The Simpsons Movie Boycotted in Latin America

Filed in archive Latin Issues on July 19, 2007

Not everything is sweet and funny in the life of Matt Groening, creator of the world's most famous animated family: The Simpsons. giant Homer raised the ire of pagan groups, and the Kwik-E-Mart racist promo controversy, Latin American fans are complaining. A group of fans of The Simpsons is using Fox's official forum of The Simpsons Movie - to ask the Simpsons fans around the world to boycott the movie.

The complaints are about the decision of the movie's producers about the voices used in the Spanish dubbing for Latin America - the voices that characterized the series in the first 15 seasons, won't be in the movie. Those voices are famous in all Latin America, and the fans (including me) really missed them in the last seasons.

The threats to leave the theaters empty has began to fill up the forums at comunidad.mundofox.com, space created by the Fox Network for the fans, where they can chat about their favorite shows. The Simpsons forums where intended to gather the fans thoughts about the "oh so waited" debut of homer and his troupe in the big screen.

Although Grabaciones y Doblajes Internacionales (International Recordings and Dubbing, the company that was in charge of the dubbing for Latin America) canceled two years ago the contracts of the actors that gave life to the main Simpsons characters with their voices, during the first 15 seasons, the fans kept hoping that they would come back for the movie.

Nevertheless, everybody was unpleasantly surprised when was informed that Mexican actors Humberto Vélez (Homer), Nancy McKenzie (Marge) and Gabriel Chávez (Mr. Burns), among others, wouldn't be part of the cast.

Because of that, a thread was open at the forums, with the title "Únete al boicot" (Join the boycott). Right now, there are dozens of threads protesting and calling for boycott. A member of the forum said:

"It's pathetic and depressing that after waiting for so long for the movie, it will end up being a fiasco because we won't have the original voices which are the ones who gave true life to Simpsons' characters. I'm joining the boycott...."

Will the Latin fans achieve their goal? The loss of box office profits will be big enough to force the creators of the series to review their decision? I'm guessing it won't. Nobody cared about the Latin American audience when they canceled the actors contracts. The cancellation was widely criticized, the fans complained about it, but the contracts were canceled anyway. Why? because the actors asked for more money. Obviously, the poor company was unable to pay more money, in order to keep the audience happy.

We really don't count for sh... in this world.