As the entertainment industry sees a giant shift in how they approach content in the wake of more awareness to representation, animated shows are changing. A popular animated series is recasting a famous voice to match the character’s race.
Voice actor Mike Henry announced that he will no longer be voicing the character of Cleveland Brown on Family Guy. Henry announced his departure from the character in order for a voice actor of color to take over the role.
Henry said it has been an honor to provide his voice to a character he loves. Henry said he is stepping down from the role as “persons of color should play characters of color.” Henry has voiced Cleveland for 20 years in both Family Guy and the character focused spin-off The Cleveland Show.
Henry’s announcement comes as the landscape of television rapidly adapts to lingering questions of representation within the media. Streaming services have begun to remove episodes of popular comedy shows due to problematic content. Fan favorite show Community had one of its episodes pulled from both Hulu and Netflix. An episode of The Office has also had an episode removed. Both of these episodes involved depictions of blackface.
Another popular animated comedy is going through a similar shift as Family Guy. The Simpsons will no longer have white voice actors portray non-white characters. This means characters like Apu, Dr. Hibbert and Carl will be recast. This news also comes after it was announced that Jenny Slate would no longer voice a biracial character in the show Big Mouth.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has yet to comment on the recasting. Family Guy continues to release episodes some 20 years after its debut. It is no stranger to referencing video games like throwing in a Mortal Kombat reference late last year. Hopefully producers of the show are willing to explore more options for non-white actors in future roles.
Family Guy is now available on streaming services.
