Well it has certainly been quite the day for White actresses who voice Black characters on animated series
Not a Black person. Photo: Getty Images Well it has certainly been quite the day for white actresses who voice Black characters on animated series, of which there are surprisingly more than one. Earlier on Wednesday, June 24, white comedian Jenny Slate took to Instagram to announce that she would no longer provide the voice for Missy, a Black character, on Netflix’s animated comedy series Big Mouth because “Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.
“Kristen Bell is an extraordinarily talented actress who joined the cast of Central Park from nearly the first day of the show’s development – before there was even a character for her to play – and she has since delivered a funny, heartfelt, and beautiful performance.
While Central Park has committed to reversing this casting decision, members of the creative team defended the decision to cast Bell as a Black character as recently as January of this year. At a TCA panel in January 2020, creator Loren Bouchard said that “Kristen needed to be Molly, like we couldn’t not make her Molly. But then we couldn’t make Molly white and we couldn’t make Kristen mixed race, so we just had to go forward.
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