‘The Simpsons’ to end making use of White actors to voice non-White figures

'The Simpsons' to stop using White actors to voice non-White characters

“Transferring forward, The Simpsons will no lengthier have white actors voice non-white figures,” Fox spokesman Les Eisner reported in a statement Friday.

More than the 3 a long time since the animated sitcom commenced, it has used White actors to play a selection of non-White characters which includes Harry Shearer as Dr. Julius Hibbert and Hank Azaria as Apu Nahasapeemapetilon.

In January, Azaria declared he would end voicing Apu following 30 decades actively playing the thickly accented Indian-American character. Azaria is not South Asian.

“All we know there is I would not be accomplishing the voice anymore, unless there is certainly some way to transition it or some thing,” Azaria stated, in accordance to /Movie, an industry information weblog that claimed it experienced requested the actor about the make a difference after a dialogue panel.

The decision to remove Azaria from voicing Apu was mutual, the actor stated, according to /Film. “We all agreed on it,” he explained. “We all experience like it truly is the correct thing and great about it.”

The comic Hari Kondabolu — whose 2017 documentary, “The Problem with Apu,” thrust controversy about the character into the mainstream — reacted on Twitter expressing that he hoped “The Simpsons” stored Apu and allows “a quite gifted creating workers do something appealing with him.”

This is pop culture's moment of reckoning on matters of race

“My documentary ‘The Dilemma with Apu’ was not created to get rid of a dated cartoon character, but to talk about race, representation & my neighborhood (which I enjoy incredibly a great deal),” Kondabolu wrote. “It was also about how you can really like something (like the Simpsons) & nevertheless be vital about facets of it (Apu).”

In his doc, Kondabolu interviewed stars of South Asian descent, like Aziz Ansari and Kal Penn, to discuss how characterizations like Apu can be seen as racism.

The show responded in an April 2018 episode to the backlash more than Apu, who operates the Kwik-E-Mart advantage retailer in TV’s longest-running primary-time scripted sequence .

In the episode, the younger Lisa Simpson reported, “One thing that started off decades back and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” Lisa then glanced at a framed photograph of Apu inscribed with the message, “Really don’t have a cow.”

Hank Azaria willing to 'step aside' from playing Apu

Azaria afterwards that month advised the host of “The Late Demonstrate with Stephen Colbert” that he’d be content to stage apart from Apu and disagreed with how the show taken care of the criticism.

“The idea that any person — young or old, previous or current — was bullied or teased centered on the character of Apu, it just truly would make me unfortunate,” reported Azaria, who voices other people on the demonstrate.

“It was definitely not my intention,” he stated. “I wanted to distribute laughter and joy with this character, and the notion that it really is brought soreness and struggling in any way, that it was made use of to marginalize men and women, it really is upsetting.”

CNN’s Frank Pallotta, Brian Lowry and Leah Asmelash, contributed to this posting.