Who is Kelli Amirah? 'Lovecraft Country' extra says her skin was darkened 'like Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone'
Kelli Amirah, an extra on HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country’, the horror drama television series based on the 2016 novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, revealed via TikTok that her skin was darkened by the show’s makeup artists. In her video, the 23-year-old explained that she was cast to play a younger version of another character for a wedding photo that would appear on a show. She discovered later that the show was 'Lovecraft Country'.
Amirah said that she was surprised to get her own trailer and makeup done with the show’s stars. She was, after all, an extra on the show. As she waited to get her makeup done, she recalled the makeup artists talking amongst themselves about how she looked “a little lighter” than the person she was portraying the younger version of.
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The New York-based actor realized that her make-up kept getting “darker and darker.” She said she didn’t feel comfortable with what was happening, but thought she couldn’t say anything. “I have no clout, no pull, no nothing,” she said in her video. “I was so uncomfortable, I had no idea they were going to do this to me, and if I knew beforehand I would not have accepted the job.”
“They really did me like Zoe Saldana as Nina Simone,” she said, referencing a 2016 biopic ‘Nina’ where Saldana, who is of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent, had her skin darkened and wore a prosthetic nose to portray Nina. The singer’s daughter, Simone Kelly said, “My mother was raised at a time when she was told her nose was too wide, her skin was too dark. Appearance-wise, this is not the best choice.”
Kelly also said, “I love Zoe Saldana’s work. I’ve seen some of her movies more than once and really enjoy what she brings to the screen. As an actress, I respect her process, but I also know that there are many actresses out there, known or not, who would be great as my mother.”
Amber J Phillips, a “storyteller, creative content strategist and reproductive justice activist” took to Instagram to comment on this. She shared a five-minute-something video criticizing the show’s choices. But she also criticized Amirah. “All it took was a little bit of special treatment and some good snacks for EVERYONE to be ok with manufacturing a dark skin Black woman and it continues to make me sick,” Phillips said. “Even a show about the horrors of racism in America didn’t stop them from being horrific. This example comes from @lovecrafthbo.”
“But we know this is a norm for Black spaces that refuse to acknowledge racism through the lens of the people most impacted by it. Colorism AND fatphobia needs to be more important to Black people who are telling Black stories and working on behalf of Black people,” she wrote.
“The biggest and Blackest of us are being killed. The biggest and Blackest of us aren’t receiving the healthcare we need. The biggest and Blackest of us are being unpaid, overworked, and misrepresented across industries. But the biggest and Blackest of us aren’t allowed to say these things out loud without being removed from the tables yall think you’re pulling up chairs to as you negotiate our collective liberation—if were even invited to begin with. I’m still SICK!" Phillips concluded.
‘Lovecraft Country’ has received criticism before. Maya Phillips, a New York Times critic wrote that the show wants to “upend racial and sexual stereotypes by providing nuanced, complex characters but more often ends up reinforcing those same stereotypes, serving offensive messages about Blackness, queerness, sexuality and gender in tasteless, gratuitous ways.”