Forum - View topicNEWS: San Japan Chair Resigns After Claiming PoC Guests Aren't Profitable
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Dragon_Kaiser
Posts: 119 |
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[quote="Punch Drunk Marc"]
Oh Funimation is very bad at getting Black voice actors best example Panty and stocking had a Black character and they had Chris Sabat voice the character and even went as far as doing a Black stereotype voice. |
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MokonaModoki
 Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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A few points of clarity here -
"PoC Guests Aren't Profitable" was never said, and never would have been. San Japan has had multiple American PoC guests throughout its history. POC guests including industry, and including Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans since the first 3-day event in 2008. However, San Japan has also never invited any guest *because* they were a PoC. Both Maja (2008 and 2010) and Mega Ran (2009 and 2015) were guests because they were excellent nerdcore performers. Stephanie Sheh because she's an enormous talent, but in 2016 specifically because of Sailor Moon (and that year's Magical Girl theme). Lisa Ortiz has been a guest four times. Clarine Harp four times as well. The list of those who were guests once who were PoC is actually too long to deal with. But, in any case I can, in fact, identify a guest PoC (or multiple) in every year of San Japan as a three-day event. However, San Japan has also never invited any PoC because they were requested by attendees (although Paul Nakauchi presumably feel under the 'Overwatch actors' request umbrella). In every case I can recall they came from me, from Dave, other staff input, or due to particular experience value they were known to deliver. So if San Japan was being tagged with questions about 'why don't you ever invite PoC industry?' it is actually a bit infuriating on its face, because these people never noticed the guests we actually had. The reference to being 'asked to book "sexual predators and popular asshole divas" and those guests bring more money' is merely false, and the thing said was specifically referring to two particular persons requested in bulk every year, but who are at the top of a list of people who will never (or never again) be guests at San Japan (it is, in fact, my list, established in 2009). Obviously the editorial assumption that those two bring more money is a sloppy one: they will never be invited regardless of any financial consideration and can never generate any sort of profit by not being there. Can you have their names? No, you can not have their names. But I can tell you that the terms sexual predator and diva apply to both and that might spark a couple brain cells. Not naming names is how I get to say that! To be concise, The wording was incredibly unfortunate, and shouldn’t have accepted the premise of the underlying question, but was actually reflecting a strongly held desire that the attendee base participate by being more diverse in their responses to the annual September guest request thread. Reading it otherwise is...fine? The words used in the tweet were obviously poor, and I can blame no one for not reading them as I did knowing the background. But San Japan has become increasingly responsive to that guest request thread in the past few years. The desire that the attendee base should consider this in who they are requesting should have been articulated in a clear and specific way. Unfortunately, it wasn't. If a whole load of people said "You should invite Beau Billingslea" or "You should invite Billy Butts" or (maybe, but costly) "You should invite the entire case of Steven Universe" or *literally anything actionable for anyone wanting a PoC guest for any reason* then *of course* that would get consideration. It never happened. But those two people who will never be invited? They are all over those threads. Source: me. I've been in a guest function role at San Japan since 2008, and have worked with every San Japan guest. |
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MokonaModoki
Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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I can't actually find a true idea in this. |
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Vanadise
 Posts: 490 |
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Yeah, I also know Dave and have worked at San Japan several years, and this feels like a bit of a punch to the gut. He's got a bad habit of phrasing things badly in ways that people can wildly misinterpret, and boy did people misinterpret this one. San Japan has historically done a good job of not inviting particularly toxic guests, and now I see a ton of people spreading rumors like "San Japan chairman says they only invite sex pests because they make the most money!", which is just completely untrue on multiple levels. But this is far from the first time that he's put his foot in his mouth, so maybe this will be a good move overall. San Japan has always been one of the best-managed Texas Cons and has done a great job of scaling from under a thousand people to over 20k, so I just hope the management doesn't fall apart without Dave at the lead. |
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El Hermano
 Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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Vic Mignogna is of Italian descent. I can think of some people that would object to him being labeled as white, himself included probably.. I know he's proud of his Italian heritage. I'd say the English pool of actors is a bit more diverse than people usually give it credit for. Just to name a few Funimation actors: Johnny Yong Bosch is of course half-Korean, Micah Solusod is Hawaiian., Monica Rial is half Spanish, and Brina Palencia is half Honduran. I don't think it's fair to hasty generalize the industry as just being white. Race is a pretty complex issue and each individual people will value or devalue their own heritage based on their own feelings and identity. So while people can dunk on Funimation for not casting many black VAs, i don't think it's fair to entirely dunk on them for not being diverse. Although I suppose that's up to the individual person to decide what that means. |
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genkisakurachan
Posts: 35 |
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This is a fantastically made point, and such a well-reasoned comment (and breath of fresh air) that I wanted to single you out for kudos. Ignorance is the enemy here. It comes in the form of devaluing people because of the color of their skin, but it also comes in the form of being so thirsty for wokeness points that the hardworking people of color who are in the biz often get ignored because they're not for enough to one side of the color scale. |
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MokonaModoki
Posts: 437 Location: Austin, Texas |
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This is absolutely true, and one of the reasons I replied on this post is because I felt that this article completely devalued the many PoC I've worked with at San Japan. My Black guests "count" even if they were musicians and not actors, and my PoC actor guests "count" even if they aren't Black. Not one person who jumped to criticize the tweet (and honestly, I do get it), nor the person who wrote this article thought to ask "Does San Japan really not invite PoC guests? Is that *really* what he meant"? He said what he said, and it definitely sounded off. But as a simple matter of journalism it seems like the question could have been asked. Instead we get this, and all my PoC guests cease to matter. |
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Punch Drunk Marc
Posts: 1742 |
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[quote="Dragon_Kaiser"]
Well that's patently false. Sabat as Garterbelt is an example (and a bad one at that since he was fine in the role for what the show needed him to be, and I say this AS a black person), but Funi has used a NUMBER of Black VAs both currently and over the years: Zeno Robinson, Dani Chambers, Sametria Ewunes, Akron Watson, Major Attaway, Rick Keeling, Ray Hurd, Sakyiwaa Baah, Gabe Kunda, Alle Mims, and others. They also don't play exclusively black characters, which is what most studios spoiler[allegedly BangZoom] use them for. Getting off topic though. What Henkin said was extremely wrong headed, and he should be facing the consequences for it. Which he thankfully is. |
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Hagaren Viper
 Posts: 764 |
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To be fair I'd say recently they've been doing pretty well in that regard, off the top of my head a recent as My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising we've had Zeno Robinson and Dani Chambers voicing important characters, Lee George who has a regular role in Free, and Gabe Kunda has voiced several roles outside the obligatory Rock Lock. I won't argue about if Funi could do more nor not, but I hope people don't ignore the solid work by these actors. (Incidentally, the Sentai dub of Haikyu has some black actors too!) |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 23740 |
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Imagine an app you'd use so that you could type whatever stupid crap you wanted to and an algorithm converted that mess into a statement that actually wouldn't get you fired or potentially ruin your life. The inventor of it would be a billionaire.
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Dragon_Kaiser
Posts: 119 |
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I’m also Black person I’m half Black half Hispanic and getting a white person to play a Black character especially to go and make that character a stereotype is wrong in my opinion other well known voice actors and casting directors for cartoons/anime and video games have already come out and said if you’re white don’t be accept roles that are of BIPOC (Go look up the wargroove and it’s controversy because of this) Here’s a way of looking at it the English voice acting industry is majority White people, if there were more BIPOC in the voice acting industry I wouldn’t care if a white guy played a Black character or a Hispanic character but because there are so few voice actors who are BIPOC they don’t get a chance to get those roles. |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 647 |
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And I’m sure he’d also object to being labeled a sexual predator, but we tend to call things what they are. |
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TD912
 Posts: 274 |
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Honestly I think people were misinterpreting his comments and missing context.
A lot of people on Twitter and such saw a screenshot of his first post and made an instant, knee-jerk reaction (as typical on social media) like "Wow this guy likes sexual predators, hates black people, and only cares about money. What a scumbag." and piled on against him without understanding the context. He also made a second tweet in his thread:
After reading the second tweet in the thread, it's fairly clear that his first tweet is just worded badly. He's using "sexual predator" and "diva" as a placeholder for certain persons that are probably well-known and requested too often that he rejects, and he apparently supports this other con with more POC guests and wishes it were doing better. |
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SailorTralfamadore
 Posts: 499 Location: Keep Austin Weeb |
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I'm an Italian-American, we are absolutely white in the context of modern U.S. race relations, my dude. Stop trolling. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2939 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Nowhere in the article does it state that San Japan does not actually invite guests of any racial group, it merely reiterates what Dave wrote, which was that he would book PoC guests when they brought in money. That's not an editorial conclusion, it's basic reading comprehension. I get that you're upset that this happened or you feel the need to defend Dave, but there isn't anything in this article that misrepresents the series of events that took place. For the record, the guests are probably Vic Mignogna and Todd Haberkorn. I get the con can't say it outright for legal reasons, but it'd be helpful to congoers to know that the industry actually has implemented bans on guests they think are a real liability to safety. |
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