STOP HAVING WHITE VOICE ACTORS PLAYING NON-WHITE ROLES
stop depriving non-white actors opportunities to act and get recognized!
Voice actors often don’t know who they’re reading for or what franchise they’re in (that’s what the strike was recently about, so they’d know whether they were in a small first time game or the 4th installment of a major franchise, if they were replacing a beloved voice actor, etc.) so please don’t harass the actors, until recently they legally didn’t have the right to know who they were reading for and were usually not told until months or even years later.
Definitely go after casting, directors, and studios executives. Those are the people making the decisions.
They still don’t have the right to know. They got fucking nothing out of that strike. They can know the code name (which might be a serial number or whatever) and if it’s a sequel. That’s it. That’s the extent of the “transparency” they won from the strike.
As a perfect example of this controversy, if you haven’t looked up interviews surrounding Laura Bailey as Nadine Ross, it’s worth it.
Laura Bailey herself explained that when she auditioned for the role, she was given no information about what the character looked like. It was only after she was hired and arrived for recording that she was shown concept art and discovered the character was a WOC. She was uncomfortable about the situation.
Meanwhile, Neil Druckmann revealedthat they were already working on concept art of the character when they hired Laura Bailey. They finalized the character’s design as a WOC after they’d hired a white voice actress, so that was a conscious decision. He was also very flippant about the situation as a whole.
Like people above have said: Yes, whitewashed casting is a legitimate and real issue. But unlike actors in film and stage, voice actors are often totally blind to what they’re auditioning for. They get fucked by NDAs and legal red tape bullshit. Go after the casting directors and execs and high-position game devs that knowingly make these decisions.
Y’all know when Mulan is sitting in the rain and watches her parents silhouette disappear as the candle is blown out and then her eyes squint in determination and the music that starts to play and you see her go into the family temple and light a match and bow in respect and then sneak into her parents room and switch the scroll for her hair brooch and then the way her reflection is shown as she pulls the sword and cuts her hair?? It’s literally more iconic than any marvel movie
Y’all know that there is heavy symbolism in that scene to show that Mulan is the spirit of the Great Stone Dragon and that’s why Mushu wasn’t able to awaken it?
