The makers of NWA's forthcoming biopic Straight Outta Compton have been accused of racism after issuing a casting call that appears to rank potential applicants by their skin colour. Sande Alessi Casting have apologised for the controversy, calling the matter an "innocent mistake".



"[Seeking] SAG or non-union … females [of] all ethnicities," begins Allesi's call for "featured" extras which was originally posted onto Facebook. The first category of roles seems to mirror this description: "A GIRLS", "the hottest of the hottest", "can be [played by] black, white, Asian, Hispanic, mid-eastern, or mixed-race" women.



After that, the listing becomes much more specific; the casting directors' hierarchy of models seems directly linked the skin colour:



B GIRLS: These are fine girls, long natural hair, really nice bodies," the casting call reads. "Small waists, nice hips. You should be light-skinned. Beyoncé is a prototype here. C GIRLS: These are African American girls, medium to light skinned with a weave. D GIRLS: These are African American girls. Poor, not in good shape. Medium to dark skin tone.

On blogs and over Twitter, critics immediately accused the casting call of reinforcing racial stereotypes. "It's racist. Nothing else to add," tweeted the writer Jouelzy. "Racist as hell," observed Gawker's headline on an article by Hamilton Nolan.

Sande Alessi Casting quickly deleted the ad, but in an interview with Jet magazine they blamed the controversy on a misunderstanding of the extras' letter grades. "It is not by any means a ranking of 'A [Girls]' is better than 'B [Girls]'," claimed Kristan Berona, Alessi's co-owner. "It was just an unfortunate mistake in the lettering that has caused us backlash ... [and by] no means intended to be offensive to anybody in a million years." Berona has vowed to "use a different system now" for listing roles that call for different skintones.

Universal Pictures said in a statement on Thursday that “the filmmakers … did not approve and do not condone the information in this casting notice. We regret and sincerely apologize for being in any way associated with the offensive descriptions it contained.”

Produced by NWA's Ice Cube and Dr Dre, Straight Outta Compton is expected in cinemas next year. Director F Gary Gray recently announced the movie's casting, which includes O'Shea Jackson Jr, Ice Cube's son. In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Eric Wright Jr, the son of NWA's Eazy-E, complained that he hadn't been invited to play his own father. "I don't think anybody [could] do it better," he said.

