More Dub VA Drama is Brewing at Funimation

Earlier this year we reported on the firing of Vic Mignogna by Funimation and its relation to convention culture and the #MeToo movement. Now even more VA actors are in hot water for their offensive behavior.

Last night, in what feels like a move to burn the house down on their way out, ‘free speech advocate’ and lawyer Nick Rekieta RTed a link to audio of other Funimation voice actors making extremely offensive jokes during recording. The jokes include homophobic slurs and references to incest, among other horribly unsavory things. As Nick Rekieta points out, this violates the same Funimation rule that got Vic fired in the first place.

Many Vic supporters point to the apparent hypocrisy of some of the voice actors who they view as having abandoned Vic earlier this year.  If Vic was fired over a clause in Funimation’s rules that these actors also appear to have violated, the line of thinking is that they should all get canned.  As much as I detest the tactic and am firmly in the #KickVic camp, they aren’t exactly wrong here.

However, there also seems to be an assumption that those who opposed Vic will somehow reveal themselves to be hypocrites themselves now that actors on “their” side are revealed to also be horribly offensive. As far as I’m concerned, clean the entire house of people like this and start over.

This sort of play towards a “gotcha” feels eerily familiar in the wake of the Epstein scandal. Supporters there, too, seemed to think that if people on “our” side was implicated we’d somehow change our tune on the entire situation. That hasn’t proven to be the case there, either.  Of course, I’m not insinuating that what Epstein did is remotely similar in scale to what the VA’s have done, but the concept of taking out the trash is the same. It doesn’t matter who goes down. All aberrant behavior should result in consequences no matter whose side they’re on.

The saddest part about this whole ordeal is that it could cause one of the biggest English dub studios to collapse in on itself. I personally don’t really watch dubs (yes, yes, I’m a subs snob, sorry), but there’s value for it in the English language market. I think of my friend’s children who can’t read fast enough to keep up with subs and I’m sad for the future of the dub market for their sake. If Funimation doesn’t make some fundamental changes in their work culture, this could damage the entire market for a long time to come.

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They’ve also written for Friends of Comic Con and is a 2019 Hugo Award winner for contributing fanfic on AO3. They identify as queer.

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