Jun 29, 2020

'Bojack Horseman' Creator Says Not Using Vietnamese Writers for Vietnamese Characters Was 'Big Racist Mistake'

Alison Brie cannot drop "Bojack Horseman". The show's sixth and final season ended on Netflix in January.

Brie is the latest white actor to apologize for playing the voice of a person of color on an animated show: in her case, Vietnamese-American Diane Nguyen.On her Instagram account, which has 1.2 million followers, Brie wrote, "I now I understand that I should," she wrote. Read the full post below:

A post shared by Alison Brie (@alisonbrie) on Jun 26, 2020 at 5:06pm PDT

A few days earlier, show creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, in a long Twitter thread on the issue. He noted that Vietnamese-American actor Vivie Nguyen was hired as a consultant for the episode in which Diane goes to Vietnam, but "they should have hired a Vietnamese writer and a Vietnamese actress to play Diane. He also regrets that he did not try to address the issue head on.

In addition, Bob Wachsberg wrote, "Even the small ways in which I have written about Diane's experience as a woman of color, and more specifically as an Asian woman, have rarely been specific enough to think about what it means to be specifically Vietnamese American, which is my big (racist!) mistake," he added.

Bob-Waksberg has spoken about Diane's casting in the past. In a conversation with Vulture, he explained his decision to cast a white actor: "I allowed myself to believe that the world of animation is a little different than the world of live action. I allowed myself to believe that the world of animation is a little bit different than the world of live action.

The debate has already seen some white actors stop voicing animated characters of color, with new impetus from the renewed focus on racial justice in society. Last week, Jenny Slate, Kristen Bell, and Mike Henry announced that they were dropping their roles as Missy in "Big Mouth," Molly in "Central Park," and Cleveland Brown in "Family Guy," respectively. The showrunner of "The Simpsons" announced that no non-white characters will be voiced by white people in the future.