The raunchy comedy Big Mouth is losing the voice of Jenny Slate, who plays the iconic character of "Missy," the smart and sweet Black preteen.
Slate revealed that her choice to leave the cartoon show was a difficult decision, but one she stands behind and she continues to learn and expand her knowledge of marginalized groups across the world.
Big Mouth set to recast "Missy"
While the ongoing protests and Black Lives Matter movements grip the United States and beyond, Slate let fans know she would be stepping back from voicing a Black character.
"At the start of the show, I reasoned with myself that it was permissible for me to play 'Missy' because her mom is Jewish and white — as am I," she said in an Instagram post last month.
"But "Missy" is also Black, and Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people," she added.
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Appearing on a Buzzfeed podcast News O'Clock, Slate dives deeper into her reasoning.
"I looked around my life and I could see very clearly where my reasoning was flawed and racist," she admitted.
"Which is, I think, a scary word for white people to say because they couldn’t feel like it means 'Oh, I’m a bad person,' you know, or 'I’m the same as the person that drove the car through protesters,'" she continued.
She added, "I think I, as a white person, was looking around the world in the last couple of months and thinking, 'Well, there is something that I genuinely don’t understand and I should understand it'. And there can be shame and other feelings that come into that. But those are, at least for me, the impetus to make the change."
There is no word yet on who will replace Slate, but the cartoon is committed to accurately re-casting the role.
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Test your knowledge!
Only one cast member actually has a doctorate in real life! Who is it?
