Between my part time blogging with BOSS Sports and my internship at Gotchamovies.com, I have seen quite a few news items about the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. Let me just say a lot of those items have been just as controversial as the group itself. Now there is more trouble on the homeboy front. Take a look at the casting call for the upcoming biopic:
SAG OR NON UNION CASTING NOTICE FOR FEMALES-ALL ETHNICITIES- from the late 80’s. Shoots on “Straight Outta Compton”. Shoot date TBD. We are pulling photos for the director of featured extras. VERY IMPORTANT – You MUST live in the Los Angeles area (Orange County is fine too) to work on this show. DO NOT SUBMIT if you live out of the area. Nobody is going to be flying into LA to do extra work on this show – and don’t tell me you are willing to fly in.
SAG OR NON UNION FEMALES – PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR SPECIFIC BREAKDOWN. DO NOT EMAIL IN FOR MORE THAN ONE CATEGORY:
A GIRLS: These are the hottest of the hottest. Models. MUST have real hair – no extensions, very classy looking, great bodies. You can be black, white, asian, hispanic, mid eastern, or mixed race too. Age 18-30. Please email a current color photo, your name, Union status, height/weight, age, city in which you live and phone number to: SandeAlessiCasting@gmail.com subject line should read: A GIRLS
B GIRLS: These are fine girls, long natural hair, really nice bodies. Small waists, nice hips. You should be light-skinned. Beyonce is a prototype here. Age 18-30. Please email a current color photo, your name, Union status, height/weight, age, city in which you live and phone number to: SandeAlessiCasting@gmail.com subject line should read: B GIRLS
C GIRLS: These are African American girls, medium to light skinned with a weave. Age 18-30. Please email a current color photo, your name, Union status, height/weight, age, city in which you live and phone number to: SandeAlessiCasting@gmail.com subject line should read: C GIRLS
D GIRLS: These are African American girls. Poor, not in good shape. Medium to dark skin tone. Character types. Age 18-30. Please email a current color photo, your name, Union status, height/weight, age, city in which you live and phone number to: SandeAlessiCasting@gmail.com subject line should read: D GIRLS
As fucked as it sounds there is a double-sided to point to this call.
Let’s start with the obvious. NWA is from Compton. The hood. This story is mainly going to take place in the hood. There will not be any models running around in anybody’s hood. More than likely the C and D girls will probably be in those scenes, while the A and B, maybe even some C’s, be placed in the later scenes when the group is rising to stardom. It is nothing different from any biopic storyline: less attractive women when the artist is poor and then comes in the beautiful starlets when the artists makes it. Just like real life for most people who achieve some success.
Now let’s go with the thematics of this whole situation. The wording is very atrocious.You associated a race with terms such as “poor” and “not in good shape”. What made things worse was name checking the skin tone for these characters. Black people have always been associated with some bad terms and this just seems to push that envelope a little further.
The bottom line is this: If you are going to make this go public, you need to do a better job of editing to not make it sound like you are putting black people in a minstrel zoo. People are looking for any and everything to tear down and with social media, they are more than capable of accomplishing that task.
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