Huh? Twitter Drags 'X-Men' Star For Crying 'Racism' When Fan Demands A Dark-Skinned Storm
Colorism is a very real problem that's faced in Hollywood, but it's important to note the difference between that and another well-known, and often overlooked, issue: racism.
Alexandra Shipp, who plays the role of beloved superhero Storm in X-Men: Apocalypse, found herself having to be schooled by the Twitterverse after she accused a critic of being "racist" after she claimed the actress was too "racially ambiguous" to convincingly portray the character.
Get news on another actress criticized for her portrayal of the superhero with BET Breaks, above.
We hope that, after all of this, she now knows the difference.
It all started when one of Shipp's fans tweeted her, asking if she would be excited to team up with Thor as Storm after news was released that Disney had officially taken ownership over Fox.
After the actress, who notoriously depicted the late Aaliyah in the headline-making failure TV biopic Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B, expressed her excitement on the possibility of that actually happening, a fan of the X-Men franchise stopped her in her tracks.
"Disney is re-casting the whole team, boo," the fan wrote. "Sorry. Dark Phoenix will be your last. We getting a dark skinned non-racially Ambiguous Storm like we deserve."
Here is where things took a SHARP left.
After reading the critique from the fan — or lack thereof — the actress went on a heated tirade, accusing the woman of being racist when she likely meant to say "colorist" or "prejudice." However, in the words of NeNe Leakes, she said what she said, and it was just too late to turn back.
- advertisement
After one of her followers attempted to educate her on the difference between the two concepts, Shipp only continued to dig deeper into her box of pity, writing paragraph upon paragraph of reasons why the initial comment criticizing her skin tone was wrong.
They kept coming...
...and coming.
- advertisement
However, her self-pity didn't quite resonate with fans of the franchise or her own followers as several of them expressed the same sentiment to her words: "Girl, bye."
Some of them, however, did take the time to further explain to the actress where she went wrong in her explanations.
Take a look, below:
- advertisement
- advertisement