Anele Mdoda unimpressed with Naledi, the recent character unveiled in 'The Wife'

Media personality Anele Mdoda was unimpressed with the recent casting choice of an actress joining Showmax's telenovela The Wife.

Showmax  revealed on Wednesday that actress Gaisang K Noge will play Naledi in Naledi His Love .

Taking to Twitter Anele shared with her followers why she was not pleased with the casting choice.

“Jokes aside. It would have been nice to cast a size 42 dark actress for the role of Naledi in The Wife. I won’t go into a thesis but when we speak of the success of The Wife, we attribute it to representation and authenticity and this was a good time to be led by that.”

Fans of the book series were echoing her sentiments about representation. Some felt let down because the actress cast is not who they had in mind.

“I'm going to say it. This casting choice is fatphobic. It maintains the bestie/comic relief/villain trope and disregards the fat woman as a sweet, lovable, complex leading lady that the media has been so adept at erasing. It's quite disappointing.”

After the news of her casting broke, Gaisang opened up about her role and how she felt she had big shoes to fill.

“I'm stepping into this role that already exists and people love so much. It's scary. 

There is a level of pressure because the performers in this story are brilliant, and people love this story so much, so you don't want to let them down. 

But the advantage of playing Naledi is that, even in the actual story, she joined the world out of nowhere. She's an outsider. She has no relations. So I use that energy to my advantage,” she said.

Meanwhile, fans of the book series are livid on the Twitter streets.

Here are some of the reactions: