Several people are very upset about the news that a woman of mixed white/hispanic descent is playing an African American woman in an upcoming movie. Can you imagine Cameron Diaz portraying author, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou in a biographic musical? It would require amazing feats of makeup artistry or digital effects to make it even vaguely believable.
Another race-based controversy is just what Hollywood needs, just after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the hubhub about the only black main character in the new Ghostbusters movie not being a scientist like the white protagonists.
Of course, the entire thing is not true: the source is the well known hoax website Celebtricity which specializes in posting made up stories in order to get people to share them on social media. And if you only see the short summary that is being displayed on platforms like Twitter and Facebook the story seems to come from a credible news source:
Cameron Diaz to star as Maya Angelou in Biography
Cameron Diaz has been announced as lead actress in a forthcoming biographic musical about African American author, poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. The news comes weeks after controversy involving a white actor being cast to portray Michael Jackson, and right before the Academy Awards which have faced criticism for failing to nominate black film artists.
But as you could expect there is no mention of this upcoming biography on the Cameron Diaz IMDB page and she doesn't mention it on her Twitter account either:
So don't be fooled like the thousands of people who shared this fake news online, and protect yourself from falling victim to future hoaxes: follow us on Facebook and Twitter (@LeadStoriesCom) for your daily news and hoax alerts.
