Talk:Thandiwe Newton

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Thandiwe Newton article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1: 90 days

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Actors and Filmmakers

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers (assessed as Mid-importance).

Television: British Mid‑importance

	Television portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Television, a collaborative effort to develop and improve Wikipedia articles about television programs. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page where you can join the discussion. To improve this article, please refer to the style guidelines for the type of work.TelevisionWikipedia:WikiProject TelevisionTemplate:WikiProject Televisiontelevision articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by the British television task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

London Low‑importance

	London portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject London, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of London on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LondonWikipedia:WikiProject LondonTemplate:WikiProject LondonLondon-related articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Veganism and Vegetarianism Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Veganism and Vegetarianism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of veganism and vegetarianism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Veganism and VegetarianismWikipedia:WikiProject Veganism and VegetarianismTemplate:WikiProject Veganism and VegetarianismVeganism and Vegetarianism articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women articles

African diaspora Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject African diaspora, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of African diaspora on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.African diasporaWikipedia:WikiProject African diasporaTemplate:WikiProject African diasporaAfrican diaspora articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Re: Mother is a Shona princess

Hello.

I was wondering if anybody would object to me restoring this claim. When last I saw it in the article, it was duly cited, and I see from the archive that the person that objected to it didn't attack the cited source on its merits - or lack thereof.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:02, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: Do you have a diff where it was removed? Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 18:21, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, @Sundayclose:...

The person that objected didn't have anything to say about the source, which I'm going to have to go find again... Their argument was that there were "500,000 chiefs in Zimbabwe", and so therefore calling her mother a princess was unfounded. Beyond the fact that I question that large a number, my position is that there is an old tradition - going back to Pocahantas - of calling the daughters of chiefs of monarchical rank princesses. What this person could say is that we need to distinguish between a chief of monarchical rank (like Osei Tutu II) and a chief of noble or otherwise honorary rank (like, say, Jay-Z). I wouldn't argue with that... All that I'd want is for them to go and find a link to a source that makes it clear what kind of chieftaincy her grandfather held, with the status quo ante maintained until such a time as it's all sorted out here on the talk page. That certainly didn't happen in this case... It was simply deleted.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 18:47, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: I asked for a diff so I could look at the citation. Or you could link the source here. Thanks. Sundayclose (talk) 19:07, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sundayclose:, necessity is the mother of genius... I found an even better source than the last one. Here it is:

[[1]]

Also, may I ask what the Wikipedia policy is on IMDB? I ask because her mother is called a princess there, as well.

Thanks for your time.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 19:41, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: I'm not familiar with the source so I really don't know if it's considered reliable. IMDb is definitely not considered reliable because there is little editorial control over most of it except for cast lists. See WP:CITEIMDB. If you put the information in the article, I think it should be brief and should state "according to Newton" or something similar since that is the original source of the information. Sundayclose (talk)

@Sundayclose:, that is more than fair. I'll see if I can get a second source to bolster it, then I'll add it to the article.

Thanks again.

O.ominirabluejack (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)O.ominirabluejackO.ominirabluejack (talk) 20:26, 8 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@O.ominirabluejack: The "diff" that the other user asked about is an entry from the article's edit history that shows the "difference" between the article before and after a specific edit. (Or a series of consecutive edits.) That is, show how the article looked the last time "princess" was mentioned and how it looked immediately after "princess" was removed.

I searched through the edit history and I found the change was made in "Revision as of 08:56, 2020 December 20".

The edit summary given by user "User:Macnos" gave the justification, "The Shona do not have royalty. I am Shona so I should know.", which is highly doubtful. We don't know whether the user really is Shona. Even if they are, they could be wrong, either mistakenly or intentionally. Wikipedia has several articles which mention Shona royalty.

On the bright side, the deleted passage includes three references. However, the references aren't more than Thandiwe saying her mother is a princess, which is not exactly authoritative. You could say your mother is a princess, too, but that doesn't make it true. If sources that prove she was princess could be found, those could be used as references. Otherwise, based on Thandiwe's statements alone, the claim could be reinstated as long as it is clearly marked to be a claim. That is, "a Zimbabwean princess of the Shona people, as claimed by Thandiwe", followed by the various references.

Good luck! --Mr. Lance E Sloan (talk) 14:50, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thandiwe

Should this page be moved to Thandiwe Newton, as this is her preferred name? [2] Owen (talk) 03:57, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a bit of a tricky situation, as since she kept Thandie as her name for so long it's now her common name. There'll be a point in the future when Thandiwe becomes that, but it's not now. Rusted AutoParts 04:00, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As noted below, NAMECHANGES takes precedent. Rusted AutoParts 17:46, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Her new name has been declared in Deadline, People, Vogue, W, Entertainment Weekly, Sky News, News.com.au, the Telegraph, Entertainment Tonight and the Guardian. I didn't even bother to check if there was a discussion here before I moved the page. Feel free to change it back if you think it's justified. State your reasons here first please. Kire1975 (talk) 10:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I believe we should refer to people by their preferred name, and I believe that is Wikipedia standard as well. Canterbury Tail talk 13:48, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NAMECHANGES is the relevant policy. Reliable sources written after the announcement indeed refer to her with w, so I find the move justified. Nardog (talk) 14:03, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that's what I was looking for. Canterbury Tail talk 17:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that old movie/TV articles with her are being fix as well. I don’t think we should change old credits, only new ones or current ones. But past projects need to be kept as they were with the incorrect credit. Sokuya (talk) 22:42, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty normal to go back and update them all for these kind of situations with movies etc. It's pretty common to get an actor who was billed as one name at one time and then as another name at a later date, and then go back and update all the older articles to the same name. If there is a really good reason to do so, you can also used "(billed as XXX)" beside them once the name is updated. In this case the billing name is changing so minorly, I don't see any issues with just straight updating it. Canterbury Tail talk 23:59, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Thandie"

The article lead states this originated in a misspelling of her name, Thandiwe, in the credits of her first film, but in the Early life section it's stated that she chose to be known as "Thandie", the implication- following the statement about being aware of not fitting in- being that the intention was to simplify or modify her name due to being brought up in England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.173.147 (talk) 21:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Vogue interview source gives both "Thandiwe and her younger brother attended a Catholic primary school run by joyless nuns, where she was once excluded from a class photograph for sporting cornrows and made to feel like an in-house missionary project, and where the W of her name drifted inward, out of sight and earshot, in a futile hope to make her feel less different" and, later, "All her future films will be credited with Thandiwe Newton, after the W was carelessly missed out from her first credit." Even if, at the time of her first credit, she had chosen to be credited as "Thandiwe" and an error was indeed made (odd that it should be exactly the name she had previously gone by in her youth?), the fact that she had of her own volition been "Thandie" means the emphasis on the credit error seems strange. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.145.173.147 (talk) 21:45, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Separation officially confirmed?

I've been looking via search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, etc., and from what I've been seeing, there has been no official confirmation that Thandiwe and Ol Parker are actually separated. Various sites like The Daily Mail, The Sun, etc. have said that they are separated, but such information was given by an anonymous source. Neither Thandiwe nor Ol have actually confirmed it, nor have their respective representatives. Heck, on Ol Parker's Wikipedia page, he's still listed as being married to Thandiwe, and both of their respective IMDb pages still list them as being married to each other, as of this post. Should Thandiwe really be listed as "separated" in her infobox if there's been no official confirmation of a separation? Lbmouschi (talk) 07:43, 4 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Birthplace again

Recent edits have changed Newton's birthplace from London to Zambia. There are sources that give her country of birth as Zambia. This interview clarifies that she was born in London while her parents were visiting there, but that they were normally resident in Lusaka, Zambia at the time. A record of her birth in Westminster is available here. This being the case, I'm reverting the article to reflect this information. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 18:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello Jean. Thanks for finding those sources. But note that this existing source clearly says she was born in Zambia. Should we still be using that one? 205.239.40.3 (talk) 08:37, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we can safely remove that source: it doesn't provide anything that isn't already covered by other sources, though the same paragraph does clarify that her birthplace is sometimes incorrectly given as Zambia. I think a cleanup of the references in that paragraph would make sense, but I'd value input from other editors before I jump in and make changes. Jean-de-Nivelle (talk) 10:35, 3 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]