Disney Under Major Fire Exposing That White Actors Are Voicing Black Characters In ‘Soul’

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Disney Pixar is taking heat in Europe for using a white cast to dub the voices of its black characters in its new black culture focused movie, Soul.

When it was initially released in Denmark, Soul was celebrated for its depiction of a black jazz musician who goes on a joyful life journey that is voiced by Jamie Foxx in the American release.

It wasn’t long before the same media that praised the film began hammering it because the cast hired to translate the American film into Danish lacked black actors.

Nikolaj Lie Kaas, the white actor who was hired for Soul’s Danish release, felt enough pressure to jump to his Facebook account to put out a statement.

The actor “who can perform the work in the best possible way [should] get the job.”

“The best dubbing should pass by completely undetected,” Juan Logar, a leading Spanish dubbing director and voice actor, told the New York Times. “My job is to find the voice that best matches the original. Black, white, Asian, it doesn’t matter.”

Still, many minority actors in Europe have chimed in on the Soul debate and noted that they face a lot of subtle discrimination in the film dubbing industry.

German actor Kaze Uzumaki, who is black, told the Times that he is often told he sounds too educated when doing black characters and is seldom hired to voice a white character.

“They don’t even realize that they’re being racist,” Uzumaki said. “But every time a director says something like, ‘No, you sound too polished; you know how they talk, right?’ I feel like I’ve been hit with a stick in the face.”

Ivo Chundro said, “Directors will only cast white actors for white parts and tell actors of color, ‘No, your voice isn’t white enough.’”