Actually I read the OP and this is not the first time "Apu is offensive" news has been on the site. You dont need to see a documentary for that but whatever man.
Simpsons creator Matt Groening on Apu: 'People love to pretend they're offended'
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Actually I read the OP and this is not the first time "Apu is offensive" news has been on the site. You dont need to see a documentary for that but whatever man.
I understand what you mean, but people often focus on the small things because they are emblematic and indicative of the big things.
The joke with Homer: He's an everyman idiot.
The joke with Wiggum: He's an idiot who's out of his depth in his job.
The joke with Comic Book Guy: He's an antisocial nerd.
The joke with Willy: He's angry and overreacts. Is buff.
The joke with Apu: He's an Indian man.
Do you get the problem yet?
The thing that you have to bear in mind is that Indian people actually exist in North America. For some people this is less "a drop in the bucket" because it's not just something they're looking at abstractly as an example of American racism on a whole, it's something that is a part of their own lives.
Does that make sense? It's harder for some people not to care because they're actually the ones being affected.
Does that make sense? It's harder for some people not to care because they're actually the ones being affected.
nice backtrack. you care about PoC so much you don't want to think about inequality because it makes you cry? Don't post in a thread about it then
You have 0 interest in a listening and hearing what I say, and the only interest you have here is twisting my words , I never said thinking about inequality makes me cry.
jesus man how old are you fucking 12? Yeah I typed all that shit on my phone to fool you! Cant you see I dont give a crap about equality!?
Come the fuck on. Im outta this thread. Only wanted to share my thoughts on it not start a fucking discussion with people like you who wont take what I say at face value.
Can someone explain some peoples (mostly white) always tell marginalized groups what they should focus on?!
It just comes across like bullshit tbh.
Sooy, I haven't seen the documentary cause it's not available in my country, but i want to ask what are the solutions proposed by the creators of this documentary to solve this issue. Change something in the character, and what? Cut Apu from Simpsons? Is this some of those type of documentary filled with lots of question but not real answer?
There should be a stipulation for these Apu threads saying don't bother commenting unless you watched the doc.
There are way too much dumbass shit being posted here that is already addressed in the doc.
And then there are the usual suspects from those threads who regurgitate the stupid whatabout arguments again, who didn't bother to watch the doc back then, and are here cosigning Groening's fuckery now. If you think you're being sly, you are not.
This shit is infuriating.
There are way too much dumbass shit being posted here that is already addressed in the doc.
And then there are the usual suspects from those threads who regurgitate the stupid whatabout arguments again, who didn't bother to watch the doc back then, and are here cosigning Groening's fuckery now. If you think you're being sly, you are not.
This shit is infuriating.
But you have nothing to say. You're literally going out of your way to not actually know what the thread is about.
Heck, just reading a summary about what it covered would be nice.
This is not the joke with Apu.
Apu is a largely "straight man" character running his business. The jokes early on tend to be around unscrupulous small business practices (selling out of date food) and desperately trying to get customers to his business. As they expand the character his storylines have to do with being an immigrant trying to fit into the community.
At no point is it "LOL an Indian", but Big Bang Theory frequently has jokes where that is the punchline. But it's ok because Marvel-reference and Indian actor?
Im not telling anyone what they should focus on tho. All im communicating here is my personal standpoint. If you feel that is the wrong standpoint Id love to receive a pm explaining why. For my own blood pressure I think its best not to respond itt anymore lol.
No they don't. It's why they had to outsource their roles to Americans.
Well, Willy has a Scottish accent, a nationality that is often mocked for incoherent rage. Cleetus has a southern drawl and pokes fun at hillybillies. There are absolutely loads of stereotypes in the Simpsons. That's the whole point of the show - it plays with them.
I think I'm missing some suggestions, but the conclusion seemed to be that it wasn't easy. There was an unused idea mentioned with the Jay episode where it would flash to Hank Azaria in the recording booth to acknowledge his voice actor situation, and they liked that, but noted that the actual episode was ruined by the Italian chef guy popping in at the end to ridicule the whole effort. They also discussed killing Apu, but Hari felt like it was probably not a good thing to kill of The Simpson's major Indian character.
Did anyone actually defend Big Bang Theory in this thread, or are you just doing the thing where some people aren't allowed to criticize things unless you criticize these other things?
People love to pretend that something so obviously racist isn't.
Like how can you get defensive over someone calling Apu's voice racist? It's so obviously racist. Even as a kid I got that it was racist. All other jokes aside, you're supposed to laugh at the silly Indian with the silly voice "because that's how they talk", that's always been the joke.
Like how can you get defensive over someone calling Apu's voice racist? It's so obviously racist. Even as a kid I got that it was racist. All other jokes aside, you're supposed to laugh at the silly Indian with the silly voice "because that's how they talk", that's always been the joke.
Makes you feel sad, meanwhile there were Indian kids getting beat up while being called Apu.
White fragility lvl 100
Another favourite is people bringing up Willie or Bumblebee man, why would the Indian people in the documentary bring them up?
Is there a furore and movement against BBT's representation?
Apu shouldn't be voiced by Azaria.
The show's response has been poor.
But it's bullshit to say the joke with Apu was his ethnicity. That was never the case.
It's certainly been criticized in previous threads, so it hasn't been totally ignored, if that makes you happy.
Haven't seen the documentary but plan to.
I can only give my sheltered, middle class white boy perspective and won't presume to speak for Indian people or POC more broadly as I am sure their perspectives are totally different.
I watched the show from the start and I love Apu. Beyond the stereotype, he is one of the most upstanding, honest, hard-working and ethical people in the show and also has some of the funniest moments and heartfelt moments in the show's history. It saddens me to think that while I was privileged and sheltered enough to be able to fall in love with the character, that many Indian people were made to feel uncomfortable by the more tangible surface level elements of Apu.
I genuinely believe that in the golden era of the show he evolved from shallow backdrop character into a love letter to first generation Americans who came to the country, grabbed the opportunity with both hands, became beacons of their community and showed up the "real Americans" in the community in terms of real hard work and moral values.
It just also happened that the show was created in a bit of a mini dark age in terms of understanding how racial stereotypes can do widespread harm and as a result some of the choices around Apu's more tangible elements have aged very badly. I just can't accept that he is the creation of racists though and I think it is revisionism to look back and say that. The product of unintended ignorance, yes but not blatant racists. The guy here who made that Klan remark is a tool. The Simpson's was basically as woke as mainstream entertainment got in the 90s. We've just happened to evolve our understandings more since.
Sad situation and there is no real easy way for it to be handled at this point. I can't really reconcile the recent poor efforts of the show to respond to this with the show I once loved, as modern Simpson's literally has no connection in my mind to the classic era. It's just a re-animated corpse being shaken until the pennies stop falling out.
I can only give my sheltered, middle class white boy perspective and won't presume to speak for Indian people or POC more broadly as I am sure their perspectives are totally different.
I watched the show from the start and I love Apu. Beyond the stereotype, he is one of the most upstanding, honest, hard-working and ethical people in the show and also has some of the funniest moments and heartfelt moments in the show's history. It saddens me to think that while I was privileged and sheltered enough to be able to fall in love with the character, that many Indian people were made to feel uncomfortable by the more tangible surface level elements of Apu.
I genuinely believe that in the golden era of the show he evolved from shallow backdrop character into a love letter to first generation Americans who came to the country, grabbed the opportunity with both hands, became beacons of their community and showed up the "real Americans" in the community in terms of real hard work and moral values.
It just also happened that the show was created in a bit of a mini dark age in terms of understanding how racial stereotypes can do widespread harm and as a result some of the choices around Apu's more tangible elements have aged very badly. I just can't accept that he is the creation of racists though and I think it is revisionism to look back and say that. The product of unintended ignorance, yes but not blatant racists. The guy here who made that Klan remark is a tool. The Simpson's was basically as woke as mainstream entertainment got in the 90s. We've just happened to evolve our understandings more since.
Sad situation and there is no real easy way for it to be handled at this point. I can't really reconcile the recent poor efforts of the show to respond to this with the show I once loved, as modern Simpson's literally has no connection in my mind to the classic era. It's just a re-animated corpse being shaken until the pennies stop falling out.
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I'll also add in response to this:
the origin stories of Apu seem to shift the blame around, but it seems like he was originally just meant to be a nondescript clerk, and explicitly not Indian because that would be too cliche. He was made into an Indian explicitly because Hank Azaria decided to do a Peter Sellers imitation mock Indian accent and the staff found it funny.. So bear that in mind in saying that the joke for him was never his ethnicity; his ethnicity was chosen so that viewers can laugh at his voice.
This isn't that difficult.
White people making fun of themselves is obviously completely different to promoting a damaging stereotype of a marginalised minority.
Its why black people can make fun of themselves or say the N word but you can't.
For some reason a lot of white people are incapable of understanding this.
This is a great post. I feel the same way in that as a child Apu was an incredibly endearing character with far more moral fibre than most on the show but there are inherent issues with the portrayal of his character which we now know led to many young Asian American's struggling socially. In hindsight the Simpsons makers had the ability to acknowledge the very real issues on a human level, apologise and move on. He chose to accuse them of pretending. The fact that the show is still stumbling along as a shell of its former self is a pretty significant symbol of how much they're willing to do and ignore to keep that gravy train rolling.
It won't, so that's why his blatantly aggressive responses both here and in his show are ridiculous to me.
Basically, this. He has now turned a small pebble in the stream into a fucking stone.
Is that known for sure? Obviously Hank Azaria should not have voiced the character.
I never felt like the show presented Apu to laugh at his voice and I'm pretty sure those who used his catchphrases to bully minorities would have done so regardless of The Simpsons.
And I bring up BBT because there are imo far more nefarious targets for this sort of thing than a dated Simpsons characterisation from 20 years ago.
This is not a cut and dry comparison to make. For instance one of the filmmaker's arguments was that there were VERY few representations of Indian characters in Western Media (and most of them were white people imitating Indians). At that time there was a far greater variety of representation of Scots in Western media to help abate a stereotypical national view of them somewhat. However, if you were offended by Grounds keeper Willie you would be completely with your rights to be.
Ugh, is this true? Disappointing if so; I've appreciated how on top of things mods have been previously.
Guess the only solution is to report more and hope it doesn't come across as overzealous. The problem is that when less things are modded it's harder to tell what the line is, in my opinion.
Yeah, because GAF totally has people I agree with and not entirely people I disagree with, bud.
There's a difference between differing opinions and some of this garbage besides. I'm fine with different takes on media; less interested in folks defending racism.
The documentary goes into it. Watch it if you're curious.
As for the Big Bang Theory, I'm going to take off the gloves a bit here. I'm Indian. The Big Bang Theory wasn't around when I was a kid. Apu was. Apu was the playground go-to when mocking Indian kids. I don't care if you think The Big Bang Theory is worse; Apu was the one that was a part of my experience. I don't watch The Big Bang Theory and no one talks about Raj to me.
Honestly, I fucking hate that Indian character too. Yet another situation where the joke is "get it? he's Indian".
So few Indians born in the West even have accents!
Dude, I feel your pain. I went through the same shit.
How are the following words not telling us what we should focus on?
the amount of people who took the time to respond in this thread, but not even watch a two minute trailer on youtube is fucking devastating
If you want, but Willie is absolutely hilarious, stereotypes or not. British people in general tend to handle comedy and stereotypes far better than Americans. Nearly every topic on this forum stretching back to GAF around anything to do with comedy would be inundated with Americans saying something is problematic. I accept this is a heavily balanced American community, but even in the mainstream media coming out of the UK we don't see even a quarter of the American media's focus on South Park, The Simpsons and everything else digging up objections and no fun allowed.
That being said The Simpsons is a shell of its former self and should either wrap up and end or in this instance they should just have gave in here and either removed Apu from the remaining story arcs, or changed the voice actor. Doing the later would probably still have Americans say the stereotypes need to be stopped, but that begins to eat into what The Simpsons plays around with for humour. Bombastic stereotypes. So in my opinion it's best just to wrap up the show or in the short term write Apu out of the series for good.
Matt didn't help himself here and he's going to be fed to the wolves for it. Rightly or wrongly he just is.
Compare the level of African American representation on TV in the years leading up to the Simpsons vs that of Indian people.
Personally, if people are taking offense at Apu then there will probably be people who take offense to Grounds Keeper Willie. I'm just not one of those people.
Yeah, we Scots are more represented on screen than say perhaps Indians. Usually we are angry, drunk and tight with money - but everything is a stereotype or generalisation when it boils down to it and it's either used for comedic or dramatic effect depending on the show/film.
So the problem seems to be it's a bunch of white guys making sterotypical Indian jokes. So if they hired an Indian writer to write jokes for Apu, this suddenly becomes ok? I'm just trying to get a grip on some of your jumps in logic.
Who cares who's making the joke if its not being hateful. Comedians joke about sterotypes constantly.
Who cares who's making the joke if its not being hateful. Comedians joke about sterotypes constantly.
I'm actually a first generation immigrant, as are some of my cousins, and we don't have Indian accidents either! It happens if you're young when you immigrate.
I probably don't have it as bad because I'm around Toronto and South Asians have become a big part of the population here, but I think it's a pretty common experience childhood experience throughout North America at the very least.
Is the Indian guy they hire a genetically altered clone of the existing writers? Why are they writing the same jokes? Someone with a different cultural experience is going to bring that with them when they write.
What about them? Go ahead and explain why you think they're comparable.
So no one should write fiction for a character outside their ethnicity then. Understood.
The simple fact is that if anyone thinks others are pretending to care without any actual justifications as to why, it's a failure of their imagination and empathy. They think others don't care because they don't understand why anybody would. It's an act of projection that says more about the person using it than those it is used upon.
Of course, the failure of imagination and empathy is what got us into this mess in the first place, so it's not surprising to see it constantly displayed in repsonses. Why, if one had imagination, you wouldn't need racial stereotypes to wholly define characters.
Of course, the failure of imagination and empathy is what got us into this mess in the first place, so it's not surprising to see it constantly displayed in repsonses. Why, if one had imagination, you wouldn't need racial stereotypes to wholly define characters.
Oh I agree with what you are saying here and I do think it's a cultural difference between the UK and America for sure.
You damn well that's not what that person wrote. They asked you a question. Do you think an Indian writer would write the same stereotypical tripe that white writers currently do?
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