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.

[ToraToraTora]

they won't be happy until slavery has been re introduced with a monochrome shift.

[LadyCG]

So if a character has to be voiced or played by someone of the character's ethnicity, does this mean they'll stop banging on about the next James Bond being played by a black actor?

Somehow I doubt it in this age of lefty double standards.

[MallyJ]

Makes sense to me......why have people putting on an accent that isn't theirs when you can have the real deal with people using their own accent? Like having white people black up to play black people who wouldn't need to use make up if they were given the part.

[Mexican18]

Does this mean that only one- legged actors can play Long John Silver?

[royfromaus]

I thought sp would have posted this a few days ago.

He didn't appear to have a problem with a white man voicing Cleveland...I wonder what he thinks now?

[emmie]

heaven help us if Spike Milligan was alive.....

[bhg481]

How far do we take this? Only Welsh actors playing Welshmen, only Yorkshire actors playing Yorkshiremen? If you're looking for authenticity in the accent than that's the way you'll have to go.

[emmie]

its all nonsense, the usual suspects have blown this all out of proportion.

[iluvmargie]

Ridiculous. I actually thought Cleveland was voiced by a black actor, he sounds so good.

[pastafreak]

^^^...that's because he was *acting*...

[roopower]

Where are they going to find a bright yellow actor with blue hair?

[naomi24]

The point is how can they object to people being defined by ethnicity when they clearly want actors to be employed on the basis of their ethnicity? It’s simply irrational. ‘Contradictory’ is one word for it. Another is ‘nuts’.

[iluvmargie]

I prefer 'nuts' naomi.

[douglas9401]

Not nuts, Bombay mix.

[Gromit]

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

You presume wrong then. There will plenty of voice over work for white actors to apply for.
Hollywood have miscast many Americans as British often with unfortunate results. Dick Van Dyke springs to mind, not forgetting. Keanu in Dracula.

[naomi24]

//You presume wrong then. //

No, Gromit, I do not presume wrong. White actors need not apply for jobs that require voices representing those of ethnic minorities.... but you knew that.

[douglas9401]

White Jamaican might have the committee doing a nightshift.

[Gromit]

// White [voice] actors need not apply for jobs that require voices representing those of ethnic minorities. //

That is very different from what you wrote in your question.

The problem is miscasting. What is the point of employing someone to fake an Indian, English, Mexican or French accent, when there are plenty of actors from those cultures who can make a better job of doing a more authentic and believable performance ?

Sean Connery playing an Irishman is miscast. The bad acting distracts from an otherwise good film. It might sound passable to Americans, but ludicrous to the rest of the world.
Comedy accents are often are very funny, but there is a point where they become derogatory to the cultures being portrayed. Most of Peter Sellers’ accents are funny, but his upper class Englishman, German megalomaniac, or inept French Detective, have a laughing at foreigners vibe to them.

[ichkeria]

Seems perfectly sensible to me too mally

[ichkeria]

Sam Neill in Peaky Blinders was a good example of a part rather spoiled by a ridiculous accent. Although technically Neill is an Ulsterman.