Actor Hank Azaria (The Simpsons, Brockmire) made headlines a year or so ago when he announced he was stepping away from the role of Middle Eastern shop owner Apu on The Simpsons after concerns were raised over offensive stereotyping of characters.
In the midst of the current racial tensions in this country, the producers of Simpsons, along with Seth MacFarlane's Family Guy, are following Azaria's lead, and will recast minority parts originally assigned to white actors.
For example, Mike Henry, who parlayed the role of Cleveland Brown on Guy into a spin-off series, is stepping away to turn the gig over to another actor. Similarly, Enterprise Rent-a-Car endorser Kristen Bell (ex-Gossip Girl, Veronica Mars, The Good Place) is leaving Apple TV+'s freshman series, Central Park, from the creators of Fox's Bob's Burgers. Saturday Night Live alumnus Jenny Slate is departing Netflix's Big Mouth. Slate & Bell both realize that while they were cast because of name recognition more than perceived "white privilege", the current environment makes it unwise to continue.
There's bound to be more. There are a few African-American voice actors currently active, including Kevin Michael Richardson, Khary Payton (Young Justice, Teen Titans Go!), Phil LaMarr, and Cree Summer, the latter of whom has been active in the cartoon business well before being cast on A Different World in the late 80's. There's bound to be more with jobs opening up rather quickly. The belief now is that the casting should be reflective of the diversity of our society, not the tradition of having white actors playing characters of all nationalities. The days of Paul Frees and Mel Blanc, remember, ended a while ago.
5 comments:
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's good to see that folks are dedicating themselves to giving people of color more roles on shows; as an African American, that fills me with hope, but on the other hand, I feel that this might be an example of cancel culture going a bit too far. While I do like to see more POC getting work, I don't feel that we need to be so discriminating as to now say that only blacks can voice black characters. As long as the characters aren't being portrayed as stereotypes, I don't see anything wrong with whites voicing non-whites and vice-versa; it should only matter if the VA is right for the part. An example is African American VA Cree Summer; two of her most famous roles are Penny from Inspector Gadget and Elmyra Duff from Tiny Toon Adventures, both white girls.
Cree was also Abigail/Numbah 5 from Codename: Kids Next Door, and her resume also includes Batman Beyond. It's just "cancel culture" getting in the way to extend its 15 minutes.
I've been checking your two sites to see if some actors that I've mentioned elsewhere have ever been mentioned here.
Only one has, in passing, but I'll go all in anyway:
- Iron Eyes Cody, the "Crying Indian" from those environmental PSAs of long ago, was revealed posthumously to have been Espera DeCorti, born in Louisiana to Sicilian immigrants; he maintained his "Indian" pose nearly all his life.
- Frank Silvera, a native of Jamaica, almost always played Caucasian characters throughout his long movie-TV career; Hispnics, Italians, Greeks, other Mediterranean types (his best remembered TV role was as the Spanish Grandee on The High Chapparal).
In the '50s, when he was getting started in New York theater, Silvera's light complexion kept him from getting cast as Negro characters (the preferred phrase back then), so he simply didn't call attention to his ancestry; as a result, he worked constantly for years.
- You remember Khigh Dhiegh from the original Hawaii Five-0, wherein he played the evil Red Chinese master spy Wo Fat.
Before that, Khigh Dhiegh (pronounced ky dee) was Dr. Yen Lo, the genial Chinese brainwasher in the original Manchurian Candidate.
Before that, Khigh Dhiegh was Kenneth Dickerson, born in New Jersey of Anglo-Egyptian-Sudanese parentage; he adopted his Asiatic pose in his early New York theater days, and maintained it his entire life.
All the above stories are verifiable at IMDb and other sources; if you look, you may find many other such stories to go along with them.
@Mike Doran: Don't forget that former WWF wrestler Yokozuna wasn't really Japanese. He wasn't even Asian.
Hollywood shouldn't cast white actors to play non-white characters. Whitewashing needs to end ASAP. However, voice actors aren't seen on camera, therefore it shouldn't matter who's reading their lines. Next people will be saying that only robots can voice robots, or only ghosts can voice ghosts, or only witches can voice witches. Where does it end? "Only black actors can voice black characters" is a pretty stupid rule to enforce because, among other reasons, this does nothing to combat racism. This is just an overreaction to recent events, and I'm saying this as a black man.
Here's a crazy though, America: instead of recasting cartoon voice actors according to their skin color, why not instead work to declare racial prejudice a legitimate, punishable crime, like how Switzerland made homophobia illegal.
Overreaction is exactly what it is, Goldstar. The real litmus test will be in 3-6 months when new series are developed, then cast.
@Mike Doran: I'll add Frank DeKova to the list. Frank played a mobster on the original Untouchables in addition to playing Native Americans (i.e. F-Troop). There's tons of old school examples, like Ricardo Montalban, for example, playing a Native American.
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