No one can tell these 6 actresses apart and it has sparked a debate about diversity

As we all know, diversity and representation is not always Hollywood’s strong spot, to say the least.

A viral tweet has brought this to our attention once again when it became essentially impossible to tell six white, blonde, very beautiful Hollywood stars apart.

Twitter user @sheereny said that she “can’t believe the film/tv industry thinks it can trick me into believing these are all different actresses and not the same woman at different stages of her life” with six photos of actresses who look remarkably similar.

The tweet in question, which currently has nearly 70 thousand likes, was created by Shereen Shafi. She was inspired after watching the Netflix show Sex Education (which features Emma Mackey, lower middle picture). While the 'Margot Robbie doppelganger' discourse is not totally new, this collection of photos seems to be the most thorough.

“I was mostly just having fun, but on a serious note, it is concerning how many similar-looking blonde women we have on-screen when diversity is still so lacking in many ways,” Shafi told indy100.

I don’t mean to diminish the unique talents of any of these actresses, of course. But I’m a woman of South Asian descent and I rarely see myself represented at all, especially in American media – and even then we often have to fit a particular 'mold' to be deemed camera-worthy.

Shafi, who is from America, said it was this lack of diversity that precluded her from this kind of career path early on in life.

While it does relate to a more serious issue of diversity and beauty standards, the tweet was initially meant to be lighthearted, she explained.

It turned out the six actors are indeed different people after Shafi graciously posted their names on Tuesday after much joking debate.

The Internet is no stranger to memes like this, recently a similar group of photos showed five white Hollywood actors with chiselled jaws who looked like identical quintuplets.

This issue has been covered many times before: BuzzFeed suggested that "there are only 9 men in Hollywood" – and all of the variations were white guys.

While the movie industry maybe has slowly worked to improve its track record on moving beyond 'The Hollywood look' (in front of and behind the camera), it's obvious it still has a long way to go.

After all, the 2020 Bafta Awards were criticised for nominating Margot Robbie twice, while snubbing people of colour. And while Robbie is clearly a very talented actor, that kind of glaring inequality can't go on.

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