Today, April 26th, 2023, comedians Hari Kondabolu and Hank Azaria appeared on NPR’s “Code Switch” to discuss the 2017 documentary The Problem with Apu, and the fallout from the identical within the intervening years. The dialog came about on this week’s Code Switch episode “The Fallout of a Callout,” hosted by Gene Demby.
The Problem with Apu
In 2017, The Problem with Apu was launched. The documentary was not simply vital of Apu’s portrayal by white actor Azaria over thirty seasons of The Simpsons, the seminal animated sequence created by Matt Groening. It additionally examined the depiction of South Asian individuals in American media usually.
Predictably, many judged the documentary with out truly watching it. “It all became part of an example of ‘political correctness,’ and here’s another example of someone who just wants to kill something,” Kondabolu informed NPR.
However, Azaria mirrored on how the documentary modified his perspective on his portrayal of Apu: “A character I did… I hindered them, I caused them pain? I actually actively made their path harder? That sucks. That was one of the first things that really came home to me and made me go, ‘Okay, that’s real.’”
In newer years, Apu and his household have appeared within the background on new episodes of The Simpsons, now in its 34th season. However, none of them have had any dialogue since 2017’s “The Serfsons.” And in 2018’s “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” a scene serving as an episode tag appeared to recommend no motion could be taken concerning Azaria’s efficiency as Apu.
However, in January 2020, Azaria introduced he would not be portraying Apu on The Simpsons. Azaria continues to play dozens of different roles, together with Moe Syzslak, Comic Book Guy, and Police Chief Clancy Wiggum.
But there are different roles moreover Apu that Azaria has stepped away from, together with the Black character Carl Carlson. Since 2020, Carl has been voiced by Alex Désert, together with within the 2023 episode “Carl Carlson Rides Again,” which explicitly tackled race relations in Springfield.
Ongoing Fallout
In 2021, Azaria informed Dax Shepherd‘s Armchair Expert podcast, “Part of me feels like I need to go around to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologize.”
On “Code Switch,” Azaria thanked Kondabolu for “dragging and pushing me into this conversation.” Kondabolu responded:
“It means rather a lot to listen to you say that. I do know you’ve informed me privately the impression that I’ve made, however to listen to that publicly is a very large deal to me as a result of one of many issues that annoyed me after the movie got here out is that I used to be getting demise threats… Initially, it bothered me that you simply didn’t point out me as a result of I needed to cope with all this crap to get it there… There is a historical past of white people speaking about what they’ve discovered and sharing the information with out giving credit score to the individuals of colour that really obtained them there. Like, you set within the work and then you definately get by no means get credit score for the work. And on the finish of the day, I’m speaking about this far more than I wished to.
“And I know it’s a different experience for both of us because for you it’s opened up all these new ideas and you’ve grown in incredible ways and I can see your excitement about the work you’re doing now. To me, this was old hat when I made the documentary. So it’s the double whammy of being stuck here without also getting props. So for you to say it now does mean a lot.”
You can hearken to all the dialog with Code Switch right here.
New episodes of The Simpsons air on Sunday on Fox, can be found for streaming the subsequent day on Hulu and are subsequently obtainable for streaming on Disney+.
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