Why is 'Tiger Lily' white in the upcoming "Peter Pan "movie....

We literally just spoke about Cultural Appropriation.. and yet, here we are..again. Maybe I'm late and I missed the whole announcement but whatever! There's no time like the present - so tuck in and pay attention! So, I was being nosey on youtube - watching music videos, vlogs, movie trailers etc. and I came across the PAN trailer. Like, any normal child I was a bit fond of peter pan back in the day so watched the trailer in it's entirety to see who would be portraying Tiger Lilly - because she was my favorite - (hands down the BEST character in that entire movie!) Halfway through the trailer I see Rooney Mara (actress who played Lisbeth - Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) with a Native American Headdress. I literally paused the trailer and took to google to find some posters or something because there was no way they hired a French -Canadian, Italian, German and Irish woman to portray a NATIVE AMERICAN. Impossible.

2015 Version of Tiger Lily

2003 Version of Tiger Lily 

1953 Version of Tiger Lily

Why? Not only will this constitute for a ton of cultural appropriation throughout the film, but it's also blatant whitewashing. 

Whitewashing - "The practice of giving white actors preferential treatment in casting. Specifically, the term is about putting white actors in roles that should be given to non-white actors."

Hollywood is infamous for casting white actors and actresses as POC, (i.g. Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, and Jake Gyllenhaal in The Prince of Persia) but in the 2003 version of Peter Pan, Tiger Lily was portrayed by Carsen Gray, a descendant of the Haida band government (an indigenous nation in America.) Even in the 1953 version, Tiger Lily had dark skin. As far as I'm concerned J.M. Barrie wrote Tiger Lily to be Native American. By erasing her ethnicity, you erase one of the fundamental concepts of the story. WHY is this acceptable? Of course, the cast and crew of Pan have tried to cover their tracks by creating a last minute random backstory for Tiger Lily, stating that "...Tiger Lily came to Neverland from England before Peter did and was adopted by the Chief,"... (the chief portrayed by Australian Aboriginal actor Jack Charles.) Honestly, this is the biggest excuse to cast a (pretty much) all white cast I've ever heard. 

They claim that their main objective when casting Mara was to create a "...strong female role-model character at play in this story of Peter Pan." So, it's okay to basically ignore how crucial representation is? Right, so they have no problem casting a Black/Native American man (I have no idea if Aboriginals are black or Native American...sorry!) as Chief - probably because he isn't a LEAD character, and they needed that ONE token person with melanin; but the thought of having a TRUE Native American portray a Native American is totally not cool. Well, I suppose a Native American actress wouldn't come across as "a strong female role-model". Bullshit. 

Warner Bros has put out a yet another bullshit statement that says "The world being created is multi-racial/international - and a very different character than previously imagined." 

Uhh...what? In other words, we decided to make Tiger Lily white because we'd be able to make more money with a "well known" actress.

Typical.

I'm still waiting for the movie to premiere.. where you at Pan? 

What do you guys think? 
Sound off in the comments. 

Love, 
  - Sassy ' N ' New York