DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF YOU DON’T: Hollywood on Alert: Actors’ Ethnicities Under Scrutiny Amid Heightened Sensitivities.

When Warner Bros. set out to make a live-action Peter Pan, it wanted to avoid the racial insensitivities of J.M. Barrie’s play and Disney’s 1953 animated film, which infamously featured the song “What Made the Red Man Red?” So the filmmakers reimagined Tiger Lily not as Native American but as a character of no particular ethnicity to steer clear of Barrie’s portrayal of the island’s tribe, now considered rife with offensive stereotypes.

But choosing Rooney Mara — an actress of Irish, German and French-Canadian ancestry — to play Pan‘s Tiger Lily prompted an outcry, with 90,000 people signing a Care2 petition in protest. Now, as Pan heads for an Oct. 9 release, it enters a cultural landscape of increased racial sensitivities around film and television casting and a social media environment that amplifies those concerns. Warners, ironically, has been branded as insensitive for attempting to offer a color-blind, modern Pan.