The Complicated Case Of Cartoon Cultural Concerns

I’m a 37-year old African-American male. I grew up with The Simpsons. In fact, I’m one of the apparent few people that can say they were alive before the show actually existed as a sitcom. 

I got into Family Guy during its “break” when it was cancelled for three years and watched it regularly for about five or six seasons. One day I might get caught up on it. 

I never had anything against Hank Azaria’s portrayal of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, or Carl Carlson. I didn’t have a problem with Harry Shearer voicing Dr. Julius Hibbert either. 

Same way I didn’t have an issue with Mike Henry’s Cleveland Brown. In fact, I remember a behind the scenes video that was posted many years ago with Seth Macfarlane and others in studio doing their voices, and when it came to Mike Henry he just stood there looking at the camera for a few seconds without doing his voice and revealing his character, before finally saying “We have great fun recording Family Guy” in perfect Cleveland Brown pitch and tenor.

I remember showing that video to people and seeing them amazed that a white man voiced a black character on screen. I was even amazed. 

But it always felt…...weird. 

You know that’s possible, right? To be entertained and even amazed by something but still think it’s weird? The age of social media and the internet would have you believe that whatever your opinion was when you started posting is the exact same opinion you must have five years later, at all times, no matter what. Or else you’re some kind of hypocrite that no one should listen to.

Stupid, of course. Human beings are imperfect and we’re allowed to change our opinions based on whatever criteria we wish. Things that weren’t important before can easily become more important as time goes on later in life. Other things can also become less important as well. 

There’s no question that right now as of the time of this post, Black Lives Matter is a lightning rod in our society. It’s not a new movement and it’s emblematic of the struggle for civil rights that has existed since before even our parents were on this earth, but it feels different right now in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minnesota. 

Why is it different, though? He wasn’t the first black man murdered in cold blood by a white police officer, on camera no less. That list is far too long in just the past five years. 

It’s different because it happened during a pandemic that took away our distractions we normally have when serious things happen. We don’t have sports, movies or even new television to drown the noise of the outside world in, and depending on where you live, staying home is your best chance for survival. 

So we’re watching the news more often, and we’re seeing people react on Twitter and Facebook to these atrocities and we have to focus on it. It has all of our attention for once, and that has created pressure the likes of which we really haven’t seen before. Three years ago I got into a shouting match with a former co-worker because he openly called Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization. Last month, that hashtag was shared by Apple, Amazon and the NFL. What a difference three years and a pandemic makes, eh? 

Then everyone was all about Juneteenth for the first time ever on a national scale. There are efforts to make it a federal holiday now, and everyone’s radar is seemingly in tune to civil rights concerns in our world at the moment, with protests, riots and corporate attention toward diversity motivations. 

What does this have to do with The Simpsons no longer having white actors voice non-white characters? Or Mike Henry no longer voicing Cleveland Brown? It’s that last one: corporate attention toward diversity motivations. 

I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of backlash over decisions made with respect to diversity and awareness in the last month. Maybe you’re even someone that spouts said backlash because you don’t want to see “American history erased,” or you think it’s unfair that white people have to make concessions and minorities don’t, completely ignoring and dismissing how much of a systematic advantage white people have had for generations.

Part of that backlash is skepticism over why these companies and corporations are paying attention to civil rights and diversity now. FOX allowed Hank Azaria to voice non-white characters(Yes, The Simpsons are white, Carl and Dr. Hibbert are black and other nationalities have been displayed in the show for decades, let’s not be obtuse about this), for the better part of 31 years. Mike Henry voiced Cleveland Brown for 20 years on multiple shows. What difference does it make now to change that mindset? 

Well, it’s not about the past. It’s about the future. You’re allowed to be skeptical of the motivations, but the inherent idea is to change the dynamic going forward with respect to role accuracy. It reminds me of a few years ago when Denzel Washington talked about the difference between color and culture, and he talked about the difference between Martin Scorsese doing Goodfellas instead of Schindler’s List and Steven Spielberg doing Schindler’s List instead of Goodfellas. Both are in the Hollywood Directors Hall of Fame and could do either movie well, but Scorsese’s personal culture connection to Goodfellas makes that movie stronger the same way that Spielberg’s personal culture connection to Schindler’s List makes that movie stronger. 

It’s the same thing here with animation. As great as Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Mike Henry are, why is it wrong to want Apu, Dr. Hibbert or Cleveland Brown to be voiced by those who have a personal cultural connection to the role? It’s not exclusionary, it’s recognizing the difference in cultures that ARE out there, and also giving an opportunity to a non-white voice actor that may not have had the chance or flat out didn’t have the chance in the past. It’s not encouraging segregation, it’s embracing difference, something that we as a people have an EXTREMELY difficult time with. 

People have already asked me, “well then shouldn’t black voice actors not voice white characters either?” Yes, that does in principle mean that, but what angle are you coming from with that? Because if you’re talking about taking a job away from a minority voice actor, which decreases diversity, that’s unacceptable. If you’re talking about a white person being able to connect culturally to a white role more than a minority would, that’s a discussion to have, but then of course this gets more complicated when you talk about whether or not the fictional character needs to be white or black in the first place, and that’s when we make it much more difficult than it needs to be. 

One example that comes to mind off the bat is David Oyelowo playing Agent Kallus in Star Wars Rebels. Is that a situation where the character would have benefited more from the actor being white instead of black? I would say no, but then someone would argue the same for the other characters and you’d have to go back to the representation concerns at the core of it. It’s not a uniform discussion by any means and every situation is different. That’s part of what we all have to understand going forward. 

I was never offended by Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer or Mike Henry’s roles. I enjoyed them and so long as their episodes still exist, which they SHOULD, because I don’t believe in taking things back like that, I’ll continue to enjoy them. By the same token, I appreciate the effort on any level to address cultural concerns from anyone that IS offended by them, like the people who made the documentary on Apu years ago and talked about the stereotypes that role engendered. I don’t have a frame of reference for it because I’m not Indian or Hindu, so all I can do is observe that people have a problem with it and keep it moving. Doesn’t affect or offend me one way or another if FOX decides they’re going to make a change with it. 

Will it bother me if they decide to eliminate all of Apu’s episodes? Yes, but that’s their choice and if they actually did it, my issues with it would be that you can’t unring the bell, and that it eliminates more than half of your show’s existence. You can’t take it back, all you can do is move forward. 

No, you can’t use that argument with Confederate statues and monuments because those are very different symbols and structures with completely different meanings, just in case someone wanted to go there with it. 

The bottom line is, you can call this “cancel culture” or “being too PC” or caving to societal pressure if you like, but no one actually forced the hand of The Simpsons, Mike Henry or Kristen Bell(who I didn’t mention earlier because I’ve never seen that show) to make the decisions they made, and as skeptical as you might want to be about their reasonings, I look at it as better late than never, because at this point I would still rather people be overly-sensitive to diversity concerns than not concerned at all. We’ve had way too much of the latter even in 2020.