Images of Dakota Fanning playing a white Muslim refugee from Ethiopia have been met with consternation on social media.
The actor plays the protagonist in Sweetness in the Belly, the upcoming movie adaptation of Camilla Gibbs’s 2005 novel of the same name.
Gibbs’s book tells the story of Lilly, a British orphan who travels to Ethiopia after being raised in Morocco – and is eventually forced to flee Ethiopia for England amid political unrest in the Seventies.
While the novel was overall well received by critics, the first clip of the movie, published by Deadline on Wednesday, didn’t sit well with many social media users.
“This is so coincidental – just yesterday I was saying, you know who would best represent the contemporary refugee experience in Africa? Dakota Fanning,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“So many talented Muslim actors out there and you cast... Dakota Fanning? and to play an ETHIOPIAN? I BEG YOUR PARDON?” someone else tweeted.
Several other people, meanwhile, reacted with a message to the effect of: ”Dakota Fanning as WHAT??”
Following the criticism, Fanning issued a statement clarifying her role as "a British woman abandoned in Ethiopia" as opposed to an Ethiopian woman.
Sweetness in the Belly also stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (seen as David Kane / Black Manta in Aquaman), The Big Bang Theory star Kunal Nayyar, and Wunmi Mosaku (seen as DS Catherine Halliday in Luther and DC Teri Darego in The End of the F***ing World.
The film, directed by Zeresenay Mehari, will have its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival on 7 September.
