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Simpsons to recast non-white characters

Family Guy, Big Mouth and Central Park also recently announced changes.

Producers for The Simpsons announced the change to their casting process.

In a brief confirmation producers told E! News in a statement, “Moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters.”

Earlier this year, The Simpsons actor Hank Azaria, who is white, said he would no longer voice Apu following years of criticism surrounding the show’s portrayal of the Kwik-E mart.

Meanwhile Family Guy writer and producer Mike Henry said he was parting way with his character.

He tweeted, “It’s been an honor to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of color should play characters of color. Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”

Jenny Slate and Kristen Bell have stepped down from their roles as biracial characters on Netflix animations Big Mouth and Central Park, respectively.

20 Responses

  1. The purity spiral continues.

    I actually don’t really have an issue if for future casting they want to try and do the best to be representative. This is far more reasonable than some of the other non-sense going on. For legacy characters, I don’t know. Animation with lots of characters necessitates actors who can do a large range of characters for budget reasons. Not every animation is in the situation of The Simpsons where they can hire lots of actors. It’s a bad precedent to set. Especially when the show was doing the write thing by having diverse characters in the first place.

    Some developments with other shows are concerning, actors removing themselves from mixed race characters echoes some pretty dark racist beliefs.

  2. This does not go far enough. I have recently heard complaints from the Dachshund community that in animated cartoons. their barking, is being ‘voiced over’ by poodles. Naturally they are outraged. This follows on from Beagle-gate when Foxhounds were used to impersonate them. Finally…. Bulldog-Face, the portrayal of these oppressed dogs as snarly, aggressive, dumb, slobbering creatures must cease. There’s a long way to go and don’t get me started on cats…..

    1. You are so right! Totally outrageous! I’ve even heard a nasty rumour that Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Chipettes were not voice by squirrels at all … but … humans! Eee-gads man, my entire childhood has been destroyed – nothing but lies!

  3. OMG, this is never going to stop. I understand the BLM movement, but there needs to be a stop to all this. What’s next changing suburb names such as Point Cook for example, as it has cook in its name. Changing street names as they may represent names from eras past. Already TV shows and episodes have been dropped, this is never going to end.

  4. This is just getting ridiculous. Should only gay people play gay characters, only disabled people only disabled characters, etc.? It’s just a cartoon!!!!

      1. On that logic, no show should be cancelled because “people will lose their job”. That’s the nature of tv work, jobs come and go and success keeps you in a job. It’s not the ABC posturing in this case.

        1. Yes but the simpsons is still very profitable, it’s not just “any” show.
          There’s a return on investment on it. Yes quality declined but the potential profits it earns means more shows can be commisioned.

  5. Having black people voicing black characters is great but recasting characters that have been around for 20 to 30 years and someone as big as Cleveland is ridiculous and is going too far. I’m now done with The Simpsons and Family Guy I’m not going to watch shows with characters that have been around for 20+ years having new voices for no good reason. The Simpsons is really old and doesn’t rate the way it use to I wonder how much longer it will last now they have to spend even more money hiring more people.

    What about black actors voicing white characters are they going to be recast as well?

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