Voice-Over Actors Chosen By Ethnicity

[naomi24]

//US animated comedy series The Simpsons will no longer use white actors for the voices of characters from other ethnic backgrounds, the show's producers say.//

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53201667

This appears to be an exercise in the BLM brigade and their supporters climbing up their own bottoms. Presumably applicants will be required to indicate ethnicity when applying for work - and white people need not apply. Surely a retrograde step in the quest for equality? So much for an end to racial profiling and all that goes with it.

[naomi24]

Gromit. //US animated comedy series The Simpsons will no longer use white actors for the voices of characters from other ethnic backgrounds//

How difficult is that to understand?

I repeat, how can they object to people being defined by ethnicity when they clearly want actors to be employed on the basis of their ethnicity?

[Gromit]

// How difficult is that to understand? //

You managed to.

// applicants will be required to indicate ethnicity when applying for work - and white people need not apply. //

White actors can apply for white roles. Black actors can’t apply for white roles.
White actors are not being discriminated against because they are no longer to be considered for Indian roles.

[naomi24]

Gromit, Stop with the pickiness. You know exactly what I meant. That's the sort of thing that causes half the rows on this site and you, as a mod, should know better.

//Black actors can’t apply for white roles. //

Good luck with that. Get your tin hat on.

[Togo]

Disney will have a bit of bother when they make the next Dinosaur cartoon, (Ice Age etc.) or a Lion King remake. Where will they get talking critters never mind extinct ones?

[jim360]

So much missing of the point here. A world where white actors were providing voice-over work for black characters was a world where BAME actors weren't really getting a look-in. I appreciate that it shouldn't matter -- but it does, and we have to work with the world as it is. Comparison to ICe Age, dinosaurs etc is, as usual, utterly fatuous.

[Mexican18]

Auditions for a remake of The Planet of The Apes would be interesting!

[naomi24]

And what about roles written as white characters but played by black actors, Jim? Should that no longer happen either?

[Bobbisox1]

Vera playing a Geordie ‘tec is miscast

[andres]

I can envisage the signs saying ---Only those of mixed race parentage need apply. Then both sides could be accommodated.

[emmie]

andres, doesn't work like that, there is a deal of animosity in the black community amongst themselves, going on personal experience. Where you have light coloured skin, and very dark skin, and often never the twain shall meet....

[mushroom25]

//Sean Connery playing an Irishman is miscast.//

actually Sean Connery playing anything other than "Man Frae Edinburgh" would be miscast.

Marje Simpson is yellow with blue hair. what ethnicity of voice actor should be playing Marje?

[aelmpvw]

///Sean Connery playing an Irishman is miscast.//
not so if he was a competent actor

[Ellipsis]

Define "acting" ...

[mushroom25]

could you imagine the uproar if Coronation Street were today casting for the part of Hayley, and Julie Hesmondhalgh got the gig?

ONG! OMG! OMG!

[Mozz71]

//And what about roles written as white characters but played by black actors, Jim? Should that no longer happen either?//

I can't actually think of any characters that fit that description.

Incidentally, to my knowledge, both Mike Henry (Cleveland in Family Guy) and Hank Azaria (Apu and others, The Simpsons) voluntarily stood back from their roles some POC could take over. Nothing was forced, and reading their statements, I don't think anyone was putting pressure on them to do so.

[Gromit]

What The Simpsons think we sound like...

[Calibax]

Surely Bart should be voiced by a male actor (!)

[dannyk13]

I agree with Mally at 08.13

[mushroom25]

// //And what about roles written as white characters but played by black actors, Jim? Should that no longer happen either?//

I can't actually think of any characters that fit that description. //


"Annie" has traditionally been played by a white kid with red curly hair. in the 2014 remake, Quvenzhané Wallis was cast.

in the "Fantastic 4" comics, Johnny Storm is white, and was played by Chris Evans in 2005. In 2015, Michael Jordan was cast.

in the original 1990s TV version of "Charmed", the 3 lead characters were white sisters. when remade in 2018, the roles were filled by an afro-Caribbean, and african-american and a latina.

(I could go on...….)

[iluvmargie]

^^^...oh really pasta, I would never have guessed …!