To Woke, or not to Woke. Mr. Apu on the Simpsons.

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I'm quite sure pacific islanders weren't fond of this one either

Every actor who voices a character is going to have a race though, so how can that be avoided...

It's all a matter of perception though. If you look at the latest Disney animated series a lot of the voice acting was done by people who weren't represented by the ethnic background of the characters. While I don't necessarily care about voice actors, if you are a voice actor who has a south-east Asian background and the Disney animated series "Raya" is supposed to be held in some mythic south-east asian kingdom doesn't have a single voice actor from South-east Asia then you might be entitled to be peeved.

In the Fantastic Beasts franchise they picked a Korean actress (Claudia Kim) to play the character of Nagini who is supposed to be from the jungle village in Indonesia. This is quite insulting to Indonesians because they know very well one of their people would never be allowed to portray a Korean woman in a cinematic blockbuster. To make matters worse, the name Nagini is actually a hindu/indian name which has nothing to do with Korea.

Oh I see. That makes sense. However, if it was the other way around and they got say a non-white voice actor, to voice a white animated character, people would care or complain about that, so is there a double standard there?

Yeah but not everything is about white people. And that's the whole point.

That's true, but the double standard is never talked about it seems.

Aren't we talking about it now?

Yes, only because I seem to have been the one to bring it up . No one else has in these kind of political conversations about the double standard when it comes to casting roles.

There is a bad Hollywood history of nonwhite characters being played by White actors- like native Americans, and charlie chan. Thats why folks are sensitive about it.

There is little to no history of the opposite.

But thats live action. I personally dont see why anyone cares about voice actors for animation.

Some live action characters use voice actors. Interestingly...what 'race' would you say Darth Vader belongs to?

Since his attire is clearly based upon that of a Nazi SS soldier I think of him as being a German White dude. BUT he was voiced by James Earl Jones. So there ya have it. An example of a White character being voiced by a nonwhite actor.

I thought it was only in the UK that we had an Indian or Pakistani shop on every corner.

I'm not a fan of the Simpsons personally but I always wondered why they are yellow in colour and they never seem to age. I'd be more concerned about that than who is doing a dodgy Indian accent.

Also I believe that woke will eventually cancel itself out at some point.

A lot of Indian or Pakistan people do open up small convenience stores in high streets, and it's not a bad thing. It's a way of running business and is good for the public and the economy.

Apu has always been one of my favourite characters in the Simpsons. I've learnt a lot of cool things about India. All of the foreign characters have a stereotype attached to them. So what? It's a great show. If people were less focused on race and skin colour this world would be a much better place.

I think the Simpsons kids should age even just a little bit. Make Lisa reach a 9th and 10th birthday and Bart an 11th and 12th birthday, and Maggie a 2nd and 3rd birthday. I think as the seasons go on Maggie deserves a voice. In the later seasons Maggie is sometimes forgotten. Like in the episode Catch 'Em If You Can in season 15 (I think) there is no sign of Maggie when the kids are chasing after Marge and Homer. A baby needs more attention than the Simpsons family give her, and I think she should be able to speak as the seasons go on.

The Simpsons characters are yellow because the creator thought it might attract viewers when flicking through the TV channels. Yellow is my favourite colour so you can see why I've always been drawn to the Simpsons (although it's not the only reason).

well the thing about woke-ness or woke culture is that they don't actually care about how other cultures feel about things. For example the woke hated Speedy Gonzalez from Looney Tunes and found the character to be an offensive stereotype.

But in Mexico, Speedy has a hugefan base and Mexicans love him and do not consider the character to be offensive at all.

Yet the woke didn't care about what Mexicans thought and got him cancelled anyway. It's the same about how the woke were offended by Robery Downey Jr, playing a white character who was pretending to be a black man in a movie, and they got offended. But Robert Downey said in an interview that black people loved that movie and always praised him for the role.

But woke do not care about non-white cultures opinions and they have chosen to decide what other cultures should be offended by. The woke's attitude is "you black Americans and Mexicans had better be offended by this and get on board, because if you aren't, then you cultures are wrong, and we will decide what's right for you".

The people in positions of power making decisions about entertainment content right now are probably the first gen who grew up as children in the era when civil rights, gay rights, disability rights and women's rights started taking effect in the late 60s and early 70s

I highlight disability rights because it amuses me that many here claim to be advocates for autism but hate wokeism

You can't have it both ways...

It's not a good way to learn about a country and it's people by watching cartoons that play on stereotypes. If you are interested in India, there are plenty of online resources and your local library has books on Indian people, history and culture.

I'm happy to teach you if you want.

I am all for rights, and autism rights, and I am autistic, but I think there is a difference between being for civil rights and being woke. Fighting for people having rights is good and noble. Wanting to cancel a looney toones character, just because people think it offends Mexicans (when in fact they character has a huge Mexican fanbase) just comes off as immature and childish to me. Fighting for rights is good, but canceling fictional characters is just kind of whiny in my opinion, and that is the difference between actually fighting for rights, and just being 'woke'.

So I think I can have it both ways, since one is actually important and the other just comes off as trivial and whiny but that's just me (shrug)?

Like for example Sheldon on The Bing Bang theory is considered by some on here to be autistic right? But if you cancel that show, saying it's offensive because of that, that doesn't make the cancellers the Malcolm X of fighting for autism rights.

I guess another thing is, I don't feel I can be advocate for autism but at the same time, cancel other people's entertainment and businesses, because I feel I cannot be an advocate but at the same time, try to covit other people's things.

Last edited by ironpony on 21 Aug 2022, 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that Mr. Apu is a harmless character.