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  • Rooney Mara Regrets “Whitewashing” Tiger Lily In “Pan”

    Rooney Mara played a spectacular Tiger Lily in last year’s Pan. Her talent, air of mystery and ability to conjure a sense of childhood wonder were spot on.

    Pan was great, yet Rooney Mara regrets playing the role.

    The role of Tiger Lily was hotly debated last year after accusations of “whitewashing” were leveled against Pan director Joe White.

    Obviously, in the original Disney film Tiger Lily is a Native American princess. However, in the book, the native tribe’s race is not specified.

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    She told Telegraph, “I really hate, hate, hate that I am on that side of the whitewashing conversation. I really do. I don’t ever want to be on that side of it again. I can understand why people were upset and frustrated.”

    She continued, “Do I think all of the four main people in the film should have been white with blonde hair and blue eyes? No.”

    But, Rooney Mara added that “there should have been some diversity somewhere.”

    However, in an interview with Deadline, Rooney Mara explains that Joe White’s intentions were never to whitewash. In fact, it was just the opposite. He was trying to create a tribe of mixed races all living together.

    She said, “It was Joe’s pure desire to make the natives a conglomeration of many different cultures and indigenous people. To make them people of the world. He wanted them to be natives of planet Earth. I thought that was a really beautiful intention of his.”

    She added, “That being said, I understand the anger about whitewashing. I completely do, and I agree with it.”

    What do you think about Rooney Mara being ashamed of playing Tiger Lily?

  • Rooney Mara Casting as Tiger Lily Sparks Controversy

    Actress Rooney Mara is no stranger to the dust-up that inevitably occurs after a film adaptation of a novel announces its cast list. Her role as Lisbeth Salander in the American adaptations of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo subjected her to both novel fans’ idealistic expectations and comparisons to Swedish adaptation actress Noomi Rapace.

    However, her latest casting as Tiger Lily in the upcoming Warner Bros. Peter Pan adaptation Pan is ruffling feathers for a much different reason.

    The reason: Tiger Lily is a Native American princess. Rooney Mara is of Irish, German, French-Canadian and Italian descent, but not Native American.

    The backlash was immediate. With the number of Native American roles already so small, many asked, why give Tiger Lily’s role to a white actress? Native American roles make up only a minuscule .3 percent of total roles, according to the Screen Actors Guild 2007 and 2008 Casting Data Reports.

    A Care2 petition asking Warner Bros. to reconsider their casting decision has already accrued 7,878 signatures out of their desired 8,000. With tensions already simmering after Johnny Depp’s casting as Tonto in The Lone Ranger last year, social media exploded. Actress Felicia Day tweeted her displeasure.

    The studio also considered Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyonog’o and French actress Adele Exarchopoulos for the role of Tiger Lily. So far, it appears a Native American actress was not seriously considered for the role.

    Nonetheless, Variety reported that the film’s world is to be “multi-racial/international – and a very different character than previously imagined.” However, the current cast list does not seem promising. Mara will star beside Garret Hedlund as Hook, Hugh Jackman as Blackbeard and Levi Miller as Pan. Adeel Akhtar is reportedly slated to play Mr. Smee, the only sign of that “multi-racial” world evident so far.

    Pan will be released in July 2015.

    Image via Youtube