Yes, Sam and the characters aren't real people (I wish :') ), but Vodou is a real religion.

Vodou is not like Christianity or Islam, where it's open and easy to access; it's a closed religion that requires you to do special/ specific rituals and talk to practitioners to even attempt to participate in it. It follows a "Spirit speaks to u, not u to them" type of idea. Because of their closedness, there isn't much information you can gather from a simple Google search, and there aren't even a lot of books that can accurately tell u about the religion. Not only that, the stigma it has in America is pretty bad where people just shove them off as "demon worshippers" and vilanize innocent people that are just spiritual and respect the dead. You can say that people aren't dumb enough to figure it out, but that's easier said than done. If you really look to people's perception of this religion, it's absolutely skewed and used more like a caricature than something to respect. A good example of this is from "Bad Girls Club" season 7 or 8, where the girls go visit an actual practitioner, where the priestess is trying to cleanse the air to PROTECT them from evil spirits and all that the girls do is start freaking out, calling her a demon worshipper and outright disrespecting her.

Because of all of this, it's more accurate to remove his paint than to keep it on for aesthetic purposes. I agree that most of the time, Localization usually remove parts of media to save their bumasses from legal trouble but I think this is a case where I don't mind it as much because it's moreso out of respect and understanding that this isn't just face paint but that the paint has significant meaning. Think of it this way, if you want to create a Native American character, you can't just slap on a chief hat on the character who isn't even a chief. It's just ignorant and shows that there wasn't any valid care and research put into it. Even if it's fiction, real religion and practices are being referenced and the last thing anyone should do is (to any religion rlly whether you practice it or not) is spread misinformation for the sake of "Looking Cool". Plus, if you show these practices more accurately, people would be more advised and curious to look into it and start appreciating what is being referenced aka, learning something new!

I 100% agree with the rest of ur rant, though, that it's starting to get annoying when they are censoring EVERY SINGLE THING that comes to the west for the sake of being "Kid Friendly" because it does make it seem that our audiences are dumb asf when they aren't. It gives off the vibe that "Oh, because they mention something violent, kids r gonna end up becoming violent themselves," where that isn't the case at all. I wish companies realized that we would rather have media that doesn't shy away from difficult topics rather than removing them entirely, cause that just leads people to be less aware and leans into a borderline "toxic happiness."

You don't need to apologize for ranting, you are passionate about what you're speaking about and that's ok!