Zendaya to produce, star in thriller on Anita Hemmings, first black woman Vassar grad, passing as white to attend

Posted in Articles, Arts, Biography, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2017-11-15 17:59Z by Steven

Zendaya to produce, star in thriller on Anita Hemmings, first black woman Vassar grad, passing as white to attend

Shadow And Act
2017-11-14


Zendaya (left) and Anita Hemmings (right).

Zendaya has booked what Deadline calls a hot pitch package on the street right now.

The film is called ‘A White Lie’ and it is a film adaptation of the Karin Tanabe novel, The Gilded Years.

The novel, a psychological thriller, “built around the true story of Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African American woman. She is the daughter of a janitor, who passed as white so she could attend Vassar at the turn of the century.” She is treated as a wealthy and educated white woman and sparks a romance with a rich Harvard student.

Zendaya will play Hemmings…

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Zendaya To Star In ‘A White Lie,’ Pitch Package From Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine

Posted in Articles, Arts, Biography, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2017-11-15 17:43Z by Steven

Zendaya To Star In ‘A White Lie,’ Pitch Package From Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine

Deadline
2017-11-13

Mike Fleming Jr


REX/Shutterstock

The hot pitch package on the street is A White Lie, an adaptation of the Karin Tanabe novel The Gilded Years. The book is a psychological thriller built around the true story of Anita Hemmings, a light-skinned African-American woman. The daughter of a janitor, she passed as white so she could attend Vassar at the turn of the 20th century. Spider-Man: Homecoming star co-star Zendaya will play Hemmings. Monica Beletsky is writing the script, and Hello Sunshine’s Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter are producing along with Zendaya…

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‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Having A Biracial Love Interest For Peter Is Monumental

Posted in Articles, Arts, Communications/Media Studies, Latino Studies, Media Archive, United States on 2017-07-08 16:29Z by Steven

‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ Having A Biracial Love Interest For Peter Is Monumental

Bustle
2017-07-07

Olivia Truffaut-Wonga


Sony Pictures Releasing

Spider-Man: Homecoming isn’t just bringing Spider-Man back into the Marvel Cinematic Universe — it’s bringing diversity with it. Not only is a huge chunk of the movie’s supporting cast not white, but Homecoming provides the MCU with the universe’s first prominent women of color, Liz (Laura Harrier) and Michelle (Zendaya). Moreover, with Liz, Spider-Man: Homecoming introduces Marvel’s first biracial love interest. Yes, for the first time in the entire MCU, the white hero is involved in an interracial relationship, and this could not be more important when it comes to the representation of women of color on-screen.

You see, Homecoming marks the first MCU film with two prominent female characters of color and two prominent biracial characters. This distinction might sound unimportant, but to the many biracial fans out there, it actually means a lot, because it expands diversity in the MCU beyond easily defined ethnic boxes. In big studio movies, biracial characters are rare, and tend to appear only when being biracial is a part of the story. For the most part, major films stick to easily defined ethnic categories — black, white, Asian, Latinx, etc. The fact that Homecoming has two biracial female supporting characters and doesn’t make their race part of their storyline is monumental, not just for Marvel, but for Hollywood overall…

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