There are accusations of white-washing circling the upcoming movie.

Rooney Mara in cat eye sunglasses and all black outfit.

Rooney Mara in cat eye sunglasses and all black outfit. Image via glamour.com

It’s been announced that Rooney Mara will join Hugh Jackman in the new adaptation of the classic Peter Pan story, which will obviously come with a modern twist. Peter, who is yet to be cast, is a little orphan who’s kidnapped by pirates and taken to Neverland. Mara’s role, Tiger Lily, is that of a Native American princess, which she obviously isn’t. Her casting in the role stirred up an Internet controversy, accusing the people in charge of white-washing.

“There is NO bigger Joe Wright fan than me. Honestly. But casting Rooney Mara as Tiger Lily is a huge mistake. Please, no more redface,” one user tweeted, while another said: “You guys, WHY is Rooney Mara cast as TigerLily (Native American) in the new Peter Pan film? EXPLAIN PLEASE”. There were plenty more disappointed and even outraged statements on Twitter: “So Rooney Mara’s been cast as Tiger Lily. I guess casting the whitest actress you can find IS one way to make the character more offensive,” one user said, while another tweeted: “Rooney Mara gets cast as the Native American Tiger Lily in a Peter Pan remake. Same old, Hollywood. Same old.”

Screen capture from the Peter Pan Disney Production

Screen capture from the Peter Pan Disney Production

While Rooney Mara is a wonderful actress (everyone can agree), she is no Native American. Some Twitter users even believe there are no Native American actresses in Hollywood to be cast in the first place. According to Variety, “The studio took on an exhaustive search in finding the right girl to play Lily looking at other actresses such as Lupita Nyonog’o and “Blue is the Warmest Color” thesp Adele Exarchopoulo before going out to Mara for the role.” Still, neither Native American. The same magazine reports: “The world being created is multi-racial/international – and a very different character than previously imagined.”.

The movie Pan is set to be released on July 17th, 2015, directed by Joe Wright of Atonement and Pride & Prejudice.