Amongst the pulling down of racist strongholds that has been ongoing as a consequence of the killing of George Floyd, the acting industry has been asked to step into the light. In recent days Jenny Slater and Mike Henry, voice actors of Missy Foreman-Greenwald and Cleveland Brown from Big Mouth and Family Guy respectively, have both voluntarily (seemingly) decided to hang up their hats both indicating in their statements that ‘Black characters should be reserved for Black people’.
Now incase you’re unaware though both actors are White, Cleveland is an African American man from Virginia whilst Missy has a White Jewish mother and a Black father and though I’ve been aware of this for a long time, I personally have never had a problem with White actors voicing non-White characters. “I mean, what is acting, if not to pretend to be something you are not? Acting is to perform a fictional character. Please what is everyone’s beef? Missy’s voice is iconic” and it truly is but there’s more to all of this so hear me out.
There is, to me, nothing inherently wrong with actors voicing characters of a different race to themselves. To say there is an inherent issue, by extension of this logic, is to say that a voice actor must be of the same nationality as the character he/she is voicing. If one must be Black in order to voice a Black character, one must also be African American to voice an African American character yet I think most of would would disagree that statement. An analogous example is the landscape of Black roles in cinema stateside . For some years now casting directors in Hollywood have had a kink for Black British talent and I’m not mad at it. From David Oyelewo as MLK, to Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman. From Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out, to his soon to be role as Fredrick Hampton in Ryan Coogler’s next production. Not to mention, John Boyega, Letitia Wright, Damson Idris, Jodie Turner-Smith and the list goes on and on but while I’m happy for our lil British Invasion, many African American’s feel as though we are teefing their roles and in this lies my reasoning as to why Slater and Henry were right to step down from their roles.
In the case of Black roles in cinema and especially Hollywood, African Americans dominate by a large margin (as you would expect if the Home of Cinema is in your back yard). As such, the few roles that have gone to Black British actors are significantly insignificant when compared to the vast amount of Black roles available in Hollywood in any year or across cinema. In my head, the reaction to Black Brits getting roles in America has been equivalent to Jeff Bezos weeping like a widow upon hearing news that someone has deetsed themself a new phone case from Amazon. Like chale… you will be fine, I can assure you. So whereas Black Brits playing African Americans make up minute percentage of all the Black roles in Hollywood, White actors voicing Black characters make up a far more significant percentage; even more significant when focusing on Black animated roles in mainstream adult animated tv shows. There is a multitude of talented Black voice actors who are only ever type casted in Black animated tv shows such as your Proud Family’s and your Boondocks’; you seldom hear a Black voice actor voicing a White character or even the Black characters in any mainstream animated tv show and this is not just limited to Black folk. Earlier this year, in what we can retrospectively acknowledge as the first on many, Apu, the Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner in The Simpsons saw his voice actor (and apparent trendsetter), Hank Anzari, quit citing the same aforementioned epiphany as Slater and Henry. For a long time there has been an issue concerning job opportunities for non-White voice actors within the voice acting industry and given this disregard of Black talent by many of the adult animated tv shows including but not limited to The Simpsons (Dr. Hibbert, Carl Carlson), Family Guy (Cleveland Brown), American Dad, Big Mouth (Missy), alongside side their constant flirting with racially stereotypical humour, it is the bare minimum to expect that Black Actors voice the few and far between Black characters on these shows. It is one thing to not create characters for us, it is another to create characters for us to then hire more White people to play them.
So yes, in my opinion White people can play Black characters, Black people can play Asian characters, Asian people can voice Latinx characters. Have at it… if, and only if, the following two conditions are met: (1) The voice actor has the ability to pull off the voice necessary to bring the character to life. (2) There are ample job opportunities for non-White and specifically Black voice actors to voice characters of their own race and outside of their race.
In the case of both Jenny Slater’s Missy and Mike Henry’s Cleveland, we can all say the first condition was pretty easily met. Missy and Cleveland both have incredibly iconic and humorous voices. Heck, Cleveland even went on to have his own (short lived) show. But as to wether there are job opportunities on these shows and in the market for Black voice actors in general? That’s a pretty wrong and strong Fail. So good on Slater and Henry ifor (finally) doing what was right and I expect to see many others across animated television follow suit. I’ll miss their voices and I hope the Black talent they find to replace those voices have a similar impact. No Aunt Viv vibes. Peace and blessings.
peekay's opinion 