The Problem
Have you heard about The Problem With Apu? It’s a 2017 documentary about a comedian’s exploration into the cultural impact of the Indian Simpsons character named Apu. It’s remained in the news thanks to some recent developments. First, an episode of The Simpsons aired which seemed to try to address the controversy. And while some people considered it to be a thoughtful response, many others were less than impressed. More recently, Hank Azaria, the actor who voices Apu (and who is not Indian) made news for saying that he was willing to step aside and did not agree with the show’s response to the controversy.
The controversy has really made me think about things like what is offensive and how it’s changed in recent years. If the line between what is acceptable and what is offensive hasn’t moved a lot lately, then it has at least gotten a lot blurrier. I wanted to express some of my thoughts on the issue, but I also wanted to give a warning before going any further. Usually, when I start writing an article, I go into it trying to make a point and explaining how I arrived at that point. Not in this case. Here, I don’t really have a destination. Don’t expect many answers. Instead, expect a lot of questions that I am seeking answers to.
Also, don’t worry if you haven’t seen the documentary or the Simpsons episode in question. Neither have I. This isn’t about addressing the points from the documentary or discussing the show’s response. This is a much higher level and personal discussion. This is me talking out loud as I try to make sense of my conflicting thoughts on this issue and figure out what is right and what is wrong in an ever changing world.
My Problem
My problem with Apu is that I don’t have a problem with Apu, but I know others do. While I consider myself to be a big supporter of free speech, I also don’t like people to feel hurt or offended. I want to be able to understand why certain things are considered offensive or hurtful so I can avoid upsetting others.
I don’t find Apu offensive, but I’m not Indian. I’m not the biggest Simpsons fan on the planet, but I’ve seen my fair share of episodes and frankly Apu has always seemed to be one of the admirable characters on the show. Whereas most residents of Springfield exhibit extreme levels of stupidity, greediness, laziness, drunkenness or all of the above, Apu has often seemed to be the voice of reason. He’s smart and hard working. He apparently has struggled with infidelity, but he still seems like a saint when compared to Homer, who has framed his wife for drunk driving and routinely chokes his son as punishment.
Is Apu a stereotype? Maybe. He’s a Hindu who works in a convenience store and has an arranged marriage, but he also has plenty of other traits that flesh him out as a person (it’s hard not to be fleshed out after 29 seasons). What is the step too far that turns him into a stereotype? Would it be okay if he were simply a Hindu with an arranged marriage? Does he need to be a non-arranged, non-Hindu who doesn’t work at a convenience store and doesn’t speak with an accent?
Also, not that it’s a defense, but even if Apu is a stereotype, he’s hardly the only (or the worst) one. Groundskeeper Willie is an even more one-dimensional angry Scotsman. Bumblebee Man mostly speaks in bad Spanish. Cletus is an incestuous hillbilly. The list could go on and on. There are even entire episodes that are non-stop parades of stereotypes, such as when the Simpsons family visits Japan. That episode had George Takei as a guest voice actor, so presumably it wasn’t that offensive to a person of Japanese descent. I certainly don’t recall much of an uproar at the time (although maybe it was overshadowed by the controversy over the seizure inducing scene in the show).
Responsibility
Priyanka Chopra recently spoke out about her thoughts on Apu and how, “He was the bane of my life growing up” because of how she was bullied because of him. I can understand how that would be hurtful, but is it fair to blame the character for people being jerks and abusing his catch-phrase? Is the catch-phrase inherently offensive and/or racist? For whatever reason, I am reminded of the scene in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle where a bunch of punks are harassing an Indian convenience store owner and throw a “Thank you, come again” to Kumar as he’s leaving. As Harold and Kumar steal the punks’ truck, Kumar throws a middle finger and a “Thank you, come again” back at them as a parting gift. Could the catch-phrase be something that is reclaimed by the Indian community?
Speaking of Harold and Kumar, aren’t they stereotypes as well? If I recall, there was a lot of critical acclaim when the movie came out over how it broke stereotypes, but I’m not sure how accurate that is. Harold was a smart and hard working investment banker who had trouble standing up for himself while Kumar was a similarly intelligent and talented medical student. Kumar even admits by the end of the movie that he wants to be a doctor, but is worried about conforming to the stereotype of Indians being doctors. Outside of their love of smoking marijuana, neither seem to break the mold much in terms of stereotypes. One of the funniest moments in the movie for me was the police sketch at the very end of the movie, but I can’t even articulate why that’s not only considered not offensive, but somehow considered part of breaking stereotypes. Is that joke still acceptable? I don’t even know.
Whitewashing
Perhaps the problem is that Apu is voiced by a non-Indian? Is the issue similar to blackface or whitewashing? That can’t be the only reason. The actor who voiced Jar Jar Binks is black, but that didn’t stop people from claiming that Jar Jar was a racist stereotype. Mister Miyagi from the Karate Kid was portrayed by an actor of Japanese descent, but that didn’t prevent people from being offended by the portrayal. Perhaps, as alluded to above, the catch-phrase (“Wax on. Wax off.”) is the real problem?
It’s also a little confusing to me as to what exactly counts as offensive (or acceptable) when it comes to actors portraying something they are not. There seems to be consistent outrage whenever a white actor plays an Asian or black character. However, when a black actor plays a white character (like in the case of Johnny Storm or Hermione Granger), the outrage is much more muted, and those who are offended are often dismissed as racists.
People similarly don’t seem to be terribly offended when gender roles get reversed and a male actor plays a female character or a female actress plays a male character. Nor does there seem to be much outrage when straight actors play gay characters or vice versa. I find this point to be particularly confusing considering how, even today, so many gay characters on television and in movies seem to be much more of a stereotype than Apu is. Whenever I see a straight actor playing a flamboyantly gay role on television, I wonder what the reaction would be if it were a white actor playing some racial stereotype role.
Appropriation
Is it a problem of cultural appropriation? Recently there was a lot of talk about a prom dress that a high school senior wore. The dress happened to be a traditional Chinese dress, and the girl wearing it happened to not be Chinese. After she tweeted pictures of herself wearing the dress, a man named Jeremy Lam tweeted, “My culture is NOT your goddamn prom dress”. A debate on Twitter over cultural appropriation ensued. Interestingly, this could also be framed as a scenario where an adult male tried to bully a high school girl via social media over the clothes she was wearing. Just goes to show how perspective matters.
Anyway, what I found interesting was that apparently in China, the issue was seen much differently. Instead of cultural appropriation, it was seen as cultural appreciation. It sounded as if the Chinese people interviewed were proud that their cultural fashions were being shared around the world. America used to also be proud about being a melting pot where we assimilated other cultures to improve our own (like a benevolent Borg). I wonder if anybody thought to ask Indians (not Indian-Americans, but people who were born and continue to live in India) what they thought of Apu and if their opinions would be any different. Maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe it doesn’t even matter.
The Past
Perhaps it isn’t necessarily a problem inherent to Apu’s character, but perhaps the problem is his character didn’t evolve as society advanced.
It wouldn’t be the first time a character had gone from largely accepted to more controversial. In response to the Apu controversy, Rotten Tomatoes had an article about classic TV characters who look more problematic when viewed through modern eyes. In the age of #MeToo, it’s hard to look back on movies such as American Pie and not wonder how many things that I used to laugh at are now considered much more serious offenses. In a similar vein, Slate had an article about the workplace harassment that is rampant in Love Actually. Even when The Big Bang Theory has jokes about the quasi-homosexual relationship between Howard and Raj, I sometimes wonder if a decade from now those jokes will be considered to be in extremely poor taste.
The Future
I spend a lot of time wondering what future generations will think of us. It seems inevitable to me that there will be at least a few things that our kids will roll their eyes at and can’t believe we were ever okay with as a culture. We venerate the founding fathers, but somehow the same people who said, “all men are created equal” still accepted the institution of slavery. My generation’s grandparents likely lived in a world where the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II occurred and segregation was commonplace. When I was a child, I recall the terms “retarded” and “gay” being thrown around without a second thought to refer to things that were bad. I’m sure I was probably one of those people.
I try to challenge myself to figure out what those things are because I don’t want to be a slave (perhaps not the best choice of words considering the topic) to the time period that I’m living in. There’s no way we’ve got everything figured out and there’s plenty of room for improvement. Will future generation be aghast that we tolerated sports teams named Redskins and Fighting Irish? Maybe our grandchildren will be vegans who are disgusted that we ever slaughtered animals to eat them. Will abortion be equated with the Holocaust? It could be any of these, or even more likely, it could be something that I haven’t even thought of.
At the risk of getting too philosophical, I often struggle with the idea of absolute and relative good. I look at things like the change from cultural appreciation to cultural appropriation and the diversity of cultures in the world and it seems so obvious that the idea of what is “good” has to be relative. It would be unfair and close-minded of me to try to force my ideas of what is right as a middle-class white American male living in 2018 on somebody living in a different time or place. At the same time, it’s hard to look at things like slavery and the Holocaust and not think of those things as inexcusable and wrong no matter what time and place they occur in.
Which brings up a tough question: Does morality always move forward? I’m generally an optimist when it comes to where the human race is going and I run on the assumption that on average, things get better over time. It doesn’t mean there won’t be setbacks. But I believe if we traveled 100 years into the future we would find a world that was generally kinder, more peaceful, and more accepting than the one that we have now. Is that a foregone conclusion, though? What if we travel 100 years in the future to find that humanity has decided that slavery wasn’t such a bad idea after all? I want to try to be a better person, and part of the way I try to do that is by anticipating what “good” will look like in the future, but that only works if the future is usually better than the present. What if it’s not?
The Journey Continues
I
hope this hasn’t been too disjointed and rambling. I also hope you believe me when I said at the introduction that I wasn’t trying to make some subtle point with all of this. I wasn’t trying to criticize cultural appropriate or try to say that whites are oppressed. I really am just trying to figure out what is offensive so I know what things to avoid. I don’t like conflict, and would prefer to not offend people if at all possible. As I mentioned before, what frustrates me most about issues like the Apu controversy and cultural appropriation and other related things is that I understand it’s something that people have strong feelings about, but I don’t fully understand why. If I can’t understand why, then it makes it hard to avoid offending people in a similar way.
I hope the Apu situation gets resolved amicably, however it gets resolved.
