Angelina in black face?

Despite disappointing box office sales, Angelina Jolie's latest movie A Mighty Heart has sparked its fair share of controversy in the media. At the heart of the matter is not whether Hollywood exploited the tragic death of journalist Daniel Pearl to make summer blockbuster cashola (my beef with the movie, for the record).

Rather, critics are up in arms about the decision to cast a very white Angelina Jolie as a woman of color. Insult, they say, was added to injury by the production company's decision to darken Jolie skin, change her eye color with contact lenses, and put her in a wig that resembled the Afro-Cuban-Dutch heroine Marianne Pearl's dark, thick, curly hair.

K. Emily Bond of the Huffington Post calls it "black-face" and goes on to suggest that "this casting choice illustrates the magnitude of the time warp Hollywood got sucked into or the vacuum within which it exists." Bond also makes the point that if they film wanted to downplay the interracial aspect of Daniel and Marianne's relationship, they should have left Angelina fair-skinned and blue-eyed.

But since the film obviously opted to portray Marianne's race, Bond suggests it would have been more "sensitive" to cast one of the many talented actresses of color such as Thandie Newton or Halle Barry, who she points out is just as hot as Jolie according to AskMen.com.

So what do you think? Is it acceptable for Hollywood to cast white actresses as women of color? If it is, how should they negotiate the difference in skin color? Is it better to leave the actress as she is, or to, as Bond puts, dress her up in black-face?