As the entertainment industry continues to reflect and change for the better thanks to the influence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the latest show set to join the much-needed conversation about race and representation is the iconic animated comedy, The Simpsons.
“Moving forward, The Simpsons will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” the producers said Friday in the brief statement, which seemed to imply we would see the voices of Homer’s buddy Carl Carlson, police officer Lou, Dr Hibbert, real estate queen Cookie Kwan and Bumblebee Man would be among those to be recast.
The change comes following years of backlash over the character of Indian Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, which gained traction following the release of the 2017 documentary The Problem With Apu by Hari Kondabolu, which criticised the character as a South Asian stereotype while being voiced by Hank Azaria – a white man.
Azaria, who had voiced Apu since 1990, revealed earlier this year that he was bidding farewell to the famous character, saying at the time, “What they’re going to do with the character is their call.”
“All we know is I won’t be doing the voice anymore,” he added.
“It’s up to them and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice anymore, unless there’s some way to transition it or something. We all made the decision together, we all feel like it’s the right thing and good about it.”
Several other television shows have also followed suit by implementing similar changes to their own characters, with Family Guy seeing actor Mike Henry step away from the role of Cleveland Brown after two decades playing the Griffin’s next-door neighbour.
“It’s been an honour to play Cleveland on Family Guy for 20 years. I love this character, but persons of colour should play characters of colour,” he wrote on Twitter. “Therefore, I will be stepping down from the role.”
Jenny Slate also announced her exit from the role of biracial role character Missy on Big Mouth, while Kristen Bell revealed she is also stepping down from her role as biracial character Molly in Central Park.
