“People in Hollywood, particularly, change their names all the time. This can be to avoid sharing a name with another famous celebrity, to give yourself a cooler name, or to make yourself more marketable by covering your ethnicity. It’s why Ben Kingsley doesn’t go by Krishna Bhanji, and why we know the name Rita Hayworth and not Margarita Carmen Cansino. Would we still love and know Natalie Portman if she was still Neta-Lee Hershlag? I don’t fault any celebrities who have or want to change their name, only the industry that seems to equate whiteness with both marketability and some kind of default.”
What Was Up With Jimmy Kimmel Making Fun of Mahershala Ali’s Name at the Oscars?
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