"The Simpsons" Will No Longer have White Actors Voice Non-White Characters
by Denise Petski
June 26, 2020


Fox’s venerable animated series "The Simpsons" has released a statement on casting for non-white characters that will affect the voices of such popular Black characters on the show as Carlton Carlson and Dr. Julius M. Hibbert.

“Moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” the series said Friday.

https://deadline.com/2020/06/the-simpsons-will-no-longer-have-white-actors-voice-non-white-characters-1202971437/

About time. I'm glad they finally woke up.

The Problem with Apu's Hari Kondabolu reacts to The Simpsons no longer using white actors to voice non-white roles (https://twitter.com/harikondabolu/status/1276662967501635584)

Kondabolu's 2017 TruTV documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGzvEqBvkP8) helped raise awareness of how the Apu character's stereotypes hurt Indian-Americans, especially when it was their only representation on screen. "All it took was 30 years, a documentary, more relevant shows doing it first & a conversation about racism spurred by police brutality & murder," tweeted Kondabolu in reaction to Friday's announcement, adding: "Going off social media now until next wave of death threats pass." Additionally, Kondabolu tweeted that "The Simpsons is still the most cutting-edge show of the 90s." (https://twitter.com/harikondabolu/status/1276658400915369984) Kondabolu also retweeted Twitter user Neha Shah, who tweeted: "Hey remember when @harikondabolu made a doc about this and instead of making the change they joked about it in an episode (https://twitter.com/nehaisbrown/status/1276649220691329024)? The only reason they are making the change now is because Family Guy did (https://twitter.com/mikehenrybro/status/1276631712949317639). This is not something to celebrate. Shame on the Simpsons it took them 31 seasons." CNN's W. Kamau Bell (https://twitter.com/wkamaubell/status/1276671124152086529), who worked with Kondabolu on FX's Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell, tweeted: "I couldn't be more proud of my friend @harikondabolu. His documentary The Problem w/ Apu jumpstarted a conversation & a cultural shift that had been a looooooong time coming. He's my brother. I have his back FOR-EVER!"

Harry Shearer appears to criticize The Simpsons' decision to stop white actors from voicing people of color (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8590717/The-Simpsons-actor-calls-shows-decision-stop-having-white-actors-play-POC-characters.html)

Shearer, whose many voices on the Fox comedy include Black doctor Dr. Julius Hibbert, apparently spoke out against The Simpsons' announcement in June (https://www.primetimer.com/item/Fox-The-Simpsons-will-no-longer-have-white-actors-voice-non-white-characters-lRSaJM) that only people of color will portray minority characters from now on. "I have a very simple belief about acting. The job of the actor is to play someone who they are not," Shearer said (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/20200803-1237/2020-08-03) in an interview on Times Radio in the UK. "That's the gig, that's the job description."

What about white actors who voice Black characters on The Simpsons and Family Guy for international audiences? (https://www.vulture.com/article/animation-race-voice-acting-international-dubbing.html)

While The Simpsons, Family Guy, Big Mouth and Central Park made headlines over the summer for moving toward having minority actors in minority roles, white actors are still voicing Black characters like Cleveland Brown and Carl in other countries. “I think that the only thing that matters is that the voice fits the character,” says Peter Musäus, who is white and the voice of The Simpsons' Black power plant worker Carl for the German dubbing. “If you focus on the subject of race, it also has to be a Chinese actor dubbing a Chinese character, the same for Native Americans, Latin, and the characters in Bollywood movies need Indian actors.” Another white German voice actor, who works on one of the four shows but preferred to remain anonymous added that this is partly “due to the fact that there are only a few Black or mixed-race actors in Germany who work mainly as dubbing actors. Of course they can’t cover all Black actor roles.”

I'm wondering if 'The Simpsons' creators would have a problem with the voice of Hadji being played by Danny Bravo, who most likely was NOT Indian as his character would suggest, in the classic 1960's episodes of 'Jonny Quest'.

The whole fiasco of attempting to have identical ethnicities with depicted ethnicities of cartoon characters takes away from the fun of the shows. Say if an Indian character, born in India but a fully acculturalized American minus the accent of his birth country, were to voice a character of a certain ethnicity and region, would that be more "legitimate" than a "white" character impersonating a certain foreign accent? This is why they call it ACTING. Must a person of a certain ethnicity or foreign origin fit the stereotype of that ethnicity? Why do so many persons of varying ethnicities, races, and nationalities speak without accents?

Interesting point about one foreign actor in the 1960's: Barry Morse, who played Lieutenant Gerard in the series 'The Fugitive', was born in Britain and became a Canadian citizen. In the series he overcame his British accent to sound like an American policeman. Was he supposed to have that British accent as he was born in Britain? Should they have chosen an American actor, preferably one from the Hoosier State of Indiana, where the story was to have taken place, with its own respective accent?

Apu didn’t deserve this, that documentary was just plain awful :mad::mad:

Matt Groening on The Simpsons having minority actors voice minority characters: "I think it's great" (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9292563/The-Simpsons-creator-Matt-Groening-speaks-recasting-non-white-roles.html)

"I think it's great, times change, but I actually didn't have a problem with the way we were doing it," The Simpsons creator told BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat one day after news that Kevin Michael Richardson was taking over the Dr. Hibbert role from Harry Shearer. "All of our actors play dozens of characters each, it was never designed to exclude anyone." Asked whether he believes the controversy raised awareness of the need for more diversity in writers rooms, he said: "I absolutely agree with that. And we're trying to make it better."