Simpsons Indian Thank You Come Again
Editorial Observer
A Reckoning for Apu, 'The Simpsons' and Brownface
Mr. Bajaj is a member of the editorial board.
"Thank you, come again" — those four words, spoken in an exaggerated Indian accent, take followed immigrants and Americans of South Asian descent like a bad penny since "The Simpsons" premiered in 1989. They helped make Apu, the show's tightfisted convenience store possessor, a household proper noun. And they are often repeated to united states, with a sly grin or a guffaw, by the same people who are surprised that we speak English in grammatically sound sentences.
Final week brought Indian-Americans of my generation some relief: Hank Azaria, the white role player who has voiced Apu for 29 seasons, told Stephen Colbert that he is willing to stop playing the character because he now understands why Apu is troubling to the community that he is supposed to stand for. "My optics have been opened," Mr. Azaria said. "And I think the most important thing is that nosotros take to listen to Southward Asian people, Indian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this graphic symbol."
2 cheers for Mr. Azaria. Credit for his newfound enlightenment on this issue belongs to Hari Kondabolu, the comedian, whose 2017 documentary "The Problem With Apu" is a funny and informative explication of how the character perpetuated ugly stereotypes about Southward Asians that harm people to this solar day. Though "The Simpsons" has on occasion portrayed Apu and his family with nuance and desolation, the character also encourages the infantilizing of Indian immigrants as simple-minded people who talk in a singsong phonation. Even Apu's last proper noun — Nahasapeemapetilon — is presented in a way that invites mockery.
Of course, Mr. Azaria doesn't control Apu'due south fate on the show. That responsibility falls to the writers of "The Simpsons" and the corporate bosses at Fox, the network that arrogance the show. Going past what the prove'due south creator, Matt Groening, said dismissively about the criticism of Apu — "I think it'south a time in our culture where people love to pretend they're offended," he told Us Today — and the show's churlish reaction to Mr. Kondabolu's documentary on an episode earlier this month, Apu will probably remain ensconced in the Kwik-Eastward-Mart.
No doubt such an consequence would please the many fans of Apu, some Indian-Americans among them, and those who love to runway against "political definiteness" — Apu is just a funny fictional character, and critics are being overly sensitive, these people often fence.
But for many of united states, it is not and then like shooting fish in a barrel to dismiss Apu and his accent as a mere joke. Information technology is too often articulate that the joke is on us — and even more and then on our older relatives. Apu was the simply major South Asian character on prime-time Tv for many years, helping to define how millions of Americans think Indians, Pakistanis and other people from the subcontinent talk and live.
As with all caricatures, there is some truth to Apu. Many South Asian immigrants, specially those who came in earlier decades, exercise work behind the counters of seven-Elevens and other such stores, often considering it is the only work they can get. Many of them are parsimonious because they are sending money domicile or saving up to send their kids to college. They don't ever empathize American slang and norms, and so tin come beyond as bumbling. They cling to customs and religions that they brought with them from the old land because those are their connection to home.
Just many aspects of the character reveal Apu to exist the brown equivalent of greasepaint minstrel performances. He comes across every bit a caricature designed to mock a minority for the entertainment of the majority. "Often, racism is dismissed nether the guise of humor," says Shilpa Davé, a professor at the University of Virginia and author of "Indian Accents: Dark-brown Vocalization and Racial Performance in American Telly and Film." "There is e'er an undercurrent of truth to it and in that location is also an undercurrent of censure and satire."
Brownface — or brown-voice, in the case of Mr. Azaria and Apu — does not have every bit long a history equally blackface, just there are plenty of examples of it. Mr. Azaria has said he was inspired by a performance Peter Sellers gave in a 1968 comedic moving picture, "The Party." His face darkened with makeup, Mr. Sellers plays an Indian actor who is invited to a Hollywood bash, which he proceeds to wreck. Earlier, Mr. Sellers had a cameo as a clueless Indian doctor in the 1962 moving-picture show "The Road to Hong Kong." In the 1988 motion picture "Curt Circuit 2," Fisher Stevens, who is white, plays an Indian scientist with brownish makeup and a fake accent. More recently, in 2012, Ashton Kutcher put on brownface for an advertisement for PopChips. Fifty-fifty blackface has not disappeared — information technology crops up especially around Halloween.
Clearly, a lot has inverse since Apu entered American living rooms. Mindy Kaling, Hasan Minhaj, Aziz Ansari and Kumail Nanjiani, to name a few rising actors, are regular fixtures on screens large and small-scale. Priyanka Chopra, a Bollywood star, plays the leading character in the ABC drama "Quantico." Due south Asians, of course, nonetheless face obstacles — there are not a lot of them in positions of power backside the camera, Ms. Davé says — but they are in a much improve position to offer viewers a necessary corrective to the cramped representation put forward by the creators of Apu.
Just keeping Apu on "The Simpsons" in his electric current course would be a huge missed opportunity for the bear witness, which on the whole has been one of the most thoughtful voices in American popular culture by addressing issues like clearing, discrimination and the power of large corporations that most network Television set shows have studiously avoided. Mr. Groening has said he named Apu after Satyajit Ray'southward humanist masterpiece, "The Apu Trilogy," suggesting that he of all people ought to understand why many people notice this grapheme so troubling.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/29/opinion/simpsons-apu-brownface.html
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