A controversial casting call has drawn tons of negative publicity to the upcoming N.W.A biopic. The casting call serves as evidence that colorism and racism still appear to be very prevalent in Hollywood as it created a grade scale for women based on their body types, hair and skin complexion.
Women with darker skin complexions are not attractive on the grade scale. If you are not petite, you are a D at best. Only women with long natural hair are considered beautiful. And singer Beyonce is still only a B on a scale of A through D, with A being the highest-ranked type of woman.
That’s essentially the message that was delivered through the casting call for the N.W.A biopic.
The casting call sheet required that women include their grade in the subject line of their emails when applying for a part in the movie.
The grade scale essentially ranked “model”-type women as being A’s, Beyonce-type women as being B’s, African-American women with weaves as being C’s and “medium to dark skin” African-American women who are “not in good shape” as D’s.
Many found the specific details of each category disappointing to say the least.
Any woman who did not have natural hair was automatically downgraded to a C at best along with any woman who did not have a “small waist.”
There was also a clear focus on skin complexion that ranked women with lighter complexions as being B’s or A’s while medium or dark-skinned women were C’s or D’s.
The Twitterverse reacted immediately after an image of the casting call sheet was posted online.
“COLOURISM Still An Issue As NWA biopic Casting Call Pits Dark Skinned Women as D Class,” one user tweeted.
“The casting call for the NWA biopic are beyond racist. Smh,” @iamLynnC tweeted.
Others said they were no longer interested in seeing the film if this is how they wanted to approach casting women.
“I wanted to see that s**t but not the way they [degrading] our women,” another user tweeted with an image of the casting call sheet.
Users have already started pushing for Sande Alessi Casting, the casting agency behind the call sheet, to be let go.
Meanwhile, Universal Pictures was quick to explain that it had nothing to do with the casting call sheet and apologized for the “offensive descriptions it contained.”
The company also added that the filmmakers “did not approve and do not condone the information in this casting notice.”
Meanwhile, Sande Alessi Casting released a statement describing the call sheet as an “innocent mistake.”
It seemed the agency only addressed the problem with the D group, however, and did not admit to discriminating by race and color by ranking light-skinned women as being more attractive than women of darker complexions.
The agency said they are looking for a variety of complexions for the “poor” group – not just dark-skinned actresses.
Other than that, the rest of the casting call sheet descriptions still stand as is.
