And Bumblebee Man. And Üter Zörker. And Disco Stu appropriated the Afro.
Mainly, it’s that it’s a painful touchstone. Basically when Apu became a thing it was right around when there was an influx of immigrants from the subcontinent and he was about the only “Indian guy” on TV. So his comical accent and slushies were the go to insults of grade school kids trying to make fun of their new Indian classmates. No, unlike what someone said above, Apu didn’t create alienation or bad stereotyping, he’s a pretty well rounded character. The problem is that he was used as verbal weapon regardless. You may not be sympathetic, but that’s the coherent description of the problem with Apu.
There’s no way the Simpons will capitulate so hard as to hire an East Indian to voice some new character. The most you can hope for is to move him/kill him off.
Re: Apu: They should give the character the Poochie treatment only to be replaced by Tad the privileged Ivy League dropout.
…of course you don’t think an all white writing team is a problem. That doesn’t surprise me in the least. That is your privilege to do so of course.
Have you watched "The Problem with Apu? Did you listen to what Hank Azaria had to say?
Have you watched "The Problem with Apu? Did you listen to what Hank Azaria had to say?
Have you watched "The Problem with Apu? Did you listen to what Hank Azaria had to say?
You are welcome to address whatever other problems you feel you want to regarding equality and bigotry. You go change the world!
But nothing is being “cheapened” by this story. It is entirely possible to both address “bigger” equality and bigotry issues and to offer critique on a worldwide cultural phenomenon such as the Simpsons. You may or may not know this: but you can do two things at once! Hari’s critique was measured, reasonable and thoughtful. The critique of his critique? Not so much.
Because nobody ever offered Xenu a peanut.
Because, while still not the best, there’s still a healthy variety of representations of black people in media. We’ve had the Huxtables or Olivia Pope or that one guy from The New Girl.
Even on The Simpsons, you have Carl and Dr. Hibbert and other lesser characters for balance.
Indians are poorly represented. There’s Apu, Aziz Ansari, Big Bang Theory guy and whoever Mindy Kaling is currently playing. And two of those are accented stereotypes.
As has been pointed out, the problem isn’t necessarily Apu in a show like the Simpsons. It’s that Apu is ALL THERE IS in a show like the Simpsons. A show that carried a lot of cultural currency in its heyday. The problem is that it was the SINGULAR representation of Indians for much (maybe most) of the country without balance and is/was therefore damaging.
As someone already mentioned, you don’t fix Apu. If you’re going to ‘fix’ anything, it would be by introducing new Indian characters whose foibles aren’t stereotypes.
BigT:
Apu hasn’t led to bigotry. The lack of south Asians in pop culture other than Apu has led to bigotry.
Let Apu be Apu. South Asian representation in pop culture is increasing, and Apu’s place as a stereotype with which people hurt real-life south Asians will soon be a thing of the past.
@planetcory:
Outside of his accent and liking spicy food, how is the Big Bang guy stereotyped? ISTM, he’s in the exact same niche as the rest of the cast.
(emphasis mine)
Actually, Raj hates Indian food.
But he likes Thai as far as I can recall, so spicy food is probably legit.
Yeah, the only reason I used that example was it was specifically mentioned in some joke on a rerun that was on a couple of days ago.
I guess ‘stereotype’ is kind of a stretch with him, but he’s the accented other. Which is typical of how Indians have been portrayed in the few instances that they’ve been portrayed at all.
In the four examples you gave, he is an “accented other” first generation American who fits in perfectly with his group, Apu is shall we say a cartoonish “other” and your last two are normal Americans.
Considering Indian Americans make up maybe 1% of the US population, is having television aswarm with cosmopolitan unaccented Indians more “realistic” for some reason?
so I assume it would surprise you when I tell you that I don’t think an all-black, all-asian or all-mexican writing team would be a problem either?
yes
yes
yes
You can indeed and, you may not be aware of this but actions taken with the best of intentions can turn out to be misguided and counterproductive. It is, after all, a very simple thing to focus on Apu. You stand a very good chance of kicking up a fuss about it and it is a very simple simple narrative to create. The fact that the criticism is ill-founded is allowed to slip by. And here’s another thing that’ll blow your mind, Hari is not necessarily right on this.
I thought it was simplistic and narrow minded. I’ve listened to and enjoyed Hari on numerous occasions but on this subject I think he is wrong. I don’t think the problem with Apu is with how he is written, drawn or voiced. I don’t think there is a problem at all.
…it really would take a lot to surprise me, and this doesn’t surprise me at all.
Cool!
Excellent!
Fantastic!
And if Hari or Azaria were unable to provide a coherent argument (for you) for why the character is particularly problematic in the first place, then I’m afraid that nobody will be able to convince you, because they both did a pretty good job of making that case.
You may not be aware of this: but “misguided” and “counterproductive” are subjective, not objective measures. What may seem misguided to you will be “perfectly on point” for millions of other people. What might appear to be “counterproductive” to you might seem to be progress for everyone else.
Except “ill-founded” is simply your opinion. You are here, expressing your subjective ill-founded opinion about Hari’s opinion. That is obviously just my opinion of course, and it wouldn’t surprise me if you considered my opinion ill-founded, but that just the way these things go.
And this may blow your mind: but Hari is not necessarily wrong on this either.
Well thanks for adding your voice to the chorus of voices that don’t think there is a problem, which contrasts with the chorus of people who think there is a problem. Nobody (IMHO, of course) has provided a coherent argument as to why Hari’s critique isn’t valid, is he a bad person? A poor role model? So as much as I doubt anyone will be changing your mind, I can happily assure you that you won’t be changing my mind either.
Banquet Bear, opinion is all we have. Feel free to stick to “…but this is only my opinion” in parenthesis after every comment I make if it helps. I mentally tack them them on to every comment made on a subject such as this because there is no *objective *right and wrong. Hari’s piece was certainly just opinion and I remain unconvinced by his argument.
The wider problem for me is that far. far too many people are quick to use disagreement with arguments such as Hari’s, as evidence for latent racist tendencies or similar and this is lazy and ignorant thinking on a par with that shown by true racists.
…if this indeed is what you consider to be the “wider problem”: how many times have you seen that happen in this thread? How many times have you seen it “out in the wild?”
I don’t think this is a wider problem at all, and its a “problem” completely out of Hari’s or anybody else’s control. Its a problem that has nothing at all to do with the critique, and its a problem that is easily solved by not following the people who are saying things you don’t like on Twitter and Facebook.
I don’t know if it is outright in this thread, I suspect though that you probably think my anti-racist credentials are poorer than yours because I don’t buy into Hari’s criticism.
I suspect you wouldn’t see it anyway or would dismiss it as not a problem in any case.
What Exit:
But is liking spicy food a particularly Indian stereotype, given how many other cuisines are spicy? If it’s not Indian cuisine he’s fond of, it’s no more a stereotypical Indian trait than a Mexican one.