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A lot of people seem to be ill-informed about the racial inequalities in the American voice acting industry. Allow this thread to be your starting point in researching race relations in the voice acting industry. (1)
This episode of the VO School is from the Non-Union Commmercial genre of voiceovers. Here, voice actresses Mara Junot and Tiffany Copland explain their experiences in the voiceover world and how it differs https://soundcloud.com/voschool/episode-51-racial-identity-in-voiceover (2)
Here's the Black Girl Voiceover World podcast episode where Tiffany further expands on the points above and, among other things, explains why blaccent hurts & how White VAs in the industry pretend to be Black in order to grab those "authenticity" roles (3) https://www.spreaker.com/user/tiffanyjcopeland/07-blackface-in-voiceover
Here's another livestream with @childishgamzeno, @ImariSpeaks, @robbiedaymond, @kimberlywoods, @kimberlydbrooks, and Dr. Sandoval. They go into some interesting history about race relations in America that you definitely weren't taught in school! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/642542696 (4)
Speaking of history, let's look at what happened to the first Black singing VA in Saturday Morning Cartoons -- Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats! Patrice Holloway and Barbara Pariot were the first Black VAs in animation. There was a fight over it: https://www.noblemania.com/2011/10/super-70s-and-80s-scooby-doo-where-are_08.html (5)
Here is @IAmCreeSummer explaining how studios think that brown and black kids don't watch cartoons and that's part of why there's so few roles for minorities in animation. Note that she's the longest-running & most prominent Black voice actress around. (6) https://twitter.com/THEPERFOURMER/status/1275945224137838597
Here's a thread Phil Lamarr retweeted discussing why representation in voice acting is such an issue. Please read through every reply. It's extremely informative. (7) https://twitter.com/PlushChrome/status/1276226419190890496
In that same thread, I'd like to highlight that Phil Lamarr also explains where the disparities in casting may stem from, among the other issues that were listed in the above resources. (8) https://twitter.com/phillamarr/status/1276281059332599808
If you're here & you still don't get it, let's go through some common arguments you may have one-by-one. Many of you say that since Black VAs like Phil Lamarr voice White characters, why isn't it okay for White VAs to voice Black characters? This is the most common argument (9)
First of all, Phil Lamarr has specifically asked that you keep his name out of your f---ing mouth if you're gonna make that argument and further reiterates that non-white VAs, particularly Black VAs, ARE underrepresented. (10) https://twitter.com/phillamarr/status/1276203554802331650
Here he expands on why it's a poor argument and succinctly explains what the real issue is. Please read through all responses in the thread to get the context behind this tweet. (11) https://twitter.com/phillamarr/status/1276558664506044418
Another common (and more well-meaning) argument is that White VAs quitting their roles isn't effective and instead, VAs should simply refer POC VAs. Problem is that Erin Fitzgerald had been doing this for many years & studios have largely ignored her. (12) https://twitter.com/ErinFitzgerald/status/1276708759851552769
"Well should women apologize for playing little boys?" As Phil Lamarr pointed out, the reason why women play little boys is MUCH different than why White VAs voice non-white characters. I hate to say it but this Quora response explains why. (13) https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-sometimes-in-anime-and-cartoons-male-characters-are-voiced-by-female-voice-actors#:~:text=Female%20voice%20actresses%20are%20often,to%20keep%20their%20voices%20consistent.
If you want to argue that there's still no bias even after the information I've presented, I will not respond to you. I've already done my due diligence in curating this information into one spot. It'd be a waste of time trying to inform someone who's too stubborn to listen. (14)
The first step to creating change is informing yourself of the issue at hand. I hope that this thread was that starting point. I encourage you to continue researching and sending links. I'll add resources as I continue to find them so we can continue to inform ourselves. (15)
Now I wanna open this up to minority voice actors & content creators who may be reading this thread. This is only the beginning of a larger conversation. What solutions do you propose? I'll start w/ Blacklist (pun intended) VAs who pretend to be minorities to get work. (16)
Well, well, well, what do we have here? The moment I posted this thread, I saw this come in. There's now hard evidence that systemic racism exists in the voice acting industry. (17) https://twitter.com/DevenOClock/status/1276859379850121218
Adding to my thread on the history of racism. Here, Hanna Barbera talks about how he kept the identity of Hong Kong Phooey's voice actor a secret from the studio for fear of backlash. This was 1973. Grey & Tara were babies. This is depressingly true today. https://www.reddit.com/r/VoiceActing/comments/hh0v5q/with_voice_actors_in_the_news_recently_here_joe/
