More selective outrage

[Goober McTuber]

d'oh!

Simpsons Creator Proves, Again, That He Doesn’t Get the Problem with Apu

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon appears to have, once again, come back to haunt Simpsons creator Matt Groening. The character has barely appeared on the long-running animated comedy in two years—but as Groening sat down with The New York Times ahead of a Comic-Con appearance to promote his new Netflix series, the Indian store clerk came back to haunt him once more. Specifically, the Times asked Groening about his last attempt to address the controversy—which didn’t end well.

The saga began last year, when comedian Hari Kondabolu released a documentary called The Problem with Apu. As Kondabolu pointed out in the film, Apu, who was introduced in the show’s first season, traffics in countless stereotypes, from his occupation running the Kwik-E-Mart to his thick accent. In April, the series confronted the issue directly, but the show’s flippant approach only courted more controversy. Weeks later, Groening emerged to brush off the whole conversation surrounding Apu: “I’m proud of what we do on the show. And I think it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended,” he said. As one might imagine, it did not go over well.

When asked by the Times how he felt about the response to the show’s handling of the Apu debate, Groening responded, once again: “I love Apu. I love the character, and it makes me feel bad that it makes other people feel bad. But on the other hand, it’s tainted now—the conversation, there’s no nuance to the conversation now. It seems very, very clunky.”

Soon after that poorly received April installment of The Simpsons aired, Hank Azaria, who has voiced the character since Season 1, said he was willing to “step aside” and let someone of South Asian descent play the role—an offer Simpsons writer Mike Reiss later compared to “Val Kilmer announcing he won’t play Batman again—no one’s asking him to.” The show has dealt with the controversy surrounding Apu, according to Reiss, by sidelining the character; he has hardly appeared on the series in years, and given his polarizing nature, it seems likely that he won’t for quite some time.

When the Times asked whether Apu would appear again, Groening demurred: “If we come up with a good story, we’ll do it.” As for his previous comment, Groening now claims that when he said people like to feign offense at things, he wasn’t speaking specifically about Apu: “That was about our culture in general,” Groening told the Times. “And that’s something I’ve noticed for the last 25 years. There is the outrage of the week, and it comes and goes. For a while, it was, believe it or not, kids were stealing quarters out of their mothers’ purses in order to go to the video arcade, and that was going to bring down civilization. No one even remembers that, because that lasted a week. I think particularly right now, people feel so aggrieved and crazed and powerless that they’re picking the wrong battles.”

Despite the criticism The Simpsons has received over Apu, Groening insisted that at its core, the series is thoughtful. He pointed to the fact that its core family is painted yellow, rather than a shade of pink that connotes Caucasian skin. “It’s taking that pink away, and making it yellow,” he said. “And then taking yellow away from whatever racist connotation that that has had . . . As many people have pointed out, it’s all stereotypes on our show. That’s the nature of cartooning. And you try not to do reprehensible stereotypes. Anyway. I probably said too much.”

[Rooster]

This is precisely the point I made about the latest movie about trannies. In this particular case, when a voiceover actor— a person that nobody sees —says he is willing to step aside to allow another voiceover actor of the sex/gender/race/age/culinary preference/religion (again, that doesn’t seem to apply in today’s PC world unless you are a Muslim)/sexual orientation to properly do the voice of a fictitious character, things have gotten incredibly stupid in today’s world.

Wringing your hands over stereotypes and quotas instituted by identity politics is a one way street towards alienating everyone.

[Dinsdale]

Made me think about... Hank Azaria doing my sig in Apu's voice.


VVVVVVVVV