Dakota Fanning posts Instagram response to controversy around new movie
You know when a tweet has almost three times as many replies as it does retweets that it probably hasn't gone down well.
Such was the case on Wednesday, when Deadline shared a clip from Dakota Fanning's upcoming movie Sweetness in the Belly.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
You can probably see why it caused so much controversy.
In recent years, Hollywood has come under enormous criticism for racially insensitive casting -- and based on the publisher's headline, many people thought this movie was yet another example.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
On Wednesday night, Fanning responded to the criticism in an Instagram story.
"In the new film I'm a part of, Sweetness in the Belly, I do not play an Ethiopian woman," she wrote. "I play a British woman abandoned by her parents at seven years old in Africa and raised Muslim."
Here's her response in full:
Sweetness in the Belly is based on a 2005 novel of the same name by Camilla Gibb.
"After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco," reads the blurb on Goodreads. "As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur'an to children and falls in love with an idealistic doctor. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can't escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must once again confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs."
Although Fanning's response caused some people to suggest Deadline apologise to Fanning for their "misleading headline", which the publisher has now updated, others were still unhappy with the concept of the movie as a whole.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.
Sweetness in the Belly premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7.
