MSNBC.com
Angelina Jolie sparks casting controversy
Oscar winner to play biracial widow of slain Wall St. Journal reporter
Updated: 5:06 p.m. ET Aug 2, 2006
Aug. 2 - Mariane Pearl might be delighted to have actress Angelina Jolie depict her in an upcoming movie, but some of you are outraged.
Pearl is the tan, biracial widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose memoir, “A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl,” will be adapted into a motion picture by Brad Pitt's production company.
The film, simply called “A Mighty Heart,” will tell of Pearl's experience after her husband was abducted by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in early 2002. A month later, his captors released a video depicting his murder. Pearl, who is reportedly of Afro Cuban/Dutch heritage, was pregnant with their son Adam at the time.
Since the news came out a few weeks ago, message boards across the Internet have been on fire, expressing harsh criticism about Jolie playing the role of Pearl. On BET.com's own boards, user chantejoy calls the very idea a "new generation of Hollywood in blackface."
Typical Hollywood. They are trying to avoid the "race" issue by casting a White woman, even to defy logic and reality, and it isn't surprising. Hollywood doesn't understand how to market movies with non-White folks as leads when they do not concern race or non-White ethnic/national cultures. Obviously some racialist studio execs have decided that the American public is unable to sympathize with Mariane Pearl as a mixed woman and would not go see this movie anymore than they would go and see Soul Plane. Whatever.
Thandie Newton would be absolutely perfect as Mariane Pearl. All she'd need is a perm or a curly wig. Carmen Ejogo could also play her. Both of these actresses are top notch and could capture Mariane compellingly.
I was just reading a similar comment by a Premiere staffer (in the latest issue) who saw advanced clips of "Dreamgirls," which will have all Black leads and mostly Black supporting characters. He wondered how much the studio was wringing its hands about audiences not having a White character to relate to. You'd think the popularity of Motown and the Broadway musical would assuage fears, but Hollywood is far from being solely materialistic - it insists on being racist and sexist too..
Marianne Pearl is such a strong beautiful woman. And for her to have lost her dear husband while still pregnant... Just a tragedy. I have the greatest respect to all people who've lost loved ones to senseless inhuman acts of cruelty.
Personally, I think Troy Beyer would have been perfectly caste for the part of Marianne. They have a similar look when it comes to features, bone structure, skin tone and hair type. They could be sisters.
It looks like this casting choice is sparking a LOT of controversy and discussion indeed...
Thanks so much for sharing this information triguy! It's nice to stay in the loop.
I agree. Troy B., Jennifer Beals, Judy Reyes, Rae Dawn Chong, Halle Berry, etc. are all good actresses who look like Pearl.
What's disappointing is that this continues the old blackface (and yellowface) portrayals. Why do we need to go back to the age of Charlie Chan movies to have a woman of color portrayed by a white person. At least in the 1930s the studios were honest in their insensitivity.
What's next? Will Brad Pitt play Booker T.? Why not have Lindsey Lohan play a young Diana Ross? They're both skinny and petite. Just a little shoe polish and voila, Lindsay is Ms. Ross!
I don't see Vivica Fox or Halle Berry or Lucy Liu being cast as Marie Antoinette, Queen Elizabeth I, or Helen of Troy.
There are plenty of good mixed actresses who could have done a good job in this role.
Thandie Newton and Halley Berry are both A-list actresses!
I'm sure there'll be someone on the web blathering on about how wonderful it is that a great actress like Angelina Jolie is playing Mariane Pearl. And that color/race doesn't matter any more...
I agree. Troy B., Jennifer Beals, Judy Reyes, Rae Dawn Chong, Halle Berry, etc. are all good actresses who look like Pearl.
What's disappointing is that this continues the old blackface (and yellowface) portrayals. Why do we need to go back to the age of Charlie Chan movies to have a woman of color portrayed by a white person. At least in the 1930s the studios were honest in their insensitivity.
What's next? Will Brad Pitt play Booker T.? Why not have Lindsey Lohan play a young Diana Ross? They're both skinny and petite. Just a little shoe polish and voila, Lindsay is Ms. Ross!
I don't see Vivica Fox or Halle Berry or Lucy Liu being cast as Marie Antoinette, Queen Elizabeth I, or Helen of Troy.
There are plenty of good mixed actresses who could have done a good job in this role.
Thandie Newton and Halley Berry are both A-list actresses!
I'm sure there'll be someone on the web blathering on about how wonderful it is that a great actress like Angelina Jolie is playing Mariane Pearl. And that color/race doesn't matter any more...
What makes this slightly palatable is that Marianne apparently "gave her blessing" to Angelina. I still disagree with it in principle because this "blackface" portrayal rarely ever occurs in the opposite context. The only "whiteface" that I can recall is Denzel playing Don Juan in a film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. But a fictional character is not the same as a real person portrayed in a biopic.
So yeah, let's gear up for Morgan Freeman as George Washington, Or, since we are being so very open-minded about this "best actor for the job" thing, why not have Sandra Oh play him? She's a fantastic actress. Bet they wouldn't even let Thandie or Hallie play Sally Hemmings in a Jefferson biopic. Maybe Reese Witherspoon could do it and get another Oscar.
But did anyone else read the US Weekly link that declared the original pick for the role to be Jennifer Aniston??? Who looks EVEN LESS like Marianne, therefore making execs in Hollywood certifiably blind (NOT colorblind ). It also makes you wonder what Angelina's motives in wanting this role may be.
Bet they wouldn't even let Thandie or Hallie play Sally Hemmings in a Jefferson biopic.
Thandie Newton did play the role of Sally Hemmings in "Jefferson in Paris."
She did - it came out prior to the DNA proof that her descendants are related to Jefferson I believe. I think she even wore makeup to lighten her complexion. LOL that was definitely a misstatement but in the spirit of highlighting how absurd this casting decision is.
I think she even wore makeup to lighten her complexion.
Although I think that Ms. Newton is a wonderful actress, I was unhappy with her being cast for the Sally Hemmings role. Ms. Newton, the actress, is 50-50 Euro-African. Sally Hemmings, Jefferson's sister-in-law and slave, was 75-25. In other words, the real Sally Hemmings probably looked about like Gloria Estefan.
I have a question and maybe the hispanic identified members of this board could answer it. Or anyone else for that matter.
I've posted a photo of Marianne's mother and an article accompanying it. Now to American eyes - OK my eyes - I can clearly see that her mother has some degree of African ancestry. Now she's clearly mixed but there are a number of black identified Americans who look just like her. If Mr. and Mrs. Van Neyenhoff had moved to the United States instead of Holland back in the day, I strongly suspect their experiences would/could have been similar to Soledad O'briens parents experiences. Which were NOT nice early on. Even the coldness Marianne described her mom experiencing in Holland would probably register as racism to an American woman with Mrs. Van Neyenhoff's appearance.
Again, a difference in perception based on cultural upbringing...
Alright I'm beating around the bush. My question is, given that Marianne's parents were not American and therefore had different racial outlooks than what we're used to here - plus she was raised internationally - is it possible that she truly doesn't consider herself to be a woman of color/bi or triracial but simply a French woman of Cuban/Dutch descent? Nothing more or less leaving out the racial overtones completely. And if so, this could explain her apparent acceptance of Angelina Jolie depicting her in the movie instead of an actress who more clearly resembles her?
An excerpt from the article...
(Notice that no mention is made of black ancestry. Not even miniscule amounts. This is not a complaint, just an observation. Her mothers father is described as being of Cuban - which could mean anything - and Chinese descent. While the late Mrs. Van Neyenhoff's mothers heritage is not mentioned at all.)
If you notice on the message boards I posted, all of the complaints seem to be coming from Americans. I wonder if the controversy and outrage is as strong in hispanic/carribbean communities?
Quote:
My mother’s story began in a tiny emerald-green house in a poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Havana. She grew up with a father who was a handsome mix of Cuban and Chinese, and who, one day, decided to stop talking altogether, although he wasn’t mute. Her mother, meanwhile, was a hard-core gossiper who spent the entire day with rollers in her hair and loved nothing more than makeup, clothes and sexy jokes. My own mom’s dream, she said to me once, was to marry a man who would take her around the world, to raise his children and to be the ground beneath his feet. Indeed, she and her cousins loved to spend time in hotels looking at foreigners—a rather scarce commodity at that time in Cuba—and she met my father in the lobby of the Habana Libre. He was sitting in the lounge, sipping a glass of the local rum and reading a book. With his green eyes and curly chestnut hair, he looked like the leftist European intellectual that he was. The son of a Dutch diamond dealer, he traveled the world to witness the process of potential revolutions, and when Fidel Castro took over Cuba, he was one of the first foreigners to offer his help. He was also a man who suffered from deep depression.
Last edited by zsana on Tue 08 Aug 2006 00:19; edited 5 times in total
Actually, Denzel playing Don Juan makes sense. Spain and Portugual had a number of Africans living there for some time. So, it's perfectly reseaonable for Denzel to have had an African mother and European mother. Denzel is mixed.
Finally, if you take a look at pictures of Marian Pearl's son, he's also brown skinned (thought I couldn't guess his percentage of this or that).
Actually, Denzel playing Don Juan makes sense. Spain and Portugual had a number of Africans living there for some time. So, it's perfectly reseaonable for Denzel to have had an African mother and European mother. Denzel is mixed.
Finally, if you take a look at pictures of Marian Pearl's son, he's also brown skinned (thought I couldn't guess his percentage of this or that).
I don't know if it makes sense, as in naturally follows from the story line, but it isn't implausible. The story is set in Messina (Sicily) and Don Pedro (that was my mistake - Keanu Reeves played Don John) is from Aragon. The story implies a Spaniard but does not designate anything other than his nationality. Given the rest of the cast Denzel and Keanu might have been the only casting choices approximating plausible looks, but it is still the only example that I can think of in which a Black actor clearly played a role normally played a European, especially in a faithful rendition of Shakespearean play that was not Othello.
MSNBC.com
Angelina Jolie sparks casting controversy
Oscar winner to play biracial widow of slain Wall St. Journal reporter
Updated: 5:06 p.m. ET Aug 2, 2006
Aug. 2 - Mariane Pearl might be delighted to have actress Angelina Jolie depict her in an upcoming movie, but some of you are outraged.
Pearl is the tan, biracial widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose memoir, “A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl,” will be adapted into a motion picture by Brad Pitt's production company.
The film, simply called “A Mighty Heart,” will tell of Pearl's experience after her husband was abducted by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in early 2002. A month later, his captors released a video depicting his murder. Pearl, who is reportedly of Afro Cuban/Dutch heritage, was pregnant with their son Adam at the time.
Since the news came out a few weeks ago, message boards across the Internet have been on fire, expressing harsh criticism about Jolie playing the role of Pearl. On BET.com's own boards, user chantejoy calls the very idea a "new generation of Hollywood in blackface."
Shoot, everyone is always claiming Jolie is mixed for her lips, now she is playing one. Big deal. And she is mixed with Native American. Just like Jessica Alba played a different mix just recently.
Just like Jessica Alba played a different mix just recently.
She played a Black girl in "Honey," a fictional character. She also was plausible in the role because they found two Black people who could have actually produced a child that looks like her.
If Jessica Alba was playing Marianne Pearl I would have no problem with it. At least she looks somewhat like her and is brown. If Jessica Alba played Condolezza Rice in a movie I would have a serious problem with it.
The question of why they did not seek an actress who looks like the person she is representing is completely legitimate.
They're not casting Brad Pitt as Daniel Pearl to my knowledge. Who wants to bet that the actor playing him will look like him, a Jewish American man?
I'm not sure if Ms. Pearl's approval really matters that much in this context since we don't know her motivations:
1) Was she more interested in getting her husbands story out.
2) She's a single mother and needs the cash.
3) Does she harbor some kind of racial/cultural insecurity that devalues her African ancestry.
The reality is that while Cuba doesn't have the same vicious racism that existed in the U.S., African ancestry was not prized. There is that old story about the dictator President Batista not being able to go to Havana's exclusive clubs because he was mulatto back in the 1950s. From what I've also read, Cuba's white elite were also fearful of a black revolution like Haiti experienced and committed some horrible attrocities like the Race War of 1912, which saw the slaughter of 6,000 Afro-Cubans.
Colonialism takes place not only in the soil of a land but also in the hearts and minds of people.
I remember reading a story about a beautiful Cuban woman who had lightskin but wore a fancy headwrap. At some party, one of her female enemies tore off her head covering to reveal very African-looking kinky hair, thus revealing the woman's "shameful" African heritage.
--Does anyone else remember this? I can't remember where I read the supposedly true story.
there are so many wonderfully talented mulatta actresses. another person who could have played her is victoria rowell. victoria, carmen ejogo, jennifer beals, gloria reuben, thandie newton, ANY of those terrific actors could have played her. the jury is out of troy beyer tho-- she is beautiful but i have never been too keen on her acting abilities.
angelina is a great actress too and i appreciate her humanitarism. i just don't think they should have cast her in the role of a person of color.
MSNBC.com
Angelina Jolie sparks casting controversy
Oscar winner to play biracial widow of slain Wall St. Journal reporter
Updated: 5:06 p.m. ET Aug 2, 2006
Aug. 2 - Mariane Pearl might be delighted to have actress Angelina Jolie depict her in an upcoming movie, but some of you are outraged.
Pearl is the tan, biracial widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose memoir, “A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl,” will be adapted into a motion picture by Brad Pitt's production company.
The film, simply called “A Mighty Heart,” will tell of Pearl's experience after her husband was abducted by Islamic extremists in Pakistan in early 2002. A month later, his captors released a video depicting his murder. Pearl, who is reportedly of Afro Cuban/Dutch heritage, was pregnant with their son Adam at the time.
Since the news came out a few weeks ago, message boards across the Internet have been on fire, expressing harsh criticism about Jolie playing the role of Pearl. On BET.com's own boards, user chantejoy calls the very idea a "new generation of Hollywood in blackface."
Shoot, everyone is always claiming Jolie is mixed for her lips, now she is playing one. Big deal. And she is mixed with Native American. Just like Jessica Alba played a different mix just recently.
to me it is a medium-sized deal because there is not enough quality roles for POC in hollywood-- and for a mulatta? i mean that is an even smaller minority role than a quality role for a black or asian woman. a mulatta should have been cast.
jessica alba portrayed a person of mixed heritage in honey-- from what i was told, i never actually saw the movie. the thing is she IS biracial and she closely resembles a mulatta anyway, so to have her in a role as a person of partially black ancestory is not a stretch at all (plus a small portion of mexicans do have african ancestory so it is a possibility her father's side could be part black).
i have never heard anyone say that angelina resembles a mulatta because of her oversized lips. kim bassinger has never been compared to a mulatta because of hers. i have heard people say that angelina needs to get off the collagen injections-- not that she maybe part black. (i have no idea if she has had work done, just relaying what i've heard people say.)
Jessica Alba is a brown-skinned Mestiza. Alba got her big break because James Cameron like her brown mixed-race look and cast her as the lead in "Dark Angel." Cameron's vision for "Dark Angel" was of an empowered, genetically engineered woman whose DNA was a mixture of all people along with a strand of cat DNA for enhanced strength, speed, and agility. Hey, it was a sci-fi show.
In the role of Honey, Alba played the daughter of two mixed-race people who looked just like her. Alba also played a half-Asian/half-white woman in another movie.
The reality is that there are very few decent roles for white actresses and even fewer for women of color. Most Hollywood producers have been reluctant to cast women of color as romantic partners alongside white men. When Thandie Newton landed the role as Tom Cruises' co-star in Mission Impossible II in 2000, Hollywood was abuzz that a "black" woman had been cast.
On the flipside, how many white women have you seen as the love interest of Asian or black/mixed or non-white Latinos? Generally, you'll see Asian men as neutered/sexless action heroes; black/mixed men like Denzel or Will Smith might be tied to black/mixed or Latina women. Even then, most love scenes are tepid or non-existent.
Several years ago, Whoopi Goldberg discussed how she was told that she couldn't have sexy roles by producers because she was too black.
I'm all for colorblind casting when it's not done in a cynical way like Jolie's casting.
Back to Denzel, there were Africans and mixed-folk in Italy during this time. Alessandro de Medici was the Duke of Florence. PBS.org has two excellent articles on Alessandro:
(I didn't know his descendants founded the Hapsburgs. Although I detest the idea of royalty --hey, I'm American--I love the irony of the One Droppers and White Supremacists who go ga-ga over European racial purity and "their" great civilization.)
Is anyone really surprised, we all knew Hollywood is racist anyways.
After reading the link to the article, it mentioned Pearl is of Cuban/Dutch descent, and not black. So, it wouldn't have been fair to cast Halle Berry or any other half black person as her. Ok, so maybe she is 1/4 black, even then it wouldn't have been appropriate, they would've had to have an actress that is 1/4 black, and I don't think there are any in Hollywood, well, ones that will admit it.
Yeah, You'd never see Halle Berry or any half black/full blooded black actress portray a white person of importance. Can you imagine it?? It is annoying, but we can all think the one drop rule for that.
I'm not sure a 1/4th black person would look that different from a 1/2 black person automatically. Halle Berry, Beyonce, Cree Summer, Jennifer Beals, Lisa Bonet, and Rae Dawn Chong are all of African and Caucasian (and some are also of Native American and Asian) descent to various degrees but have skin tones that are only slightly darker or lighter. However, all of them bear a closer resemblance to Marian Pearl. Rae Dawn Chong and Cree Summer for instance are a 1/4 black but are brown-skinned with frizzy/curly hair.
In any event, Jolie is just very arrogant. I think her taking this role is a disservice to young girls and young women of color who need to see more positive examples of women of color. (Did I mention I hate BET and MTV sexist, misogynistic videos that dehumanize and objectify women (of all colors)? Ugh, Destiny Child has this horrible video where they are out in the desert describing all the ways they can and will serve their men to please them. How is that positive, feminist message for young girls? I do love Pink's "Stupid Girls." It's a great song. I have the same issues with male rockers and rappers. Busta Rhyme has his horrible song "I Love My B**ch"? How is that not grotesque? What self-respecting woman wants her honey to call that?)
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). It also makes you wonder what Angelina's motives in wanting this role may be.
It is annoying, but we can all think the one drop rule for that.