'The Simpsons' to Stop Using White Voices for Characters of Color

Image via Reuters
Image via Reuters
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'The Simpsons' to Stop Using White Voices for Characters of Color

Image via Reuters
Image via Reuters

Animated TV comedy “The Simpsons” is ending the use of white actors to voice characters of color, producers said earlier on Friday.

“Moving forward, ‘The Simpsons’ will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters,” they said in a brief statement.

The statement did not elaborate but the move follows years of public pressure about the Fox television show’s Indian convenience store character Apu, who is voiced by Hank Azaria, Reuters reported.

Azaria said earlier this year that he would no longer play the character, which has been criticized as a negative portrayal of Indian-Americans.

Azaria has also voiced the Simpsons characters of Black police officer Lou and the Mexican-American Bumblebee Man. Harry Shearer has played Dr. Hibbert, who is Black.

Friday’s statement did not say whether Apu or the other characters would remain on the series.

It also comes amidst a widespread reckoning for US pop culture about racism following mass protests this month over the killings of Black Americans by police.



Wax Lyrical: Taylor Swift Gets Lucky 13 Madame Tussauds Statues

The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
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Wax Lyrical: Taylor Swift Gets Lucky 13 Madame Tussauds Statues

The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File
The museum said the 13 statues were to honor Taylor's lucky number. Robyn Beck / AFP/File

US pop megastar Taylor Swift will be honored with 13 waxworks of her at Madame Tussauds venues around the globe, the museum said on Wednesday.

In honor of Swift's lucky number, 13 of the waxwork museum's 22 branches will each receive a statue of the "Love Story" and "Blank Space" singer, in what it called the "most ambitious project" of its 250-year history.

The statues were inspired by some of the 35-year-old songwriting sensation's looks from her record-shattering "Eras Tour" from 2023 to 2024, AFP said.

With 149 shows across the world over nearly two years, the tour raked in $2 billion, making it the most lucrative in music history to date.

More than 40 artists worked for more than a year on the statues of Swift, one of the most acclaimed artists of her generation with 14 Grammy Awards.

"This is the most ambitious project in Madame Tussauds' 250-year history, which only feels right to reflect the stratospheric status of Taylor Swift," said Danielle Cullen, the museum's senior figure stylist.

UK-based Swifties are well served, with one waxwork slated for London and another for the northern seaside resort town of Blackpool.

Another 10 will find a permanent home at the branches of Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam, Berlin, Budapest, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, Nashville, New York, Orlando and Sydney.

The thirteenth statue, which will travel around the remaining museums, will begin its worldwide walkabout with a residency at Madame Tussauds Shanghai.