This is how cultures become insane, make terrible decisions, and destroy themselves: prominent people say stupefyingly stupid things that would have been mocked mercilessly in rational times, and everyone nods and says, “Wow. Cool.”
Actress Kristen Bell announced that she would be stepping down from doing the voice of a mixed race character, she says, it was wrong for her, as a white woman, to take the role. As an established star for whom such a gig is minor supplementary income, this is cheap, if idiotic, virtue-signaling by Bell, but she has made the statement that a struggling white actor—but not a black one, I’m sure—is a selfish racism enabler to take such a role.
Bell was voicing the character of “Molly” on the animated show “Central Park” on Apple TV+. Here is her statement. Grab the Dramamine.
“This is a time to acknowledge our acts of complicity. Here is one of mine,” said Bell on Instagram. Playing the character of Molly on Central Park shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege. Casting a mixed race character with a white actress undermines the specificity of the mixed race and Black American experience. It was wrong and we, on the Central Park team, are pledging to make it right. I am happy to relinquish this role to someone who can give a much more accurate portrayal and I will commit to learning growing and doing my part for equality and inclusion.”
Wait, isn’t the true “voice” of a character determined by the writers? Does “Central Park” hire individual writers for every character that match exactly that character’s race, gender, age, class, life experiences and ethnicity? Why not? Bell is essentially rejecting the basic premise of acting, her occupation. Does she really believe this garbage? If so, she’s going to be severely limited in her career going forward to playing Kristin Bell.
Immediately competing with the actress for Most Ludicrous BLM Grandstanding Of The Week, the show’s creative team added,
“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. But after reflection, Kristen, along with the entire creative team, recognizes that the casting of the character of Molly is an opportunity to get representation right – to cast a Black or mixed race actress and give Molly a voice that resonates with all of the nuance and experiences of the character as we’ve drawn her. We profoundly regret that we might have contributed to anyone’s feeling of exclusion or erasure…”
Let me get this straight: Bell voiced the character with a “funny, heartfelt, and beautiful performance,” but Molly, the show and its audience will be better served if someone else replaces the actress based solely on race.
That, my friends, encapsulates the logic of the proposed new order.
If we allow such Orwellian nonsense to be mouthed without relentless derision, we will enable the installation of an American caste system.
Bell’s a fool, and it is crucial that she and everyone else are told, and emphatically.
Ethics Alarms 
Activists have now demanded that the name of Faneuil Hall be changed. If Faneuil Hall goes down (is vandalized or burned), will people finally wake up to what’s happening?
That was thrown around three years ago in the first round of topplings. It hit the wall then. Do the topplers now have a decisive advantage?
Sadly I do believe they have an upper hand. I think people are truly scared of the cancel culture and will not speak out against it.
I think they’re much more powerful this time. They have the George Floyd Freakout wave behind them, and uncritical/ complicit media fanning the flames.
“…. get representation right – to cast a Black or mixed race actress … .”
Wait! How can a Black actress ever portray a mixed race character? That is a ridiculous proposition by the creative team, whoever the hell they are. One can only hope they wake up from their racist stupor and find a live actor with the exact blend of race and ethnicity, yes even the exact intersectionality, of their fictional character. Obviously, a two-dimensional actor would be best. Upon further reflection, even their becoming woke is inadequate; the entire creative team must go and that show with its history of racism must not go on.
I was thinking the same thing. We have far too many stupid people trying to grab headlines and, I thought the show “Jackass” was an outlier.
I don’t understand why a white woman can’t play a mixed-race character, but, presumably, a black woman can.
This strikes me as a perverse sort of racism. It reminds me of when a person with one drop of black blood in him was considered black, regardless of what his facial features and skin tone were. Are Kristen and the writers really making the argument that a mixed-race person is really black or, at least, more black than white? Is this why Barack Obama is considered black even though he is the product of a mixed-race relationship?
Remember when Hillary Clinton went overseas and claimed that women who voted for Donald Trump did so because they were told to by their fathers and husbands? It’s the same sexist argument that men used in pre-19th Amendment days to explain why women shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place.
Why do woke totalitarians repeatedly go back and use decades-old racist and sexist arguments to boost their positions?
Oh for Pete’s sake. She’s not playing a character. It’s ANIMATED. She’s lending the sound of her voice. If her voice has the sound the directors are looking for, what on earth difference does it make what she looks like? Jack’s right. The character itself is the responsibility of the writers and the animators.
Voice-over artists are used for all kinds of projects. And certainly in commercial work, voice types go in and out of fashion like everything else. You either have the right voice for the project or you don’t. Your looks are irrelevant.
Yea verily! This is indeed bad news for Nancy Cartwright who’s been voicing Bart Simpson. not to mention Nelson Muntz, Ralph Wiggum, Todd Flanders, Kearney, Database, and Maggie. Obviously, Mel Blanc’s entire oeuvre has to go as well. He was a human after all. Not a bunny rabbit, not a lisping duck, not even the meanest, rootin’ tootin’ est cowboy west of the Pecos.
“Kristen, meet apartheid; apartheid, Kristen.”
jvb
In saner times, your question would be safe and reasonable. I fear that we are facing the situation that the woke would see what you wrote and use it as ammunition to attack the racial makeup of the writing group.
I question if it is wise to feed them ideas.
On the other hand, there is the opportunity to make the woke crowd spin in circles. We all know the story of the “OK” sign being turned into a symbol it did not mean by those trolling the left. Use that to turn the most absurd into racists symbols. I hear the latest is “my little pony” (seriously, Google it). Pick the favored icons of the left, and say they are the new code word. Rinse and repeat rapidly. Then wait for the crowd to grow bored as more realize they are being played. It’s icky to conspire with racsist, but would be nice to see happen.
Who will lend their voices to all those cartoons with personified characters. That would put people like Mel Blanc out of work.
Is Bugs Bunny Irish? Is Daffy Duck a person with a speech impediment. Do all the cartoon animal characters of African Savannah have to be African American?Why not real Africans? Why is James Earl Jones voice used so often? Does he have some life experience necessary to sell the product.
The world is nuckin futs.
To be fair, death put Mel out of business.
I propose a new ethics show(with format to resemble West Wing) “American Caste”.
Who didn’t see this coming?
Perhaps they will change their name to “the Chs” when they figure out that “chicks” is derogatory against women.
jvb
That’s no joke.
Since nobody else will say so, let me just announce that I’m really proud of “Animated mixed-raceface.”
Aba and Preach is a youtube channel. It features two comedians from Montreal. Aba Atlas is half Hatian, half Ethiopian. He was born in Canada, raised in Ethiopia, and returned to Canada and served 3 years in the army. I don’t know the story behind “Preach”.
They did a take on the same topic. They hit on most of your points Jack, and had more to add on the topic.
I shared your article on Usenet.
http://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.culture.israel/_1NDNPw2tk4/2GM6O9JmAgAJ
Can ‘Molly’ be charged with cultural appropriation? It looks like she is wearing a Celtic crown. Not only is it cultural appropriation, she is honoring a completely white culture that was warlike and barbaric.