The Simpsons (Fox) TV Show • Page 22

Ralph is a savant though right, he was a great George Washington and I feel like there's been other hidden talents he has

 

I find a lot of this kind of amusing and it shows just how long this show has run. When the show first came on the air, it was attacked for being to crass, one of those shows parents wouldnt let kids watch....and i just find it amusing that 30 years later it's now being attacked by a different side of people who think the jokes are too offensive. What a show haha

 

As a brown guy like ya I buy that stuff but the only thing that ever gets me is that a non brown person is doing the voice. When you wanna poke fun at the issues minorities live with, which is fine, just have someone who's lived it play the role

And get paid for it. That shit matters.

 

Nah I'm more than fine with poking fun at drunk Irishmen on St Patrick's day given that the son of an Irish immigrant is now president and actively championing that people be forbidden from the country because they are brown.

I'm more than fine with italian stereotypes given that our society has glorified the mobster with shows like the sopranos and god damn growing up Gotti.

There's a difference.

 

Explain that difference, because what you said doesn't seem comparable to me.

 

That stereotyping people of color often leads to real world violence and harm vs. a stereotype of an Irish/Italian person?

 

Call me naive but what's the real world violence of apu

 

Watch the documentary.

 

When I was a kid some dudes at school chucked rocks at me calling me Apu, just some anecdotal evidence. The only time I've ever seen this kind of thing even mentioned was in Harold and Kumar...which is no surprise considering Kal Penn hates Apu.

 

But that feels and sounds like it's more on those assholes than the character no? There are millions of people who watch the show and would never remotely consider acting in that way

 

But there's still some fraction of people who see that shit and do act that way. Those people might make up fewer than 1% of the show's viewership, but it still exists in some capacity who otherwise probably wouldn't behave in such a way were they never exposed to the stereotypes. There should be absolutely zero people who pull that shit

 

You're not wrong, bad people do bad things that's a whole different discussion.

But the question of whether the character of Apu can be used as part of violence against brown people...it happens.

 

And to bring it to the bigger issue of why is Apu a problem but not anti Italian/Irish/Russian whatever...for every stereotype you can think of that's negative, you can probably name several more who are glorified whether it's real or fictitious

How many of you can name ten powerful brown Americans without googling? But everyone knows Apu.

There's nearly two billion south Asians on this planet and letting a white guy voice arguably the most famous brown guy on tv...dno man.

 

Is that the shows' fault?

Edit: That was in reference to two posts above.

 

I think if we go back to 1990, I can see why a bunch of Harvard writers loved it when Hank azaria busted out the Indian accent when the voice line called for "convenience store clerk"

But in 2018...to respond how they did in the current climate, I do think that the show opting to ignore the opinions of a section of their fanbase says a lot. And it mirrors what we think most of America feels about us right now...it's not a fun place to be.

 

The show falls into lazy stereotypes and has a white guy doing an exaggerated accent.

 

Sure but bad eggs will always exist. It's like people who take Eric cartman seriously and don't see him as the caricature that he obviously is.

Idk. As a die hard I've never considered apu more than a guy who owns a quickee mart and is a part of a town and that's literally it and I think most most most people see it that way.

I guess my question is what would be your ideal situation?

 

I don't like the excuse that because bad people will always exist, there really shouldn't be anything we find unacceptable. It doesn't logically check out, and its mainly an excuse to avoid critical thinking. All pain and suffering in the universe is not unavoidable. We make choices that make things worse for people. We should be trying to be better always.

 

Not to mention that Irish/Italians/Russians white people in general have, for a variety of reasons, materially and culturally benefitted off the very real subjugation and artístic caricaturization of brown and black folk for centuries, which is reinforced through greater racist and imperialist practices and modalities. Stereotypes against white people aren’t remotely in the same category because racism and prejudice is a function of power.

 

But it sounds like that the bad people though are the root of the problem. As I've heard in here it's not necessarily a problem if one pokes fun at someknes heritage but it's the backlash and real life consequences that come from it.

Aka the bad eggs

Idk. I'm just not seeing it here.

Edit; not sure why it quoted twice but it sounds like I'm double making a point and I like that

 

Yeah, it'd be great if media depictions didn't have an impact on society and the real life experience of people, but to pretend that they don't is ignoring reality. They do. Choices about representation matter.

 

But I'm still not necessarily understanding what the overall complaint is here. No I haven't seen the docu but clearly many of you have so you can all enlighten me... what is the main concern with apu and what could the Simpson's do to help those concerns?

 

I mean, watch the doc. Its like an hour and way more in depth than I could just relay second hand.

The biggest issue for me is, that in addition to being a character based entirely on a stereotype, its being performed by a white dude.

 

If an Indian voiced him and the character and all the jokes and stories were the same, would there still be a problem?

 

Apu in a nutshell

I don't think it would be as offensive if the actor was Indian but it's hard for me to say as a white person, but pretty much the gist is the voice is stereotypical and it's not like there's other more positive portrayals of Indian people in the media until very recently with Mindy and I feel weird bringing up Aziz but I think I have to