There was a controversy when it was announced that actress Zoe Saldana would portray legendary songstress Nina Simone in a movie biography, and then another when photos of Saldana in costume as Simone, with pancake makeup and a prosthetic nose, were leaked. Simone’s daughter, Simone Kelly, responded obliquely, and others launched a petition to recast the role. Some of the fuss was because Saldana isn’t a singer, but the fiercest of it was because she doesn’t look like Simone; she’s lighter-skinned and slimmer-nosed than Simone is. Why not, some have asked, simply cast an actress who looks like Simone?
The controversy might have less to do with principles of open casting than with notions of what we collectively find beautiful in women – including light skin and slim noses – and our reluctance to acknowledge how persistent, and persuasive, these notions are. In Argo Ben Afflek plays real-life CIA agent Tony Mendez, a gentleman far less conventionally attractive than himself, and no one seems bothered by the incongruity. Affleck doesn’t wear prosthetics to look more like Mendez or crouch to diminish his stature. He doesn’t look like Mendez but the story comes out right. Yet Saldana is remaking her complexion and bone structure to play Simone. For women appearances are considered, still, today, somehow, essential; they define who are and fix our place in the world. In all the discussion about Saldana’s casting, it’s Simone’s skin and nose, rather than her voice and vision, that are considered essential to who she is. It’s as if her appearance, which is singular, was a hindrance, something she needed to overcome before she became an artist, and something that only another woman who looks like her can understand.