(thread)There’s clearly a big push at the moment to properly acknowledge people of color in entertainment being passed over for white actors.
I understand the need for characters like Apu (Simpsons) to be retired or recast, as they are, at kindest, a caricature of a race...
but please let’s think about how unhelpful decisions like Kristen Bell’s are, to drop from a production like “Central Park” already a season in, because she is white, voicing a biracial character.
Cynical explanations aside, how is it helpful or inclusive to viewers to say it’s not ok for someone who is (presumably) 95%+ white to earnestly voice a character who is by design approximately 50% white? The character is not Apu. It’s a normal girl, living in New York.
What about someone’s voice alone makes it identifiably “too white”? And doesn’t that assertion go directly against the point the show itself is making, that race is more complicated than simply what you look like, or where you live?
I don’t even use a real photo of myself on here, bc I’m aware if people knew my real surname, they wouldn’t take me as seriously as someone whose words and intent they read themselves before judging. There is no amount of racism I am trying to protect. I am here to dismantle it.
Apu is a racist caricature. It’s wrong that he exists regardless of who voices him, something the show creators have acknowledged. But Molly is meant to be a normal girl. Is Kristen Bell not someone who brings “normal girl” to a role, no matter what her face looks like?
There are good fights to have about race, and they are finally happening around the country now. But we’re not alone, and how we look doesn’t determine which side we should be on.
Encouraging/incentivizing a white woman to give up a voice role for a char only part white is the wrong fight to have.
She was picked by executives for her voice’s marketability, not personal experience. Where this fight is won is not at this level...it’s with the institution.
Our side needs to look past the skin color and into the hearts of the players in this game. Kristen Bell’s heart is in the right place. Her actions, as much as I love her, were not. #BlackLivesMatter #CentralPark
There are good, worthwhile fights for equality. Then there’s this.
https://t.co/UbPmWGAbbA
This is not equality. This is window dressing.
cnn.com/2020/06/25/ent…
Another example of misunderstanding.
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