Just Singin' in the Rain

I made a Hamilton collage! :) 

Simone’s dark complexion and traditionally African features were central to her identity and concept of black beauty, so casting someone with Saldana’s more European appearance is galling, said Miriam J. Petty, an assistant professor in the radio-television-film department at Northwestern University.

“It’s disrespectful and demonstrates the depth of the ignorance of the person making the film of the very subject of the film,” she said.

The Simone estate tweeted Wednesday: “Hopefully people begin to understand this is painful. Gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, nauseating, soul-crushing.”

The estate is urging fans to hold listening parties on the film’s release date rather than watching “Nina.”

Petty, also a devoted Simone fan, also encourages fans to stay away.

“I think it’s important not to support this film financially, because the problem with biopics is they become the last word,” she said. “Whatever can be done to discredit this film as not the definitive one, by virtue of the philosophical problem, the very blatant philosophical problem of this casting.”