In the past, Disney made movies with ethnic characters voiced by white actors because they wouldn’t even consider hiring anyone else. And when a white actor starts imitating any kind of accent, the result is pretty sure to be insulting. (Of course, the all time worst was Dick VanDyke’s Cockney accent in Mary Poppins, but that’s another story.)

I’d prefer that Disney practice good hiring so they can make good movies–and that often means hiring ethnic actors to voice ethnic characters.

Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan)
Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard)
Ian McKellen (Gandalf)
Maggie Smith (Prof McGonagall)
Richard Burton (Father Philip Lamont)
not to mention
Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams)
Jeremy Irons (Brom)

Yup, a rank group of villains they are.

However, I’ve seen only two of the “modern” (1989-present) Disney ‘toons: “Aladdin” and “Hercules” (and only then ’cause I got the tapes used for 50 cents each). Otherwise I stay far, FAR away from their stuff. “Poppins” and “The Aristocats” are as modern as I want.

You dirty marxist fascist red army Che-loving pig-f***ers.

Although I eagerly await the Disney adaptation.

Rosemary Clooney didn’t have an accent, did she? I’m pretty sure she wasn’t an Octopus, though, sadly.

Sorry, parth, couldn’t resist piling on.

When auditioning actresses to play Snow White, Walt Disney chose not to see them but rather listened to their voices form another room. He didn’t want to be influenced by their appearance since that would actually be irrelevant.

For animation you can cast whoever has (or can do) the voice most suited to the role you’re trying to fill. How can things get more level playing field and color blind than that?

So Disney always has white actors playing non-white protagonists, except when… they don’t.

Alright, alright. I can see I’m outvoted on this one. It just strikes me as wierd to cast whitebread actors for ethnic parts – not always, but as what appears to me to be a definite majority. True enough that they spoke English in Aladdin, but the villain did have the accent, didn’t he?

Yes, I too, was taken aback by how unauthentic Alladin was, especially the way all the actors in the film spoke English.

My point is that the ‘good guys’ in Disney movies are – more or less without fail – voiced by white actors without accent. The villains are played often by actors with accents, or American actors using an accent.

…

It is kind of a weird pattern when Aladdin, Esmerelda, and Jasmine were all voiced by actors with no discernible accent (as opposed to Pocahontas and Mulan, who were played by a Native American and Asian Woman, respectively).

So Disney always has white actors playing non-white protagonists, except when… they don’t.

Got it.

Doesn’t need to be, but why not make it more authentic? Why pick actors that sound completely unauthentic? It’s not as if your talent pool is too small.

My point is that the ‘good guys’ in Disney movies are – more or less without fail – voiced by white actors without accent. The villains are played often by actors with accents, or American actors using an accent.

There are those who would argue that this is to render the good guys more ‘like us’ and the villains ‘not like us.’ I’m not saying it’s inherently racist. I’m saying it makes more sense to have an actor more like the part play the part. I’m not going to try out for Othello. Charleton Heston probably shouldn’t have played the Mexican guy in Touch of Evil. Bart Simpson (like all the kids in the Simpsons) is a different case – an actual child couldn’t wrap their tongue around Bart’s vocabulary.

It is kind of a weird pattern when Aladdin, Esmerelda, and Jasmine were all voiced by actors with no discernible accent (as opposed to Pocahontas and Mulan, who were played by a Native American and Asian Woman, respectively).

Maybe she’ll actually be voiced by a black woman. They’ve of course had Arabs in the past, voiced by white American actors.

And Bart Simpson is voiced by a woman. And Elmo is a 40-year old black man. And believe it or not, since animals can’t actually talk, they need to hire humans to do voices for them in cartoons. What’s your point? The point of a voice actor is they’re supposed to be able to do different voices. Are you arguing that Princess Jasmine had a racist accent or something? Did you think it was a bad voice?