Distributor Robert L Johnson compares criticism of Zoe Saldana’s casting to infamous early 20th-century ‘brown paper bag’ test used to separate African Americans by shade of skin

The distributor of a controversial forthcoming biopic of Nina Simone has labelled claims that the Hollywood star Zoe Saldana performed in “blackface” to play the iconic singer a relic of slavery-era attitudes towards skin colour.

Robert L Johnson, the founder of Black Entertainment Television and often described as the first African American billionaire, bought the rights to Cynthia Mort’s film in September. He told the Hollywood Reporter that critics of the casting of Saldana, an American of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent who wore a prosthetic nose and dark makeup to portray Simone, were falling into a trap set by American slave owners centuries ago.

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