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Exploring ethical questions from Superhero movies and TV shows, sci-fi, and everything else geeks love!
Hello
Matthew: and welcome to this episode of Superhero FX. Friends, today I'm really excited. We have a fantastic guest, JP Carlyac. Many of you will know him if you are a fan of my sort.
You know him best as the voice of Bhabwa Fenimore, a tradition mercenary leader from a great episode of Star Wars the Bad Batch, but you may actually know him a little bit more as the voice actor for Morph from the recent X-Men 97 along with Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh's brother in the 2025 Smurfs movie. JP, how are you doing today?
JP: Good, good, good, good. It's Gargamel, not Gilgamesh.
Matthew: Oh my gosh. Clearly showing I have not been watching, keeping up with Smurfs for far too long. That's my bad.
JP: But I wish I was playing Gilgamesh.
Matthew: That'd be a great character for you. I love it. Well, I first connected with JP because many of you know I do a lot of podcasting with Mandy Kaplan, host of the Make Me a Nerd podcast along with a co-host with me on the Once and Future Parent podcast. Mandy had JP on talking and I got a chance to hear you talking about the role of Morph, talking about some of the things you do, and also talking about so much the activism that you do as a voice actor and kind of tangential to that. And I just knew you were someone I really wanted to connect with. So I wanted you to start by talking about your, like, kind of give us an overview of JP's work, especially in terms of activism and voice acting.
JP: Sure, yeah. I've been a voice actor for about 20 years. I started in 2006. And I always wanted to be one. Animation was always my thing. I was a huge fan of cartoons as a kid. And I was under the delusion that you had to be a famous on-camera actor to be allowed to do voiceover because it just felt like, you know, the thanks to Robin Williams, it just, it felt like it was a perk.
It couldn't actually be a real job that famous people got to do. So that was my trajectory. And luckily in college, I had some professors that were like, you know, or you could just train and, you know, get an agent and stuff.
So that's what I did. And I got my first agent, my first gig in 2006. And then just, it was a slow sort of snowball rolling down the hill after that.
And then I was able to start doing this work full time in 2015. So as far as my activism goes, it really starts with Nerds Vote, which was my dear friend Courtney Taylor, who is also a voice actor. She came up with the idea of using our, our status, I guess, as quote unquote, notable Nerds to be able to utilize that to mobilize our fan bases to get registered to vote and to get voting. So Nerds Vote is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization.
And our outreach is specifically to cosplayers, comic book readers, congoers, gamers, and pop culture fans of all kinds, aka Nerds. So really, that was that was my first organizational dip into advocacy and activism. And then that, and I also, one of my day jobs was I ran the LGBT Alumni Association at USC, which was my alma mater. And so those paired together during the pandemic, I was, I came out as gender queer. I know a lot of people during the pandemic had a moment to breathe and to sort of look in the mirror and understand themselves better. And I was one of them. And I didn't really have any, I didn't have very many queer friends, little own gender, nonconforming friends and founding an organization where I would give back.
Felt like a great way to do so. So my advocacy with working with Nerds Vote and also specifically the LGBT community with that alumni association, I felt equipped to create an LGBT advocacy group specifically for voice actors. So, yeah, so Queer Box has been going for, it'll be five years this December. And we are the nonprofit academy and community for LGBTQIA plus voice actors.
And we offer workshops, we have a free online talent directory, and we also do industry advocacy from the other side of the glass, as it were, to ensure that people know how to diversely and authentically cast. Right.
Matthew: And I think that is so important. And we're going to have links to both of those great organizations in the show notes. For those who know me, you know that I spent a lot of time going to cons and things like that, especially in the card gaming world, Magic the Gathering and things like that. And I'm going to be talking to JP after this about trying to bring some of the Nerds Vote to those communities. And I just love so much the way you talk about that because, you know, so much of what this podcast is about is about trying to connect our Nerddom, our Geekdom, the stories we love to activism, to the stories we get, to the ethical and moral and political issues of the day and helping people see those things and talking about that both on screen and off screen. And I'm kind of curious for you, what's the connection there? I mean, obviously you're a nerd yourself, you talk about that, you've done some of that media. But I'd love to hear you say more about what is it about kind of nerdy media, X-Men and Star Wars and all these kind of things that you think kind of really connects for you or how does it connect for you in terms of that school of media and the activism that you care about?
JP: Yeah, I mean, something that Courtney and I talked about early on was with Nerds Vote being a nonpartisan organization, I mean, we're pretty up front that the two of us are real progressive. So whenever somebody would be like, well, you know, what if there's a bunch of conservative people that want to register to vote?
In our mind, on one hand, that's their right, that's what a democracy is all about is, you know, having is that all of the eligible citizens have access to and are using their country given right to vote. But even more so than that, it's our belief that nerddom at its core is really about empathy and community and understanding what Othering feels like, especially for fans of shows like the X-Men or comics like the X-Men, because it's entirely about being the outcast. And so it's our belief in the heart of that. And, you know, obviously there are parts of the community that like, you know...
Matthew: We're not monolithic and that's...
JP: No, no. And I would say, you know, I don't think, well, the people that are like the biggest fans of Grand Theft Auto maybe aren't necessarily like our target audience. But, you know, hey, if they want to vote, we're happy to connect them with...
Matthew: I did say Magic the Gathering, not Warhammer, but
JP: yes, I understand where you're coming from. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that's part of it. I mean, that's sort of the double-edged sort of it, is that, yes, I think there is this opportunity to tap into communities of outcasts who don't feel included in their real-life in-person spaces. And so they feel more connected to people in more fantastical or fictitious realms. But at the same time, there are some people, communities, that that isolation just breeds this willingness to be more negative towards others than one might be in-person.
Let's put it that way. And that toxicity is, I think, the weakness of nerdom. I think there's so much positivity and so much going for it, but it is that... It's not just nerdom. I mean, it's social media. It's like anytime anybody gets to hide behind the veil of a digital screen, you know, they feel that there's that added permission to be extra. And sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes that is, you know, really harmful. So, yeah, there is a degree of trying to walk the line there.
Matthew: Well, I think it's part of why this kind of conversations are so important, because one thing I'm really struck by is when I hear someone talk about, like, you know, that part of what helped shape them morally or ethically or politically or whatever is, you know, that they loved the way Superman or whatever hero was stood up for this particular issue. And then that kind of gave them this value that they saw reflected in something else. And I've often talked for myself about, I would watch episodes of the original series of Star Trek with my mother, and she would kind of talk about like, okay, so what are you seeing here in this episode about these people whose faces look different and how does that connect to what you're seeing in the world? I'm curious, were there things for that for you? Do you look back on the stuff that you loved as a kid that kind of helped shape your ideas about activism and what you care about or anything like that?
JP: Yeah, I mean, I think some of it has to do with the queer coded nature of so much of the animation that I grew up with. I mean, whether it's my personal hero is Skeletor. Skeletor is, you know, the
Matthew: most of my career career. I heard about you and your husband are Skeletor and Dolly Parton as the two avatars, which I love that about.
JP: We are. We are, in fact, as a matter of fact, if you look up here, we have two little stuffed avatars of our own. This is their Skeletor and there's one of them. But yeah, so whether it was Skeletor or Joker in the Batman the Animated Series or Cobra Commander and G.I. Joe, and then of course the entire canon of Disney villains, there was something delightful and permissive, I want to say, about the queer coded villain that there even though they're bad and we understand they're bad, there was a realm in which they had permission to totally be themselves and to totally be the fullness of their quote unquote villainy, even though as we would later come to understand that the fullness of their queerness. So it's partly that. So that's that's a big part of it. I also was a giant fan of the Power Rangers in middle school and I had crushes on the actual Power Rangers, but I wouldn't say that I was ever on their side.
It was always about the villains like the villains were just so much more colorful, flamboyant and you know, like one of them actually had like a pointed bra like what more does one want?
Matthew: You know, the Madonna reference is real strong there. We get it.
JP: Yeah, yeah, made it all the way to Japan to create that wonderful character. Um, yeah, so. But as far as like specific lessons that I would learn from the programming that I grew up with, honestly, I mean, it's it's for me, it was shows like Sesame Street.
Yeah, you know, it was. Or I think I can think of a few episodes of something like Batman, the animated series that has sort of like a moral quandary in there of like, you know, like the mad hatter when he imprisoned Batman in a dream world that is perfect, is it better to live in a idyllic world complacently or better to live in a very imperfect world where you have agency, you know, right?
Matthew: And when it strikes me just hearing you talk about this is how much so much of Batman the animated series, I think we pushed the idea of a lot of villains are just misunderstood, you know, and are just totally war and how much that ties into the the queer villain idea of the, you know, we have to this is the only place we get to express ourselves like this. You know, I think I'm I discovered my own self as an unbinary a lot later in life, but looking back, I'm able to look at like a lot of my love of a lot of those same characters you're talking about as just Oh, that's what it's like to really not care what other people are telling me I'm so like that I'm supposed to be a man, so I'm supposed to look this way or do these things. And yeah, being drawn to these characters who they're doing quote unquote bad things, because that's the only realm that's given to them. And that means the character who's able to say, wait, no, I want to know more about you. I want to know more why, you know, ace, you're part of this, you know, the little girl ace is part of the black African royal royal gang.
JP: Thank you. Thank you. Exactly. Or even there's a great episode with Grundy, I think, where he just kind of like, is there with Grundy and listens to him and talks to him. And and and he's detective. And it's so much about understanding your opponent. Right.
Matthew: Instead of just saying, Oh, they're a villain, they're bad. And I think that's always been such an interesting thing of like, how do we, instead of just being afraid of what's different, how do we learn more about it and feel, you know, get past those stereotypes and all that nonsense.
JP: Yeah, I funny you mentioned that I was just talking about Jeffrey Marsh's podcast this week. And was talking about the elements of the gray. And I am, I am so much more inclined to believe in somebody's humanity, not their goodness, but their humanity, so that I can understand them better and when possible, find common ground. But even more so to understand how to fight back, right, as opposed to just being like, Oh, there's Sauron like, you know, what do you do with that?
Like, I don't have a ring to throw in a mountain. So I don't know. But yeah, we were talking about JK Rowling, who is who's my favorite person to pick on. And I'm sure. Well, she feels mutually so. But there is that, that understanding of being somebody who, because of the trauma and violence that she personally has faced, I can see how this would grow into right this belief system, however wrong and misguided and awful it is.
Yeah. And, and I feel like there are so many opportunities to look at the worst of us and see where it comes from, what it stems from, what the actual kernel is, especially because it's that kernel that is like, maybe that's how they're convincing these other tens of thousands of millions of people, right, to believe the same way they do. And how can we counteract that on a human level, as opposed to just being like, they're using a brainwash ray.
Matthew: Like, you know, yeah, I think it's so true. And I love that you talk about villains, because we talk about them on here all the time. And I think for me, if I can look at a villain and say, oh, that person is just twirling their mustache and maniacally laughing and their evil McEvil pants, that's kind of boring to me because there's never, I never asked, I'm not at all concerned that I'm going to become that person. But if I watch someone go through, like you said, something traumatic, and I can watch them and be like, Oh, what I have done something, you know, what I, if I was in the kind of terrible positions that a Batman villain was in, you know, like, you know, Mr. Freeze, what I have turned to, you know, wanting to do anything to keep my partner alive, maybe not the bad puns of the Schwarzenegger version, although those are wonderfully can't be movies.
And you know, that way. But yeah, like, I love those characters where because I often think that's one of the worst things is when if all of our villains are cardboard cutouts, then we never see any villain in ourselves. But if we look at someone like, you know, an Anakin Skywalker and think, Oh gosh, you know, if I was told since I was 10 years old that I was the most gifted and talented that there ever been, and then no one listened to me about my emotions and all this kind of stuff. And now one person's coming along and grooming me, like, I'm not defending Anakin in any way, shape or form. But I think it's a great example of, Hey, grooming is terrible. And when you isolate kids and don't let them talk about the things they want to talk about, guess what? It's really easy for groomers to groom them. And that's exactly what Palpatine does in that movie.
JP: Totally. And, you know, I would love to get, I would love to just get into an hour long good discussion of just how f up the the Jedi order is like in all of its, you know, in taking children from from their youth and and and basically just brainwashing them into a very black and white narrow minded dogma, right, that allows for no gray whatsoever.
Matthew: So, so as I said, to me, your most important role of Babwa Venomar, can I see him as trying to
Speaker 3: rescue a little dungeon from the Jedi?
JP: Little thing you think that's the one most important. I love that. I'm sorry. What was the quit?
Matthew: Teasing because I mean, you're in that one, you're playing someone who's hunting down little baby Jedi. So I like that I like the headcanon that you're you're rescuing them from the Jedi.
JP: Oh, yeah. Yeah. In a in a Kovorkian-esque kind of way. But yeah, rescue.
Matthew: Exactly. Exactly. Well, and I want to talk a lot about this specifically with the X-Men and Morphin stuff like that. But just a little bit on the the other side of the camera, as you said, the representation side, talk a little bit more about why this matters to you so much in terms of queer vox, the group you talked about. You know, I know what you guys do is to advocate for queer people and especially queer people of color, getting more chances to do voice acting. You have an academy that helps train them. As you said, you do advocacy for for better casting. Talk more about why that became something really important to you.
JP: It grew out of a conversation that I had with some casting friends way back in 2000, where we were simultaneously celebrating the fact that there was a increase in queer characters in animation and video games, but that they were rarely authentically cast. Yeah. And and the common refrain was, just don't know where to find them. And I was like, well, they exist. I mean, right.
And I certainly know that they're there. And my first instinct was, okay, well, let's just start a class. Maybe it's about training.
Maybe it's about not having access. And it really, I think what was more surprising was that there's plenty of all kinds of queer actors, like trans non-vitory actors who are out there and finding degrees of success in various mediums, but not being able to have, I'm talking about the year 2000, the year 2020. This is very different from right now. But but not just not being able to have access to mainstream work.
Right. And so that became like, okay, so it's part of its education, but part of it is also just is just access and sometimes financial burdens that comes with access, especially in voiceover, because a lot of our stuff, like this giant booth behind me and equipment and everything is expensive. So, so yeah, so we started offering our free online talent directory and trying to do networking and doing advocacy within the industry to get them to come to us and be like, look, we have this talent here. And we're training them because there was that, I think, part of the weakness of the giant DEI movement that happens. It happened so fast and it was so, it was so, had such a whiplash effect in terms of implementation where there wasn't all that were these companies didn't put a lot of thought into how to implement or how to implement responsibly. It was all about, okay, well, we just need to get a queer person in here.
Matthew: Right. It's tokenism all over the place.
JP: And right, regardless of whether they had training or not, or, you know, so there were a lot of portrayals that were might have been done by celebrities or influencers or something like that that maybe had never done voiceover in their lives. And then it's like, well, they're terrible. This was a bad idea to put queer people in it.
It's like, well, no, it's not queer people. It's that you're getting untrained people, and you're not doing the work of mentoring. And I think, I think so much of like a friend of mine who used to work at Marvel back when they were doing their first Black Panther animated series and how trying to find Black television writers with experience in animation was a pretty small pool. So instead of just being like, well, we're just going to get the one and we're just going to like bleed everything out of them. Or, you know, well, we'll just have white people do it.
They made the decision, okay, why don't we staff this with experienced animation writers and then bring in a bunch of Black television writers who have other experience and then mentor them and have them shout out through this process so that they can, you know, and then give them episodes to take over. And, you know, and that's how you do it. It's right, takes longer.
It is a slower process. But that's how you build up a workforce in whatever medium, you know, you're looking to do so. But companies don't have patients for that, you know, that was that was a rare example of, you know, of Disney being like, we're going to take the time, you know, they don't they certainly don't anymore.
Matthew: And that's so needed because I think a lot of times when we talk to creators and stuff like that, there's this kind of chicken and egg situation of we want there to be more creators of X community, but there aren't. And so we don't create jobs for them. And so, you know, it's just it's, there's no way you said it in and I I love that idea of really encouraging people to say, if you want to have better representation from a community, but you're having trouble finding those people, then actually it can comment on you, the creators to to do more to create that resource that you need of helping to train more of those folks. And so I love that approach. You're right. I imagine it's not very like not very often happening, but I wish it was happening a lot more. Yeah.
JP: No, truly. And especially now that that DEI is just, you know, something that's we don't talk about. So much of our work is more about, well, two things. One, it's about for the people that are ready to enter the mainstream professional, whether it's animation commercials, you know, whatever. It's so much about training them to have flexibility with their voice. Right. It's about training casting directors, writers, show runners, the people who are who remain on our side and have always been on our side and are always just, you know, bumping up against executives who are, you know, going along with the changing winds. But it's about training those those creatives that to consider our community for the over represented majority of cis straight roles. Right. So that we can weather the storm and that we, and also regardless of, you know, whether there's more queer roles, less queer roles, it's not, we can't be pigeonholed into it because there's never going to be enough to sustain a full career. Right.
So as much as I'm into authentic casting, it has less to do with the ability to portray based upon your actual background and what, you know, all of that, and more to just do with access and the business of being able to build sustainable careers. Right. Which inherently means that you have to have access to the over represented majority as well. Right.
Matthew: No, I think that becomes really important. And both because of the just the sustainability, but also because, you know, as you said, not all inclusion is equal, you know, not all checking boxes is equal. And there's extent to which if, and I think we see this a lot, you know, there are characters where a particular part of their personality is a very important part of who is who they are, you know, and like you've got a character for whom their sexuality or their gender might be the focus of their character. Because I'm going to have a character who it's a story about their mother dying. And the fact that they're queer is a part of their character, but you want it to be about someone whose mother is dying.
And, and, you know, the, the need to be able to have that much broader representation and as you said, roles where it doesn't matter what the first and sexuality is, or they're able to play, play across those things. There I was going to look at it, but I'm going to try to find it at the moment. But the in Star Wars rebels, one of my favorite animated shows. There's a character who I bet I know who it is.
Go ahead. There's a character in Agent Callis, who's a very famous character has a great arc and is portrayed as a white character and the voice actors black. And I would use that as an example of like, there's no issue with it. You know, this wasn't someone who could only do black characters, especially because it's Star Wars. Is that who you're thinking of? You thought I was thinking of? Yes. Yeah. Do you remember the actor's name? It's I don't.
JP: Okay. Also, because it's not, it's not a, it's not an inherently easy to pronounce for a Caucasian person. Yes.
Matthew: Also true. Also true. Yeah. David, David, oh, you're low. David, oh, you're yes. That's that's the one. Yeah.
JP: What? No, and an amazing portrayal. I also think of and I never remember the name of the movie. Oh, we're both of a certain age. But there's a there's a live action drama, a dramedy, I guess, it's an independent film. It stars Ed Helms. I think he actually wrote it. Now that I'm thinking right. And he plays, I believe, a writer of some renown who is single but wants to have a kid. So he's looking for a surrogate. And so he ends up finding Patty Harrison, who becomes the surrogate and, you know, and blah, blah, blah, I won't give away any endings. But Patty Harrison is a trans woman. She's a standup comedian and a brilliant one at that.
But it is never mentioned in the book. I mean, obviously, because she's playing a cis woman. So and it's a brilliant portrayal and a beautiful portrayal. And I if to me, that is just such a prime example of like, see, it's not only did we have someone did we have a trans person play a cis role in live action, let alone voiceover, which is way easier, but also tackling something as as specific as childbirth. Yeah.
So yeah, so I think it's, I think people are missed so much opportunity. We often talk about just from the voiceover perspective. When you're thinking about voice prints and the character range that people have access to, you know, estrogen is not a hormone that affects the vocal chords. So all of the feminized vocal feminization is all is all done, like it is all is all done manually through training and practice. But there we have so many trans femme actors who have the full access to the full range of their voice high and low. Oh, yeah. And some of them, you know, don't feel comfortable accessing the lower register, but some of them do.
Right. And you know, I was doing an animated film that had a was on a very low budget that I was directing and we didn't have money to bring anybody back for pickups at the end. And I brought in this this fantastic actress, and she did all of them men, women, alien cats, everything. She just did it. And yeah, spectacular.
Matthew: Another example that came to mind when we move on, but he's Hunter Schaefer, who got prominence by playing a very clearly trans character in the show euphoria. In the Hunger Games movie, ballot of songbirds, ballot of songbirds and snakes, she plays Tigris, the cousin to Cornelia Snow becomes president snow. And her gender is never I mean, she's a woman, but whether she's trans or cis is completely irrelevant to the part. And completely relevant to the performance.
JP: I actually saw some some fan casting, I think of like what should be cast in the legend of Zelda movie as Zelda.
Matthew: Oh, yeah. I think they said it was Hunter. Yeah, she gets mentioned a lot in fan castings.
JP: I mean, she's very elven and appearance.
Matthew: So very much so. Very much so. Yeah, I would love that. One thing I'm curious in terms of how that training you do, because I'm the one hand obviously we're trying to get people more jobs and things like that. But also as you and I have talked about, you know, good representation and good presentation of characters is a great thing. And we know there's a lot of bad queer roles out there, you know, roles that are playing pretty bad into bad stereotypes.
On the other hand, people need to work. And I'm kind of curious if that's something you ever addressed with people. I'm always very curious about that process of, you know, once you've made it, you're a big time actor, you've got people coming to you with million dollar roles. It's easy to say, Oh, I'm not going to play that part because that, you know, is a part written originally for an Asian actor, or, you know, I'm not going to play this part because it's a stereotype. I'm curious if with young actors who are of any age, but are new in their acting career, as they're figuring this out, is this something you talk about about how to what level of like, Yes, this is a character of my sexuality or gender, but I don't like the way it's portrayed and how you can talk to writers and directors about that or how you can decide not to take a part or just bite the bullet because you need the money because we all do. I'm curious how those questions come up in the trainings you guys do.
JP: Yeah, and it's all of that in the sense that on one hand, we talk to people about there are roles that you might be offered and you will play them and it's going to it is good.
Whether it publicly haunts you or just in the back of your mind haunts you, it will stay with you when you play those. So you need to do soul searching in the sense of like, am I going to be able to feel good about myself and feel good about my career if I haven't done this. That said, we're not going to be the ones to judge you because our job is to help people get up the ladder. And unfortunately, sometimes that involves taking roles that you know, are not the greatest and we can do the advocacy on the other side to try to lessen those and try to educate people on how to create better opportunities.
But they're still there. And I'm not going to, you know, we've had several actors who have found themselves in roles that they weren't thrilled with or just productions that they weren't thrilled with regardless of the characters. We've had some actors that were told they couldn't publicly advertise that they were playing particular parts because they publicly identified as queer. And the question, the response is, look, you can quit that job or not.
Yeah. And it's entirely up to you. We're not going to tell you what to do. Because if this is lifeblood for you and you need to pay that job and that helps you get to more reputable jobs and be able to pay it forward eventually and then get more choosy, like you mentioned about the roles that you take, cool. But you know, when you're an underrepresented group, it's hard to, you know, to lay that purity. I mean, I strain at laying a purity test on anybody, but you know, but particularly when you are part of an underrepresented community.
Matthew: No, I get that. You know, the character of Jar Jar Binks in Star Wars, the prequels movies, I think a good reason, you know, a lot of people have brought up that there's a lot of real racism in that portrayal and the kind of the Padawai Caribbean accent that's used and things like that. And I think those were very good critiques. I also know that Ahmed Best, the black actor who played him, who was a young actor, this is one of his first roles, as you said, black actors in Star Wars, not a heavily sought out group, was just savagely attacked for, you know, being, you know, I think he's called Uncle Tom a lot and things like this. And obviously, I'm not black, it's part of that internal conversation. I'm not trying to claim, but that I think that there's, you can look at that and be like, he's a 19 year old, like blame, talk about the writing, talk about the directing, talk about the problems. In the same way, I kind of feel like there are people who are getting multimillion dollar roles all the time. If they're in this, if they're in this new Harry Potter, yeah, I'm going to boycott them, I'm going to be mad at them. But the fresh out of college person who's getting their first job as a camera person on that, like, you know, the kid actors who are in that, like, I'm going to draw some real lines there of who I'm at it and who I'm not because.
JP: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with you about the kid actors, especially. It's like, you know, there's so many other things swirling around them, particularly their parents. You know, I, yeah, Kira Knightley, oh yeah. I will have words about her. But I didn't realize that Ahmed Best was 19.
Matthew: That's, that's, I think I might get that name wrong, but I know he was quite young and it was definitely one of his first big roles.
JP: Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, for sure. And I'm so glad that they have, you know, given him other parts more recently, but not that that makes amends for the, for the hatred. And the interesting thing about that too, is that that character was using stereotypes, but also like Newt Gunray, there was also other other characters that were using these very stereotypical, like stock character accents of different ethnicities.
Matthew: Oh yeah, the Neologians all sound like Charlie Chan level racism, you know,
JP: Japanese, totally Chinese, but yeah, clearly you understand what I'm saying. Yeah. But the one, the person that actually got the blowback was the black person. Yeah.
Matthew: Yeah. Not surprising.
JP: Not George, not the writers, not, yeah, not the directors.
Matthew: Yeah.
JP: Not the decision makers who decided this is what it's going to be. Right.
Matthew: Yeah. No, I get that. I think that I'm so glad you're kind of giving people like a place to wrestle with that because it seems more than anything that would be so important is just, you know, a chance to go to other of your peers and maybe some of your mentors and say, Hey, here's a part I've been offered. What do you think? You know, and getting instead of just, we'll ostracize you or we want you just giving people a chance to think about it and figure it out for themselves.
JP: And there's it's so rare. I mean, it does happen. I'm not going to say it doesn't, but it's so rare that that finished product was the actor's intent from the jump.
Yeah. Like they walked into the audition room and they were like, and, you know, regardless of what the the breakdown description of the character said, they came in and they're like, I'm going to play this offensive version, whether they knew it or not. And this is my stamp on the character. And then everybody was like, wow, we never thought of that.
Yes. Yeah, it's it's so rarely that it's so usually it's like it, you know, so many actors come in with a much more either neutral or specific, personally specific choice that then gets diluted and and in some ways poisoned by, you know, especially when you're dealing with something like the blockbuster, you know, machine, right, so many other people have decision making that goes into that what that character looks like sounds like acts like walks like that. It's so rarely, but it always falls on the actor's shoulders like, well, you did that. It's like, you took direction to do that. It's not just so there's not a whole ton of invention that necessarily created that at least not so much anymore.
Matthew: Yeah, and especially and that's even more so if you're an onscreen actor or a stage actor, like you're in control of everything that's being shown to some extent. But you know, if you're a voice actor, you might have one idea in mind, then they animate a different kind of facial expression than you're thinking, like there's just so much else that's that's going into that.
JP: Yeah, or as a voice actor, you know, we do three in a row of every line, right, you know, and sometimes then pickups from there. So it might be six, seven, 12, like, you know, different things. And sometimes the takes that they they stitch together of each line makes the conversation come out way differently than you thought in your head.
Matthew: Right, because you're not you're not in the room with the other voice actors like playing off of that. Yeah, so it's all just on your own.
JP: Yep. That makes sense. Rarely do I actually even read in with anybody. Like sometimes I will have a director that will, you know, do the back and forth with me with the scene. Right. But but oftentimes it's just like, okay, we're going to the next line. This is the part where this thing exploded and you're reacting to that. Three in a row, bam, bam, bam. Yeah.
Matthew: Well, I can talk to you just about this for a while, but I'm a superhero podcast, I should talk about you playing superhero. But it's a pretty great segue here, because the role that I think a lot of us are going to most know you for, as I said, is you playing Morph. And you, you said yourself you you're gender queer. And in this portrayal of Morph, I think it's pretty explicit that Morph is a character who is not cis necessarily.
I want to hear you talk about the story itself, but let's use the representation as a segue. I'm kind of curious, it where you saw that where did you audition for this part? Did you and bring that idea? Had had where the writers wanting to get a gender queer actor for that reason? Like what, take all this stuff about representation we've been talking about in the abstract and talk about it with this specific process. Yeah.
JP: So this was sometime during 2021. I had recently come out as gender queer. And to add to that, recently mentioned it to my agents. And, you know, we added it to my little website thing. And the casting director of X-Men was somebody that I knew, and she knew that I had come out as gender queer as well. And she said, okay, there's this part.
I'd like you to audition for it. And so I got it. And it was coded, but I mean, you know, she, I was told that this was X-Men, even though I would have known had I even had enough and told it was pretty, it was pretty clear.
Names changed all the same. It was still like, this is X-Men. And I mean, right from the character description of a, I went back, you know, I went back and I watched the episodes from the original series that Morph appeared in to get the sense of what his original trajectory was.
And adding that with the current breakdown and current interpretation of who this character was now that he's come back was, okay, so this is a person in the 90s who is struggling with their gender identity and sexuality and has gone through a bunch of trauma and uses humor to push through and as a shapeshifter slash code switcher. Right. Great. Me. Done.
Yeah. Like, I would have put on no voice to play Morph. This is more because I didn't feel the need to. And also, they weren't, they weren't asking for a sound to like all they wanted was that it had the laugh had to match because Morph's laugh was pretty iconic.
So that was it. And it just felt, it felt like such a great match. And I would say as much as I understood that the IP was a big deal, that the original series was such a big deal, I didn't watch the X-Men when I was growing up, I was watching the Power Rangers, because the X-Men was on just as I was getting home from school. Yeah. So I kind of missed it, I really fell into the X-Men when the movies started coming out, and then I was like eating all that up. But even though I understood the importance that this property had to so many fans, I just recording in my little booth during the pandemic, I wasn't grasping what the impact of this was going to be, let alone the impact of this non-binary character. And so it was at that first Comic-Con at WonderCon, which happened right before the series even debuted.
So all that people knew about Morph was the little snip that they might have seen of them in the trailer, plus just the press release that said non-binary. And still the impact, the people that just came up and to talk to me about how important this character was, having not even seen an episode was amazing. And really humbling, I guess.
Matthew: Yeah, I think you're right, because I think for so many people, it is them getting a chance to see themselves on screen. I know for myself, like I think I've seen some interviews where you've talked about something similar to this. I am both utterly thrilled at how widespread gender awareness is today and all sorts of gender expression and seeing younger people coming out as trans or gender queer. I hate the way they're being politicized and the rights taken away, but I just love that for them. I'm also incredibly jealous, because when I was 16 and didn't think I fit into this boy category, but also thought I looked good with a beard, so I'm clearly not trans, I didn't know where I fit. And just having that character to see those words non-binary meant so much to me. Talk a bit more about what is it that Morphe means to you? You talked about how like you hear in the description of him and it being you, but like it sounds like you also kind of came through your gender journey a little bit later in life. I'm curious how you see yourself in this character and that journey?
JP: Yeah. I mean, part of it is seeing Morphe having gone through such a traumatic journey through mostly through the original series.
Matthew: And so- Quick version of those, you don't know, he's killed, he's brought back to life. There's people who's screwing with his head, he's brainwashed at some point. The man has a story. There's a lot, the person has a story, I should say.
JP: Yeah, it's really upsetting and unfortunate. So, and there's something to feeling like we meet Morphe in this series, more middle-aged. I don't think they actually are. I think they're probably like maybe late 20s, early 30s is the actual age they're using, but to me it's like around 40. And having been through a whole bunch of stuff and in a process of discovery, I mean, even Morphe's character design, the gray face that we use in this particular iteration that was not used in the original series. To me, even though I was never given a particular canon reason why they're doing it, I know what the backstory is of like, trying to make it more like changeling and stuff like that. But as far as what my backstory on it is, to me it is a Morphe who is better understanding himself and decides to use the form much like mystique that is their actual form, as opposed to using the people-pleasery, more humanoid image to make everyone else comfortable. And that felt so important to me, because I've been going through that myself in terms of like what my appearance, you know. Means to me personally to how I'm seen, to how I'm perceived.
I'm currently in my brown hair and mustache phase, but I went through several years of being like my sharp blue nails and blue hair and like lots of jewelry phase. So, and I'm still sort of navigating like what all that is. So I feel like we're going through it together in a certain way.
I feel like there is that avatar. And to know that Morphe lives in a world where as they're exploring all of these different iterations and powers and relationships and all of that, they are always supported by this group of teammates around them. And even though they exist in a world that hates them, there is still that sense that Morphe is on the side, is on the X-Men team. And so for everybody within the world who is, you know, believes in mutants and for people and people in our world who are just perceiving it, Morphe is seen as a superhero. Morphe is the good guy. Right, yeah.
Matthew: So. That is never a question.
JP: Yeah, so there's always just that feeling that bakes in that even as Morphe and I individually are journeying through all of these thoughts and identity issues and all of this, seeing Morphe always part of a team and being seen as a good guy is so affirming. Right. And really to my journey, because it feels like I can't do this wrong. I could do many other things wrong, but I can't do this wrong.
Matthew: Yeah, to me that is so powerful because, and again, I don't wanna assume your stories and mine line up. Because I think one thing that a lot of people really wrestle with is to the extent that when people think of gender presentation, the first thing they think of is appearance. And so a lot of times it is this idea of like, well, certain gender identities are now supposed to be, you know, this very specific thing. And so for example, I've known trans women who are like, my version of myself as a woman is kind of butch and you also have to do the hyper femininity. And you know, and one thing I remember looking at at one point like 15 years ago, when non-binary is first really becoming a thing, and every visual representation I saw of non-binary were these tiny little waves. And I was like, I'm a dad bod and that's never changing. So does that mean I can't be non-binary? Or like I said, you know, where's my facial hair factor in?
I have a friend who has been wrestling with this for a while and really knows, you know, they understand themselves, they are a trans man. And as they would put it, they did modeling for a lot of time. They did a lot of cosplay for a long time. They have a lot of their identity wrapped up in the fact that in their words, they have a great rack. And so at first they thought, I have to get rid of that.
And then we're like, no, why can't I be a trans man? What a great set of kits, you know? And like, I get where they're coming from. And so I really like, especially it seems that we don't often see representations of people who are masculine, but not men.
You know, that part of gender expression that is gender queer, that is non-binary, but isn't necessarily trying to therefore run away from anything possibly masculine while also not being like I'm solidly the cis male. Does that make sense? I'm trying to lead to something to comment on and I'm not sure if I ramble too much there.
JP: Totally, totally. And I mean, that's something that comes up a lot of queer boxes is presentation and expression. And you know, everybody has their own different variation on what that means and what feels affirmative and euphoric to them. And that includes vocal presentation and disabusing so many people of the notion that non-binary has a sound or trans has a sound. It doesn't, you know?
Everybody sounds how they sound. And I think it's also a reminder of just how much of gender is a construct. It's just, you know, there's just so many strata of how we've created all of these these constructs around it for millennia. And so much of what we are pushing through or navigating or trying to manipulate as we're trying to better understand our own internal sense of gender are just these human-made ideas of gender.
Which the thing that I've been thinking a lot about is materialism and gender and how much of our gender expression because of the capitalist society that we live in hinges on what we buy, what we wear, what operations we get, what we do to our hair, what we do to our nails, like all the trappings, all the stuff. Oh yeah. Which all boils down to just spending money. And I mean, that's not to say none of it's valid. It's all valid.
It's all needed. But it's also just like, it's such a symptom of the world that we live in where it's like, okay, I have to have these things to have this feeling.
Matthew: You talk about nails and I try to get mine done pretty regularly and I love that and it's expensive. And I've been trying to learn more about makeup and it's expensive. And that, you know, a lot of cis women are listening to it being like, yeah, you schmucks, of course it's expensive.
It's not cis male, it's a lot more expensive. Yeah. But and I- It's like, wherever you been. It's like, yeah, be happy now.
Yeah, exactly. Well, and with more of a specialty, talk a bit more about that because one thing I was really struck by when I was reading some of your interviews and things like that is a distinction you drew between morph and mystique because they're both shapeshifters, they're both changing kind of characters. And an awful lot of the kind of like, trans hate nonsense often uses that kind of language of like, you all see yourselves as shapeshifters or whatever.
And you said something really struck to me about how for you it's not just the shapeshifting because I never thought about it, but you're right. I've never had any doubt in my mind that mystique is anything but a woman. And that morph for you, so morph being genderqueer or non-binary or however you think of it, is distinct. It's not just because he's a shapeshifter. Say more about that and how you see those two characters is different and how that ties into all of this.
JP: Yeah, and I think it's stemmed out of, I saw, I saw some of the people that were worked on the show and also it would come up a lot in interviews, in a way that was supposed to feel like camaraderie, it'd be like, well, of course he's non-binary. You can change it to anything you want. It makes total sense.
It's like, well, hold on there. Morph is not non-binary because he's a shapeshifter. Yeah. Morph is lucky as a non-binary person to be a shapeshifter where they can fully inhabit these different bodies and see how that feels. But they're mutually exclusive things.
Yeah. And there have been plenty of, like there was a character that was on She-Ra, Princess of Power, the reboot, which was a gorgeously beautiful show. But the character, Double Trouble, which was the non-binary character was a shapeshifter. And there was a little bit of heat around that at the time because of playing into that stereotype that you're talking about, like, oh, well, you could just be whatever you want. Like, you know, and it's not that. It's that Morph has, Morph probably has the ability to just have a better understanding of the specificity of their gender identity because they've been able to do those things. But it isn't, so it informs it, but it doesn't cause it. And I think Mystique, so I think the presentation that Morph takes on like their original, the body that they were born into, that gray look, is, it does have such a androgynous form, not because they chose it, but because that's what they came into the world looking like.
And they're like, yes, that is me. And I don't need to adhere to some other version of gender in my day to day, just to please you. I also think, I think the difference between Mystique and Morph is, and this is not always true. Like, you know, I can't pull up issues to prove all this, but like, at least in the series, I feel Mystique so often uses her shape-shifting capabilities to fool or to trick. And I think that Morph uses them more to access powers. Yeah. It's not like that. It's not that Morph has never used, has changed into somebody to be able to get into a door or something like that, or to pass an ID clearance or something like that.
Like, sure. But it is so much more, like Mystique is so much more the spy, the clandestine agent. And Morph is so much like just a toolbox that's just accessing flight and speed and strength and all sorts of stuff from the different forms. And I think some of that just has to do with, you know, the side of the ethical spectrum that the two of them work on is that Mystique, on one hand, is like, this is me, this blue form is me. I don't need to be something for anybody else, but I'm gonna use every tool I have in order to trick those assholes into believing whatever I need them to believe. And while Morph is always like, this also, this is me, and I don't need to be something for somebody else, but I also, it's sort of like an honor fight. It's like, yeah, I'm bringing in all of these tools that I have at my disposal in the same way you're bringing your weapons, but I'm not tricking you here. Right. I'm not gonna turn into your bestie and stab you in the back. I'm gonna come at you at the front as the Hulk, you know.
Matthew: Yeah, I rewatched it over the last couple of days. One thing I was struck by is there's kind of two different kinds of shapeshifting that Morph does. One of which is the in combat where I'm not gonna pretend to be Colossus. I'm just, I need to punch it.
I need to be able to take a hit as strong as Colossus or whatever it is I'm gonna shape into that. And then the other is, I mean, the best way to describe it is like, you know, me and some fellow students are making fun of a teacher. Well, I'm gonna do my best impersonation of that teacher's voice.
Guess what? Morph is just the best that there ever been because he can literally shift into that teacher to make the teacher say the funny thing. And in some ways, it often reminds me of Loki from some of the MCU movies who will do that same kind of a thing.
JP: But he's usually, when he's doing it for fun, either he makes the transformation in front of everybody or he just comes at like when he, his first entrance when he comes in as Professor X, it's just so over the top.
And also everybody thinks that he's either, often another galaxy or dead. So it's clearly not, and he's walking. So it's clearly not him. So it's like the gag is apparent. There isn't a gotcha aspect to it. It's more, he's just a fun impressionist.
Matthew: And of course, one of the moments of impressions, probably one of the most talked about from Morph, and I wanna kinda get your thoughts on it, which is when spoilers for, if you haven't seen the show, they're definitely hit pause, go watch the show. But in the last episode, Wolverine is really beat up. It's not like, he's in that kind of like coma where you don't know if he's gonna come out of it or not. And Morph has the understanding, I'm gonna give my description of it.
You tell me if this is accurate, you correct me. But at least what we as the viewers see is that Morph kinda thinks that the one thing that would most help him right now is hearing Jean Grey say, I love you, I want you to be okay, I want you to heal. And she's not gonna do that.
She's not there, but also go love triangle thing. But Morph can say that to him as Jean Grey. And of course, this raises some great questions both about like, is this a buddy doing it for a buddy? Is it that Morph says, I can say this, is it because he has romantic love feelings for Logan? But he knows Logan wants to hear it from Jean Grey. We may explore this more in later seasons. So I don't know how much you can say about this, but I'm kind of curious for you, how you see that moment for more.
JP: Well, I mean, the way that I've talked about it, and this is well before I have had access to any future script. So I'm just gonna stick to what I've been saying. Is basically your interp, is that it is a buddy thing. And the reason is, it has entirely just to do with what I find interesting. And it's so much more interesting to me to have a really powerful, like, Frodo and Samwise friendship between a syshat individual and a queer individual. That just is, and it's powerful. And they would do anything for each other, but it's not necessarily romantic.
That to me is far more interesting. And because, yes, the show takes place in the 90s, but if there is a trope from the 90s, I don't want to revisit, it's just another queer person pining after a straight person. I'm like, yay. That said, I also understand, there's a lot of people who I've talked to in the past year of the show being out, who, it hit them in such a powerful way that this was expressed, that this queer person got to say on TV, in an animated Disney show, that they love this character. I get that. So I'm not gonna, you know, at this point, I really don't have any evidence to tell you otherwise until future seasons come up. So it's more just like, whatever it means to you, it means to you. I also think, you know, I think, I think just selfishly I want better for Morphe.
I think Wolverine, great character. We love him, but he's messy and he's complicated. And I really want our queer character to have, if there is a romantic interest, to have something better. Yeah.
Matthew: No, I think I see all of that. And you're right, I think that there's a real trope there that's problematic of the queer character being, you know, pining over their straight best friend. I think there's another real trope of, well, if they're gender queer, then they're also sexuality queer, which is certainly possible. He might be bisexual, we don't know, but it would be nice to actually break that and be like, you know, those two things aren't always linked. As well as, I mean, one thing that I, as someone who, whatever my gender, I'm always getting someone masking the center, I sometimes wrestle with like, I want to see more queer representation. I want to see more gay male representation. But if every time I see two straight men being really close with each other, and then you tell me actually they're gay for each other, what that tells me is, oh no, that's right, straight men can't have strong feelings for each other.
You know, we can't have loving emotional friendships with each other. And that's always something that, you know, and, but I also love what you said of that, it can be anything, if you see yourself in it, that's what it means. Because another gender expression certainly, you know, a lot of people before they figure out where they maybe are most comfortable, have related to being a mask and presenting person, wishing they were the feminine presenting person that the guy they really like would see, you know? And so I can see that being another powerful part of it. So yeah, I really like we were coming from there of both, I think I'm on your side of what you want to see, but also that if other people see other things, that's that's out of the two. There isn't any one right way to see that scene. Totally.
JP: Yeah, it's, there's a lot of new, and look, you know, I was definitely a queer kid in grade school and high school, who was who had a massive crush on my straight ass friend. Yeah, you know, it happens. But, but yeah, I think I want to see those more affirming things.
I just thinking back to what you were saying earlier about the jealousy of seeing so much representation now. And, you know, I always think of Heartstopper. I mean, the first scene, the first season of that show destroyed me. And also it felt like you have kids.
So you'll get this reference. It felt like, you know, the big flaming rage monster in Moana. And she just puts the stone in and then suddenly it's all healed and it comes back to green. I just felt like Heartstopper was just that piece.
Yeah. And suddenly like that raging misunderstood child who could never have that kind of love was just healed. And it was, you know, while also experiencing the jealousy of, God, I wish I had this show 20 years ago.
Matthew: Like, yeah. And this is a whole other topic. I'll just throw in quickly because it's popped up online again. I have that jealousy. And I also have a little bit of a, you know, there's always the conversation about what has, it hasn't aged well, you know, and I always have a little bit of it. Like part of the flip side of that is people being, I think very critical for good reasons often of stuff that came in the past and I'm generally down with that. But I'll say, as I think probably a lot of people of our generation on this for true for you, one of the best first representations of you can play with gender and it's okay that I saw was a Rocky Horror picture show.
And so when I listened to 16 year olds now say, oh, Rocky is so transphobic and no one should have ever liked it and it should be terrible and we should get rid of it. I'm always sort of like, I get where you're coming from, but you have no idea how much that meant to me back then.
JP: Yeah, how formative. Yeah. And in the sense that, I mean, in talking about authenticity and representation and all of that, I needed the Bird Cage. I needed to see that movie when I saw it.
That movie, I mean, I can get wildly emotional about how much the Bird Cage did for me. Is it pink face? Yes. Is it straight people playing in areas that they probably shouldn't play? Yes. Is it just, you know, camptastic draugry? Absolutely. Do I love that movie more than life itself? Oh yeah. Yeah.
Matthew: I get it. I'm both coming through. Problematic faves is definitely gonna be a thing. And there's something to be said for the thing that takes a couple of really powerful steps for its time, even if later we, you know, I'm sure our grandkids are gonna look back and go, oh my God, can you believe that portrayal of Morph? That was so, you know, whateverphobic, because that's progress, that's good. But you know, it's, but it doesn't mean the steps didn't matter. We, you know, I think Tim Curry needed to put on those fish nets in order to get to wherever we are today.
You know, no matter how you think of it today. Mm-hmm. One other thing on the voice actor part of it, I'm kind of curious of, because, and if I'm asking too much about how the sausage is made, let me know. But my impression with Morph is, you know, when Morph switches into Jean Grey or Professor X, you're not voice switching there. It's the voice actor for those other actors is saying the things that, I'm wondering what that's like for you, of having like some of Morph's most important lines are being delivered by other voice actors because in that moment Morph is shifting.
Is that weird for you at all? Like, did you know that Jean Grey was gonna say that to him? I'm just kind of curious what that whole process is like of, you obviously are so in love with this character, and so you've made this character, but also some of his biggest lines are said by other voice actors.
JP: Yeah, I kind of love it. I kind of love the collaborative nature of the character that it's all, it's like we all have different puppet strings in our hands. Yeah. I think also it goes back to partially trusting the cast, trusting that I have cast members that I know are not going to, I don't know, fend it up or do something silly, but also even if they did, I also, more than that, trust our voice director who is going to make sure that it all feels, I mean, her whole job is, we're not in the same room with each other, we're not talking directly to each other, and yet she's the one that is tracking to make sure it all feels like a conversation, let alone a very high stakes emotional conversation. So I trust her implicitly that whether it's Jen Hale or it's Ross Markleon who are saying morph lines that she's going to make sure that it fits into the architect that we've already created.
Matthew: Right, that makes sense. Yeah, I do think that comes out well, that when it's the Professor Rex, when Morph is doing a caricature of one of the other characters versus when for Logan's benefit, he is literally trying to give Logan the experience of Jean Grey saying he's always wanted her to say, it's very clear how different that is, I think that comes across well. Totally.
That's wonderful. Well, this has been a little more than an hour, I want to kind of wrap us up, and just going to pull us back to one thing and then let you talk about the work you've done with the activism stuff one last time. But I think I'm not even going to bother with all of the, like, oh, it's too woke nonsense. You've had some great things to say about it. I'll link to some of your interviews. I've talked about it a lot on this. If people are surprised the X-Men is woke, they haven't been paying attention, Superman, all your favorite heroes are woke, they always have been.
Stuff it. But I think there's another element of people who are like, oh my gosh, I'm losing my rights every day, these terrible things are happening, and I can't do anything. I want to turn on my superhero show and escape. I want to get away from all these terrible things. And so I'm mad that you're reminding me of the fights we're having in the real world.
What's, forget about the people who argue this woke, but to the people who just want to bury their heads and they're saying it's a pre-perjurative statement, so I might review where I'm coming from. But I'm going to curious, what's your response to those who say, I just want superhero media to be a fun escape?
JP: Sorry, I'm trying to temper my first response.
Matthew: I can add it as needed.
JP: I mean, yeah, no, no, no, no. I think for me, it's, for the people that are saying that they want to turn on these shows and to escape what's happening. My immediate assumption is that these are people who feel inundated by the news, but it doesn't personally affect them. Yeah. It's more just hearing about like... It's a privileged perspective. Yeah, it's entirely a privileged perspective. At the most, it's just making them feel like I'm not doing enough about X, Y, or Z issue.
Yeah. So I don't want to think about that issue for a minute. So it is entirely coming from privilege of, I want to be able to escape it, and I can do that on television, whereas the person that it's actually affecting, whether they're trans or an immigrant, or a person who is on snap benefits right now, or whatever it is, there is no escaping it on the TV.
The brain is always worrying about it because you know. So, frankly, the show's not for you. Yeah.
Watch the show that is made for you to, like if you really want to escape, go on Great Burnish Bank off, because like you, and I mean, I love Nickoff, I do. Yeah. But that's Bake Off's job.
Yeah. Our job, as in comics and in the superhero stories we tell, are to be the mythology for the modern age. And mythology is nothing but morality, and is nothing but ethical lessons.
These are our fables. So you pick the wrong fan base. You pick the wrong thing to be a fan of, if you're looking to just get away from it. Because for the people who it is affecting, to see these allegories about their lives, and to see their viewpoint and their needs represented, in a superhero capacity, it's healing. It's affirming. Very much so. Very much so. It's a reminder that you're not forgotten.
I mean, I always think of just like, the old story of Nichelle Nichols on Star Trek, and how she was gonna quit being Uhura, because it was just the worst, in terms of behind the scenes environment. And Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just said, was like, no, because you are a reminder that we exist in the future. Without you, we could not believe that black people actually survive into the 20, what is it, the 23rd century, I don't remember what it is.
Matthew: Yeah, it's been all over their time travels.
JP: The future. And similarly, it's like, if you erase all of our diversity in humanity, and identity, and our trauma, and our troubles, from our media, specifically the things that are meant to be our allegories, well then it's basically like a race, it's basically like having the privilege to say, well, I don't want you to exist, period.
Matthew: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's such a good way of putting it, because I agree with you, that there's, I haven't talked about the difference between, to my mind, escapism, versus recharging your batteries, which is that, and I was a professional activist for many years, I went to school for it, and one of the things that we really got drilled into us was the danger of burnout, and you need to recharge your batteries. And sometimes that is British Bake Off. For me, it's Love Island, because I just love, there's a certain like, are the straights okay, Shouting Freudia, that I get with it?
Although I made the mistake this year of like paying attention to the serious thinkers who are talking about the racial and class dynamics on those shows, and I was like, no, I don't want to, but for me, part of it is that I watch that, and it recharges me, and then I'm able to go back to the fights. But there's also the fact that, as you said, like, I love what you're saying there, but the people who just don't want us to exist, because within the media we're talking about, there's a wide range. You know, I have the greatest respect for X-Men 97, and it does raise some important issues, but and or it is not. Like, and or is bashing you over the head with this is the political violence of the day. X-Men is a great example of this is tied to things, and guess what, there's also some really fun fight scenes, you know, and there's some shows that are all the, all the way over on another end of the spectrum. I'm glad that we have all of that, you know. I love the Star Wars Young Jedi Adventures, which has morality in it.
It's definitely there, but it's not and or. It's not you're basically watching Gaza right now, except there's lightsabers instead of, you know, it's laser guns instead of machine guns. And yeah, I think there's something great about having this wide range, and even reminding you that people just existing is a powerful statement, but if that's what you're trying to escape from, then there's some real problems going on there.
JP: Oh, Matthew, you just speak to my heart. It's, I think my common refrain has just been, comfort is a lily pad, it is not a destination.
Speaker 3: We are so obsessed with being comfortable, and it is, it is, it will be the ruination of us. Yeah. Because there is that common thing that we think of of like, you know, put your mask on first before helping others.
JP: The reason that we say that is so that you don't suffocate and die before you are in the process of trying to help the person next to you. It is not so you can order a soft drink and put your feet up and get all, you know, pushy in your chair before you assist the person next to you. And I think that, God, I just think of our comfort is what prevents so many people from trying new food, from listening to different music, from watching a movie that they might ordinarily not consume from going someplace or traveling or experiencing the world in a way that feels foreign to them because it all is just a little, it all just makes me a little squeamish. And yet you would so better understand, or most importantly, talking to people that do not look like or talk like you.
Yeah. It's those uncomfortable spaces that we're, where we learn so much more about each other. And we are so bubbled and so siloed and so in that homogenous white bread miracle whip center of just like, you know, this is, this is all I'm doing. And I won't venture outside of this.
Yeah. That we don't understand, that we never understand anything beyond, because there are those people, I love that you recharge on Love Island. There are people that don't watch anything but Love Island or Bake Off or Hallmark movies or, you know, whatever the thing is that just wraps them in their little blanket that they never intend to leave. And that I think is the most disappointing thing about the time that we live in, is that people refuse to escape their comfort.
Matthew: And I love that. And that's maybe kind of a good way to kind of wrap this up because, you have final words, because to me, as much as I fully agree with you that I want people to be more uncomfortable, I think one of the reasons why I love talking about the ethical questions in superhero media, is that a lot of times this is a way to make, to kind of ease someone into something. I think there's a lot of people who, if you tell them, oh, there's a great non-binary character on this super gritty show about American teenagers, they're gonna go, I don't wanna watch that. But they will watch X-Men.
And all of a sudden now they're experiencing morph. And it's that kind of like, okay, if you're not willing to go to, you know, this neighborhood no one's ever heard of, that has a cuisine that you might love but you're never gonna go to, but actually your local restaurant has added one dish. Will you try it?
And I think that, this is kind of a weird connection, but I think it fits. My father often talked about it. He grew up in Brooklyn in the 1940s and 50s. And he's not paying attention to like big civil rights things, but when Jackie Robinson becomes his hero on the Brooklyn Dodgers, that's a little bit of this race question coming into the very comfortable world of baseball and it connected for him.
And he often talked about how that was a huge part of him coming to a much better racial awareness. And to me, it's why I really love what you're doing and hope more actors and creators are thinking that way. Because to me, that's the thought of, there's an awful lot of people who are not going to read something, you know, they're not gonna read, you know, the great thinkers on racism, but they might watch, you know, Captain America being played by a black man and have that challenge them about some thoughts.
You know, they're not gonna read about gender in the ways we might want them to, but they're gonna think about Princess Leia not being the normal, you know, damsel in distress for being something different. So yeah, I think why were you doing it so important? And I'm so grateful you're here and grateful you're talking to us.
JP: Thank you, thank you. And I mean, truly it is, the story that I often tell people, especially when I'm talking to industry folks about the importance of representation is, you know, I always say that my mom learned to understand me better because she watched Modern Family. You know, I think that Modern Family is like a thesis on, you know, great queer analysis and thought, no.
But it's relatable. And yeah, I completely agree with you that so much of it needs to be put into the bite-sized people because we're humans. And I think that the thing that we so often escape or forget is that we are this far away from being poop throwing, you know, chimps. So like, there's so much of that animalistic, instinctual nature that's within us that I'm not saying we have to forgive, but we have to remember in the way that we access each other.
I think, sorry, this is the last thing I'm gonna go on. I think so much about like the way people use social media and the way that they just scream at each other in their Instagram stories. They'll post something that's going on and be like, if you haven't signed up to support this today, then I hate you and you're the terrible person and all of that.
It's like, okay, cool. Do you think that you just got somebody to sign up? Do you think that somebody's now gonna follow that because you just screamed at them and told them they're terrible? No, are you right in your anger? Yeah, of course.
But nobody takes into account the marketing brain that is necessary if you actually want your messaging to get across. It's more just about like rage, like, well, great. You expressed your rage into the ether, probably alienated some people that maybe you could have through an appropriate conversation, one towards your side. But that clearly was not the most important thing for you to do. It was more just to vent. Cool.
Matthew: Yeah, and there's a place for venting media. There's a place for convincing media. And I just... Yeah. Yeah, that's a whole other topic. I'm intensely cutting myself off on this, but I fully agree with you there. This has been a fantastic conversation.
Thank you so much. I really hope we can have you back for other topics. And let me just say, like, so for people who are listening, people who are thinking about becoming voice actors, I'm definitely gonna point them towards queer Vox, but for others, what are other ways, a lot of, especially, I think, a good thing to talk about is NerdsVote, because a lot of my listeners go to comic cons, go to gaming conventions, go to all these kinds of things. What are ways that people can get involved with the great stuff you're doing? Absolutely.
JP: So NerdsVote. Just visit nerdsvote.com. And for you personally, you can use the website to register to vote to, if you already are, registered, you can check your registration. Sometimes they purge roles or for various reasons. Maybe you've moved, you wanna make sure that your registration is all up to date. If you're under 18, you can view, you can pledge to, you'll receive an email once you turn 18 that will say, hey, here's a registration.
And if you're like, hey, I've done all that, I vote all the time, it's not a big deal. Great. Then also on our website, we have merch that has our Adore-Baloo logo on it. And we also, if you just contact us and you are a frequent visitor of conventions and you'd like some stickers, we have stickers that have our QR code on them that either you could wear it or you could hand them out to other people and they can wear it. But just a quick snap of the QR code takes you to our website and then they can register to vote. So it really is just about creating that phone tree of connectivity to get people to just jump on board. Fantastic.
Matthew: Well, JP, thank you so much to our listeners. Definitely check out those things. Check out all the great work that JP is doing. All of their links will be in the show notes.
Of course, also you can talk about the, check out the great work they've done. If you haven't seen X-Men 97, if you haven't seen Star Wars Bad Batch, which I'm gonna continually keep pushing. And who knows, there might be a great morality tale in the Smurfs movie. I don't know. Check out all the great work JP is doing. Thank you so much for checking this out. To all of our listeners, as always, let us know what you think.
We'd love to hear your stories. Most importantly, may the force be with you. When are you gone? When are you gone?