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Fiennes, who is white, will play the late "King of Pop" in an
apparently real-life story for Britain's satellite TV channel
Sky Arts about a road trip across the United States the singer
is said to have taken in 2001 with movie stars Elizabeth Taylor
and Marlon Brando.
Sky Arts said in a statement on Wednesday that the 30-minute
comedy, called "Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon," is "part of a
series of comedies about unlikely stories from arts and cultural
history. Sky Arts gives producers the creative freedom to cast
roles as they wish, within the diversity framework which we have
set."
Jackson, who had the medical condition vitiligo that lightened
the color of his skin, died in June 2009 at the age of 50 after
an overdose of the sedative propofol.
News of the casting decision came two weeks after the omission
of any actors of color from the 2016 Oscar nominations for a
second year that led Will Smith and Spike Lee to shun the Oscar
ceremony in February and Oscar organizers to bring more women
and people of color into their ranks.
Stereo Williams, an entertainment writer for The Daily Beast,
said the casting of Fiennes was a "symptom of Hollywood's
deep-seated race problem."
"They seriously couldn't find a black actor to play Michael
Jackson?" tweeted U.S. civil rights activist DeRay Mckesson, a
member of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"So Joseph Fiennes (A WHITE DUDE!) is gunna play Michael
Jackson... I say Denzel Washington plays Elvis in the next movie
just to be fair," said @nicomadden on Twitter.
So-called "whitewashing" has become a contentious issue in the
movie and TV industry, highlighted by the casting of Emma Stone
as a character of Hawaiian and Asian heritage in the 2015 film
"Aloha," and the choice of white British actor Charlie Hunnam to
play a Mexican-American drug lord in an upcoming Hollywood
movie.
"Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon" will also star Stockard Channing
as Jackson's late, close friend Taylor, and Brian Cox as Brando.
It is expected to be broadcast sometime in 2016.
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