Forum - View topicINTEREST: Ken Akamatsu Comments on Casting POC Voice Actors in American Cartoons, Japanese Anime
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Jeff Bauersfeld
Posts: 109 |
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Geography being my worst subject, I thought India was considered part of SEA. Apologizes for the misclassification; I'm sure the replier was just going along with what I said. I'll make sure to correct that going forward. |
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ZephyrVayu
Posts: 79 |
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It’s a good thing we don’t live in a white supremacist society then, and haven’t done since well before ‘The Simpsons’ began. I understand what you’re saying, but there’s a big difference between minstrels which were created with the intent of mocking and dehumanizing black people for the exclusive entertainment of white people, and a cartoon character with a debatably ignorant/misguided portrayal, but with the intent of expressing diversity and positivity for the entertainment of ALL PEOPLE who happened to tune into FOX on Sunday evenings. The intent of the conceivers is significant, and should be a factor in these discussions. And as someone who is strongly anti-censorship and pro-freedom of expression (and as someone who believes that those ideals are what the animation industry is meant to represent and uphold above all else), I can’t not be disappointed by the removal of Apu and level of disdain people have recently come to hold him in (placing him on the same level as minstrels, Mr. Popo, Jinx, ect.), even if I understand the criticism regarding his more caricatured attributes. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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Absolutely. I think it's worth pointing out that every character in The Simpsons is a caricature. The entire premise of the show is based on satirizing caricatures and stereotypes of all forms. It is not as if the writers of the show singled out members of a particular nationality or race for discrimination, rather every character gets the same treatment. |
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DCR
 Posts: 101 |
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Maybe people should stop using POC or BIPOC or whatever when they actually just mean "black people".
Because that's the issue. It's about black characters. Not asian characters. I doubt most people have an issue about who is dubbing the 99,9% asian people from My Hero Academia or Kimetsu no Yaiba. |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 660 |
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But it's not the "same treatment" when it exists in world that doesn't have that. It's easy to write off as "well the white people are caricatures too" when 90% of the rest of entertainment is white people being everything. In reality it's just a further excuse to demean or belittle other races under the guise of the status quo. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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It seems like the argument is starting to fall down the slippery slope now. I thought the issue was characters being played by actors who share traits with the character, but now it seems to have shifted over to how certain characters shouldn't exist in the first place. The issue wasn't character X is a bad stereotype and should not exist, it was character X was voiced by a non-minority actor. Those are two entirely separate issues and discussions.
It was my understanding that the term BIPOC was specifically created to exclude Asians, Hispanics, and other white-passing minorities and specifically refer to black and indigenous people exclusively, hence "black and indigenous people of color". After all, saying Japan lacks 'people of color' is a bit an odd thing to say when 99.9% of the country is Asian so the discussion of lack of POC characters or actors in Japan is a bit of an odd one. Asians are considered POCs, but not BIPOCs. |
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one.night.bkk
Posts: 32 |
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As an Asian-American, specifically a Japanese-American, I really don't care what race the person is who voices (in animation, games, etc) non-white characters, particularly Asian ones, and especially Japanese ones. It would be particularly thorny if anime dubs came under the type of scrutiny American cartoons are under right now. Live action stuff? That's different, for obvious reasons.
...also, I've never really been a fan of being called a "POC" - I'm not yellow. I'm Asian, Japanese, half-Asian, half-Japanese, a minority, an American, whatever. I'm not a color. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I was addressing the specific case of caricatures in the context of Apu in The Simpsons, not discussing a general case. Racism may be a valid complaint in this case. Being a "caricature" is not not; the two are seperate things. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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That reminds me of an excellent statement by Morgan Freeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeixtYS-P3s |
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MrBonk
Posts: 192 |
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Saying it's not the same treatment just because the rest of entertainment is white people is not a fair argument. (That's like the same as saying that actual racism towards white people is ok simply because they aren't a minority. )They arguably satirize and make fun of stereotypes of white people far more than a single character like Apu. There's no secret intent there to hide some kind of racism towards SEA people and cover it up with an overwhelming larger majority of content to make fun of themselves as white people. It the same treatment in the show regardless of whether the real world reflects the same thing or not. Saying it's not simply because of white people being the majority is ass backwards. There is a lot of stuff (especially Anime) out there that satirize stereotypical caricatures of white people and most people can see the intent of that is simply to be funny or done out of ignorance. Most can easily look for the difference in *intent*, whether it was made be intentionally hurtful or mean spirited. Or an attempt at humor. And typically as far as I have seen most white people don't get offended by it, but by all means by the same logic as applied everywhere it should be considered offensive and racist. As for POC, there's no denying the ones whom have spoken up with first hand experience of racism in casting. And that sucks, what a VA looks like shouldn't matter. (Phil La Mar is probably one of my top 5 VA of all time. And all the other non POC roles i've heard played by POC have been great). At the same time there's no way of knowing how many POC have even pursued such a career to begin with, so there already might be a smaller pool of this group of people by default in addition to already being a minority (Add in the sparse few locations around the continent where dubbing is actually done.) So is it racism as why there is actually less people getting these roles or simply because there aren't as many trying to begin with and they don't get many applicants? Or perhaps in some cases ones that do audition get it simply don't have a voice that fits? If it's a POC role and none of the POC applicants have a fitting enough voice, what is reasonable recourse? Trying to put out a wider search or spend even more time and money trying to find someone locally when you are typically on a tight schedule and budget?(Think of Simuldub hell) Ideally you'd have some people in house locally now that can do the job well (which Funimation seems to be getting better at) so that's a good thing. But what if they don't and what is "Good enough" of an attempt to find someone? We've all seen how badly things turn out when you just grab random people off the street to voice act.(Especially in OG Japanese tracks of Anime portraying White or Black people. Often to much unintentional humor. See: a lot of early dubs, the dub for Lost Universe, the Japanese tracks of Beck, Legend of Black Heaven,Azumanga Daioh,etc) To that end though, if it's ok for POC to voice characters of a different color (Which it absolutely is), why shouldn't it be ok for white people to voice a black person when it's clearly ok for them to voice other non white characters? (And the reverse) Even if their end result is a voice based on internal stereotypes? (Which isn't exclusive to white people. Phil Lamar's voice when he played Vamp from MGS is clearly based on a mishmash of East European/Russian stereotypes. And of course Samurai Jack. I don't have a problem with either of these) |
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strawberry_milk
 Posts: 88 |
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Yeah, POC is pretty much used as a catch-all term for ethnic minorities in the US.
So on one hand it's just another generalisation which comes with its own problems. On the other hand there's been a lot of people on the news, of all colors, that say POC. So for now it generally seems to be an acceptable term. |
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Dark Mac
Posts: 319 |
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I'd be much more impressed if these white actors were giving up white roles for PoC to take over - after all, it's voice acting, so the ethnicity of the character/actor shouldn't matter.
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DavetheUsher
 Posts: 505 |
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Phil LaMarr is an interesting case.because he recently snapped at people pointing out he voiced Samurai Jack by saying it was okay for him to do so because he was a fellow minority and it's only an issue when white people voice characters of color. He was not concerned at all that he potentially took the role an Asian-American actor and will be reprising his role in the upcoming Samurai Jack video game. A lot of people do have a double standard when it comes to this situation and unfortunately it's just another case of Asians being treated as disposable when it comes to media when it's convenient for people, despite the fact Asian Americans are far more underrepresented in American media than black people are yet are pushed into the background more and more. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2404 |
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I'm with you. I don't get this push. This would push black voice actors into those crappy bit parts. Seems like it would be better to enable whatever white voice actor to take minority parts and push for greater inclusion of black voice actors in starring roles. Is the point here just to be a stop gap measure because black voice actors aren't getting equal consideration for starring roles? I think pushing for that type of fix instead of a real long term solution is a giant waste of all the clamor this is getting at the moment. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14813 |
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The trouble with The Simpsons is that Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, and Dan Castellaneta are excellent voice actors who voice much of the show's characters of note, including POC characters. And they're all white, so that takes away those POC roles from anyone else
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