Joseph Fiennes, white actor is cast as Michael Jackson

British actor Joseph Fiennes was cast as the iconic pop star african American Michael Jackson in a TV comedy, provoking scorn on social networks Wednesday and fueling a controversy in the entertainment industry about opportunities for black artists.

Fiennes, who is white, will play the "King of Pop" in a story seemingly non-fiction for the channel British Sky subscription Arts on a journey through the roads of the United States that the singer, it is said, made in 2001 with the movie stars Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando.

The 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 plots of the history of arts and culture. The Sky Arts gives producers the creative freedom to choose the cast as they wish, within the diversity of structure that we have established. "

Jackson, who had vitiligo, medical condition that lightens skin color, died in June 2009 at age 50 after an overdose of sedatives.
Stereo Williams, who writes about entertainment for the Daily Beast, said the choice of Fiennes was a "deep racial problem symptom of Hollywood."

"Really they could not find a black actor to play Michael Jackson?" He said via Twitter the civil rights activist in the United States DeRay McKesson.