People Are Furious That White Actress Rooney Mara Was Cast As Native American Character In 'Peter Pan'
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Here's what Native American princess "Tiger Lily" looked like in Disney's "Peter Pan."</span>
<span><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5329cc406bb3f71f38be2962-800-/peter-pan-cartoon-tiger-lily.png" border="0" alt="Peter Pan cartoon Tiger Lily" width="600" />
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<span>And here's Rooney Mara, the 28-year-old actress who was just cast as the "Tiger Lily" character in a new live-action adaptation titled "Pan" from director <span>Joe Wright.</span></span>
<span><span><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5329cd63eab8ea754fbe2968-671-335/rooney-mara-2.png" border="0" alt="Rooney Mara" width="600" />
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The two don't exactly look identical, and fans are not pleased.
<span>A new petition protesting <span>Warner Bros.' </span>casting has already <span>collected over 4,300 signatures, after launching on Tuesday.</span></span>
<span><span><span>The </span>Care2 petition<span> notes that the original character in the </span>J. M. Barrie <span>story is a Native American princess, stating: "The casting choice is particularly shameful for a children's movie. Telling children their role models must all be white is unacceptable."</span></span></span>
But as Variety reports, <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"The studio took on exhaustive search in finding the right girl to play Lily, looking at other actresses such as Lupita Nyong'o and 'Blue is the Warmest Color' thespian Adele Exarchopoulos before going out to Mara for the role."</span>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span>White actors Hugh Jackman and Garrett Hedlund are also set to star in "Pan," which the petition takes issue with as well, stating, "<span>Not so multi-racial after all, Warner Bros. <span>Tell Warner Bros. to stop casting white actors to play characters originally written as people of color!"</span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><span><span><span>Twitter has also been abuzz over the casting controversy:</span></span></span></span>
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Rooney Mara is an incredibly gifted, insightful artist. But come on. You couldn't find a Native American actress to play Tiger Lily!?!?
- Jessica Jade Andres (@JessicaJAndres) March 12, 2014</blockquote>
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Rooney Mara cast as Tiger Lily in new Peter Pan film because there are clearly no Native American actresses http://t.co/sA3UP3zwmd
- Sarah Rappaport (@SarahRapp) March 13, 2014</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
Rooney Mara, just say no to racism. do not participate in native misappropriation. do not participate in white washing. just don't. kthxsbi
- Iris bull (@ibull) March 14, 2014</blockquote>
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"There's...'loyalty to source material,' but early 1900s racism is not one of the things you need to keep." http://t.co/uU4TBP84gU
- Felix (@Felix3333) March 13, 2014</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
NOOOO. Rooney Mara. Don't. Please. Stop. You were so good in the girl with the dragon tattoo. Racism doesn't look good on you. :(:(:(
- Samuel Black (@hastiinlizhini) March 13, 2014</blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
"famed beautiful moody white person Rooney Mara will be playing ...a Native American" http://t.co/YAU4GCmVSQ #postracial #racism
- IHeartPronown (@IHeartPronown) March 13, 2014</blockquote>
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"Pan" <span>is slated for release on July 17, 2015.</span>
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