She needs a clean slate.
Actress and comedian Jenny Slate announced Wednesday that she will no longer voice a black character, Missy, on the animated Netflix series “Big Mouth.”
“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,” Slate wrote in an Instagram post. “But ‘Missy’ is also Black, and Black characters on an animated show should be played by Black people.”
Slate has voiced Missy for the first three seasons of the show, and season 4 is already set to go and will be released later this year with Slate as Missy, according to Variety. “Big Mouth” has been renewed for at least two more seasons after that as well.
Slate went on to apologize and acknowledge that her playing Missy was an example of white privilege and that her original logic was faulty.
“In me playing ‘Missy,’ I was engaging in an act of erasure of Black people,” she wrote. “Ending my portrayal of ‘Missy’ is one step in a lifelong process of uncovering the racism in my actions.”
Kristen Bell made a similar announcement on Wednesday. The “Good Place” star had played the mixed-race character of Molly in Central Park. She tweeted that she would give up the role.
More Top Picks Adhd Focus Tips That Actually Work Without Medication
“Playing the Molly [character] in Central Park shows a lack of awareness of my pervasive privilege,” Bell’s tweet read in part. “Casting a mixed race character w/a white actress undermines the specificity of the mixed race & Black American experience.”
On “Big Mouth,” the show’s four executive producers, Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, all of whom are white, noted that casting a white person as a black person was a questionable move and apologized in their own Instagram post (from Kroll’s account).
“We made a mistake, took our privilege for granted, and we’re working hard to do better moving forward,” the team wrote.
The co-creators also promised to cast a black actress in the role for upcoming season 5 and 6.