED HER BROTHER SHE WAS WHITE AS SNOW WHITE THEN….NOW SHE CLEANED UP HER IMAGE ADOPTED SOME MINORITY KIDS AND SHE IS “OUR SAVIOR” PULEEZE..

BRAD AND AJ HAVE GONE A LIL TOO FAR..THEY ARE NOT THE BLACK COMMUNITY ”

I dont think this comment is utterly as STUPID AS YOU CALLING SOMEONE AS BLACK AS YOUR MOMS BROWNIES …MY COMMENT IS THE TRUTH!!!

pittboi has some issues

Alrite so pitboy are you saying that its ok if an actress is too light or white but if she is as brown as your moms brownies it isnt.

someone wasnt brought up to have reespect for his people was he

Oh wow, let’s see…We have:

Bill Gates

Athletes

PROPOGANDA (Hmmm, don’t know what that is. I wonder if it’s anything like “propaganda”)

ME running around with a SHE-devil with blue eyes and blonde hair.

Affirmative Action

Voting Rights

Hmmm, so that’s SIX things that have jack-shit to do with the topic. I commend you, whoever you are. You really had to do some reaching to pull all THAT out of your ass. I love it how when some people don’t have much to say about the topic at hand they reach for everything else they know something about. I’m surprised you didn’t toss in the Million Man March. Not even Rodney King?

Oh yes, Angelina is pale. I get it. But have you seen Mariane Pearl? Woman isn’t exactly brown-baked herself. All Angelina has to do is sit out in the sun for an hour to be Mariane Pearl’s color (or darker). In this scene at the top they’re using make-up for added realism. That’s a much closer match than Angela Basset and Vanessa Williams. So stop kidding yourself, you just look ridiculous. Look, I have nothing against dark skin people. Brown is beautiful, and if you look at my picture, you’ll see that I’m pretty dark, myself. But face it: those two actresses you named, like myself, are as dark as the soil my zucchini is growing in. They don’t even come close to looking like Mariane Pearl. And sorry, but Angelina could act circles around them, too.

There’s no use telling you what movies I like Jolie in if the awards she’s won aren’t good enough. It’s all a matter of opinion, but lets just say that her talent has the respect of the film industry. And don’t go saying that it’s because she’s white because there are black actors who have received far more accolades than her.

And don’t get at me on black culture if you can’t even touch me in a simple topic about a damn movie.

NEXT

413: Brightfuture

Don’t kid yourself, what I said is as clear as day. The last thing I am is a self-hating black. But I’ll break it down further for you.

I could care less what color you are, the point is realism for the sake of the movie. Mariane Pearl is a bi-racial woman who has more white features than dark features, and that may have something to do with the fact that she may have more non-black blood in her than black. She’s Afro-Cuban and Dutch. Afro-Cuban doesn’t always mean a black person from cuba. Matter of fact, most of the time it doesn’t mean that, as a majority of Afro-Cuban people describe themselves as “mulatto”. Keeping this in mind, Mariane Pearl could very well be mostly white. And even if she’s not, let’s say her mother WAS completely black. She’d still be half-white with very white features. There are pictures of her out there looking as pale as a ghost.

So what kind of sense would it make to have an OBVIOUSLY black actress play her role?

The sad thing here is that, the majority of racism being shown here is coming from black people themselves. This has nothing to do with being fair, or blackfacing. This has everything to do with the black community being sore that a black woman was chosen. I mean, come on! Angela Basset and Vanessa Williams?? You’ve got to be joking me.

**excuse me, “…black woman WASN’T chosen.”

I dont have a problem with her playing an Afro-Cubano woman, just like I dont have a problem with Halle playing a white woman. I dont know if anyone said anything about that cuz I’m at work and I dont have time to read 453 posts, but I didnt read too many outraged comments about Halle. If your going to draw a line in the sand saying that we all have to act for people of our own race it needs to go both ways. Just my opinion.

Pittboi you are a CRACKHEAD if you think AJ is a better actress than Angela Bassett. What the hell are you thinking??? NONE of the roles that AJ has played can compare AB in What’s Love Got to do with It or in Malcolm X. You are making yourself appear to be whitewashed with ever comment you make.

*every (I peeped the way tou responded when someone else on the blog spelled propaganda wrong)

pitboi is really ignorant

MAKEUP for added realism HAHA sounds like modern day black face to me!

Black campaign groups are extremely upset by this and have said,

“I had assumed the days when white actors took on roles of black people had long passed.”
“You can’t tell me Halle Berry, Judy Reyes or other women of African descent wouldn’t have been a better choice.”

He doesnt even get the point we are trying to make so we might as well just stop now. Ok so Angela can be made up to appear as a mixed woman. This was done in the past on a regular and black women couldnt get roles. No matter how well someone puts that out there for him he doesnt care. He is riding Angelina and Brad.

Speaking of Brad isnt he playing the journalist? This is basically major publicity for the two.

418: What the hell? Is “whitewashed” the official black word of the year or something?

Just because I prefer Angelina Jolie’s ACTING over Angela Basset does not mean I’m whitewashed. Geez! It’s fucking ACTING, not civil rights! There are plenty of black actresses I like better than Angelina Jolie, but Angela Basset ain’t one of them.

But yet I’m “whitewashed.” I swear, there is so much ignorance in that word it gives me a headache.

It’s the word black people use when they just have nothing to say but still don’t want to shut up.

It’s the word black people use when things just don’t go their way for reasons other than race.

It’s the word black people use when another black person sticks up for someone who isn’t black.

It’s the word black people use to add blind, underserved credibility to their arguments.

It’s the word black people use as a rallying cry for other black people too lazy to think for themselves.

Black people, think carefully and critically when you use that word!

*And no, I wouldn’t poke fun at you for spelling ‘every’ incorrectly. I only poked fun at “THISAINTRITR” because he/she put the word “propaganda” in all caps, acted like it was Seseme Street’s word of the day and I should be impressed with their vocabulary, and spelled it wrong.*

geez luiz pitboi is really ignorant

MAKEUP for added realism HAHA sounds like modern day black face to me!

Black campaign groups are extremely upset by this and have said,

“I had assumed the days when white actors took on roles of black people had long passed.”
“You can’t tell me Halle Berry, Judy Reyes or other women of African descent wouldn’t have been a better choice.”

He doesnt even get the point we are trying to make so we might as well just stop now. Ok so Angela can be made up to appear as a mixed woman. This was done in the past on a regular and black women couldnt get roles. No matter how well someone puts that out there for him he doesnt care. He is riding Angelina and Brad.

Speaking of Brad isnt he playing the journalist? This is basically major publicity for the two.

Its the word that Black PEOPLe use when other black people ignore the HISTORY of the world and make ignorant arguments about a society they REALLY know little about!

i DONT UNDERSTAND PITBOII

MY LAST POST WAS CUT OFF BUT I AM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT ROLE YOU FEEL ANGELINA WAS OUTSTANDING IN

No, BRIGHTFUTURE, I’m not ignorant because I don’t agree with you. You however, have proven to not know very much about the topic. Brad Pitt isn’t playing the role of Daniel Pearl (the journalist). Dan Futterman is.

I know what you’re saying. You, however, refuse to hear what I’m saying. Again, I could see if they were trying to cast a white woman as a woman who was ALL or MOSTLY black. I would think there was a problem with that. Trying to cast Barbara Steisand as Coretta Scott King in a movie would be BLACK FACE. Casting Justin Timberlake to play Usher in a movie would be BLACK FACE. Casting a white woman for the role of a woman WHO IS MOSTLY WHITE HERSELF IS NOT BLACK FACE.

And if you followed ANY of my posts you would have seen me say near the top that I agree Halle Berry would have been a better choice, because Halle IS mixed and COULD pull off the role better than Angelina. But Halle is already busy playing a white woman in another film. And just because they didn’t use her doesn’t mean they’re being racist. This is the last time I’ll say that.

And Judy Reyes? A D-Lister? PLEASE. You guys are really reaching far.

423: Oh, that was witty. Yeah, you’re completely right–I know nothing about my society because I don’t agree with you on this. Is ignorance your first language?

425: Why does it matter what movies I like Angelina Jolie in? All you’re going to do is say, “I thought she sucked in that!” and nothing will be resolved. Everyone has their tastes. I don’t think Angelina is the best actress in the world or anything, and I definitely think there are more talented people out there, some of whom are black. I, however, think Angelina Jolie can do this role. And she has the resume for it.

Pittbboi, let me explain something to you:

- You’re right, I don’t have anything further to say about the movie and the casting because, as I stated in a previous post, I am not interested in seeing this movie.

- I really am not concerned about the race factor in regard to this film. In the aforementioned statement, I said that I won’t be seeing this movie. If she chose AJ or Bernie Mac to portray her in this film, that is absolutely irrelevant to me. It’s her choice.

- I’m not concerned about you sticking up for AJ. Although I believe that Angela Bassett is a better actress that she is, I actually like AJ and have seen a number of her movies. Hell, my AIM away message used to say Team Jolie. Why would you have to defend AJ to me if 1) I’m not concerned about her playing this role and 2) I like her anyway?

- Undeserved credibility??? This is not Cornel West writing about the experiences of African American professors at predominately white universities, it’s a blog, a place for opinions. Trust me, I do not need your validation, nor do I need you to co-sign for my “undeserved credibility.” My education and knowledge of self is strong enough to speak for itself. Opinions don’t required credibility, the simply require that people have them.

- I pride myself on being an independent thinker, and I certainly am not concerned whether or not others agree with my statements. If you agree with me, that’s great, and if you don’t, that’s great as well. I am not a punk, so I can, and do stand on my own. I don’t need people that are “too lazy to think for themselves” to rally behind me to make me feel validated

There are a lot of people who use certain words to make themselves seem more intelligent, more conscious of the struggle than they actually are. I am not one of those people. I said you are whitewashed based on your remarks about brownies and soil, and I stand by that.

Ok now let me get this straight Mariana pearl, a person of dual heritage, is being played by a white woman and this isn’t ok but if she was being played by a black woman it would be ok? That has to be the most idiotic thing i have heard this year. Why are you making such a big deal of this? Mariana is more white than she is black anyway and Angelina has alot of talent, thats why she is in great films and being payed good wages and you guys slamming her aren’t, not because she’s white. I just don’t think that racism is as big of an issue these days as some people on this site think it is,open your eyes white people are not enslaving black people anymore it happened years ago…you cannot use that in an argument as to why a white person can’t play some who is at the most half black. This is exactly the same as Halle Berry playing a white person and i didn’t hear an uproar like this when that was announced. They both got the parts because they are talented end of story.

428:

I appreciate the “actual” response you gave me. My lashing out against the word whitewashed was not completely directed at you. More so, it was directed at the majority of people who use it as a last resort. So don’t take all of my bullet points as directed specifically at you. If you took it that way, I apologize.

I do, however, take issue with you calling me whitewashed because of my comments on skin tone. Obiously they were in jest, because–as I said–if you look at my picture I myself am very dark and proud of it. You’ll never catch me downing someone
because of the color of their skin, no matter what that color is. I actually think it’s kind of poetic. MY skin tone is as dark as my mother’s brownies, and as dark as the soil from which my plants grow. Same for Angela and Vanessa. Black berries aren’t the only things that can be used as a metaphor for dark skin. I meant nothing offensive by that. So I don’t appreciate being called “whitewashed” for it. Heck, a lot of the people in this topic that used that word can be found in other topics making fun of someone for being “too dark”. Yet, I’m the one who’s whitewashed?

mostly white? the lady looks like lots of Black people I have seen in the US and Abroad.
I dont think so pitboi

HER FEATURES ARE NOT MORE WHITE

And I’ve seen WHITE people who looked blacker. So try again, SUMDUMMY.

Oh, and according to her book, A Mighty Heart, Mariane Pearl’s father is white (that’s the Dutch). And her Mother is Afro-Cuban, but INCLUDING white AND Chinese. Let’s break this down:

Mariane Pearl is:
–50& White
–25% Black
–25% MORE White and Chinese

At the MOST, Mariane Pearl is only a QUARTER black, which makes this argument that much more ridiculous.

WHY DIDN’T LUCY LIU GET THE PART? She COULD theoretically be just as much Chinese as she is black.

This topic is exhausting. I havent red lots of post here but I would like to see a woman who resembles Marianne play her. Angelina acting is cool , but she was only cast becasue of brad. It sucks that lots of minority actresses have struggled and this just kind of deepens the wound. People are saying the woman looks more white and she doesnt. Someone said she looks like Black women she sees and I have to agree she looks like most black women I see, whether they are Latin or European or American she looks like a black woman. i doubt I will see this movie, but I do see how it can offend someone who is aware of Hollywoods shady past

Pittbboi,

Please don’t think that I am singling you out for being whitewashed…I would say that to anyone else on CL. But based on your explanation, I will rescend my statement that you are whitewashed. What I will say though, is that beneath what you make think of as people overextending the race card, there is some truth to what a lot of people on here are saying. The truth is African Americans have been disenfranchised the entire time we’ve been in America, and those wounds still ache for many of us, and I think that is where many of these comments come from. I personally think that Thandie Newton could have done a great job, and they resemble each other

http://www.imdb.com/galle...wton,%20Thandie&seq=3

And they both married white men But hey, like I said, AJ is a good actress, and I’m sure she’ll do the part justice.

I hope you didn’t take it literally when I called you a crackhead…my sister and I use that expression to each other all the time, it was a force of habit.

GEMINIPRIZE

Thanks, glad we’ve reached a personal understanding.

Trust me, I know my history. I know about Hollywood’s shady past. But, to me, there’s a difference between acknowledging history, and using history as a tool to keep black people stagnant. That second thing is what I feel black people are doing to ourselves. Things will never progress if every time the tiniest thing happens people cry racism. Yes, racism still exists, but as a people we have to move on and stop *looking* for iit. Will black people decades, centuries from now be using that as an excuse? I hope not. Now’s the time for change.

The sad fact is that for the last few decades it’s been black people that’s been applying the ‘one drop rule’ to ourselves. Every time we find out someone has a bit of black in them, we expect them to completely shun every other aspect of their personality. WE make it all or nothing. And it’s not right. We did it to Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey, Alicia Keys, and Halle Berry. Heck, I’m surprised nobody’s jumping on Halle for playing a white woman in her next film, because usually, whenever she acknowledges her white lineage in the slightest, the black community jumps down her throat. It’s not right; it’s robbing these people of a part of who