'The Simpsons': Harry Shearer to Stop Voicing Black Character

Tokenism. What about re-recording the dialogue of all those episodes already broadcast. The honkie Harry Shearer is getting away with those.

I swear they’re only doing this for publicity as the show gets no ratings and is getting closer to cancellation with each passing year.

Basically this means fewer minorities will appear in animated shows since they don’t want to hire people outside the main cast to do minor characters. The Simpsons has already retired Apu so he gets zero representation. Tricia Nakamora and Marshmallow no longer appear on Family Guy or Bob’s Burgers. Carl no longer appears on The Simpsons so now Homer only hangs out with Lenny. Comic Book Guy’s wife is now a mute.

Poor Apu.

"Basically this means fewer minorities will appear in animated shows since they don’t want to hire people outside the main cast to do minor characters."

Except in this very instance when a minority outside the main cast got hired to do a minor character.

And like this show and other animated series, that will mean this actor will be called upon to voice many other black characters which would mean more black representation on television.

But thanks for whitesplaining it all for us.

Identity politics.

[quote] Except in this very instance when a minority outside the main cast got hired to do a minor character.

It’s because they needed this character for a storyline. If they didn’t, they could have easily just retired the character and not have the expense of hiring.

When creating new characters, do you think they will make them black or do you think all new characters will be white from now on so that the existing cast can do them without having to hire a black guest actor every time the minor character has one line? It’s why Apu was retired. They’re not going to hire an Indian actor to just say one line when Homer goes to the Kwik-E-Mart. They’d rather just not do the Kwik-E-Mart scene since it’s not important to the story. It’s also why all of Lou’s lines now go to Eddie and Lou doesn’t talk anymore. Same with Lenny and Carl. It’s a new kind of erasure.

So a Chinese actor would have to voice Chinese roles, Mexican actor voice Mexican roles etc. This is good intention gone mad and I can see why it’s easier to eliminate minor characters instead.

Am I okay?

Hopefully the character gets retired so that this doesn't become a make-work scheme whereby a host of new black characters has to be invented to keep the new guy busy.