Movie: Petition Created To Keep Zoe Saldana From Starring In New Film

The choice to cast Afro-Latina actress Zoe Saldana as African-American artist and civil rights activist Nina Simone in the upcoming biopic film, Nina, has been catching major heat lately. A petition has been created on Change.org to get Saldana removed from the role. Pictures surfaced last month of Zoe on-set wearing skin-darkening makeup, a prosthetic nose, and an Afro wig in order to make her look more like Nina Simone.

One anthropology professor named Lanita Jacobs, who works at the University of Southern California, believes that Saldana being cast for the role is offensive to women who have to constantly struggle with their own image. She stated:

"We understand that there are these beauty issues, and sometimes what sanctions people's right to speak on these kind of issues is whether they have had experiences born of what it means to have kinky hair, or to have wide noses or darker skin. Nina's music taps into a certain kind of awareness born of the way she looks."