Immediately April 26e2023, comedians Hari Kondabolu And Hank Azaria appeared on NPR’s “Code Swap” to debate the 2017 documentary The issue with Apu, and the fallout of the identical within the years that adopted. The dialog befell this week Code swap episode “The Fallout of a Callout”, hosted by Gene Demby.
The issue with Apu
In 2017, The issue with Apu has been freed. The documentary was not solely vital of white actor Azaria’s portrayal of Apu over thirty seasons of The simpsonsthe flagship anime collection created by Matt Greening. He additionally examined the illustration of South Asians within the American media generally.
Predictably, many judged the documentary with out watching it. “It is all turn into an instance of ‘political correctness’ and here is one other instance of somebody simply eager to kill one thing,” Kondabolu informed NPR.
Nevertheless, Azaria mirrored on how the documentary modified her perspective on her portrayal of Apu: “A personality that I made…I embarrassed them, I triggered them ache? In truth, I actively made their far more tough? It sucks. It was one of many first issues that basically popped into my head that made me go, ‘Okay, that is actual.’ »
In recent times, Apu and his household have appeared within the background in new episodes of The simpsonsnow in his 34e season. Nevertheless, none of them have had dialogue since 2017’s “The Serfsons.” And in 2018’s “No Good Learn Goes Unpunished,” a scene serving as an episode tag appeared to counsel no motion can be taken. concerning Azaria’s efficiency as Apu.
Nevertheless, in January 2020, Azaria introduced that he would now not symbolize Apu on The simpsons. Azaria goes on to play dozens of different roles, together with Moe Syzslak, Comedian E book Man, and Police Chief Clancy Wiggum.
However there are different roles moreover Apu that Azaria has moved away from, together with black character Carl Carlson. As of 2020, Carl has been voiced by Alex Deserttogether with within the 2023 episode “Carl Carlson Rides Once more”, which explicitly addressed race relations in Springfield.
Ongoing spinoffs
In 2021, Azaria said Dax BergerIt is Expert Armchair podcast“A part of me looks like I’ve to go round to each Indian on this nation and personally apologize.”
On “Code Swap,” Azaria thanked Kondabolu for “dragging me and pushing me into this dialog.” Kondabolu replied
“It means quite a bit to listen to you say that. I do know you informed me privately concerning the influence I had, however listening to this publicly is essential to me as a result of one of many issues that annoyed me after the film got here out was that I used to be getting threats of dying… Initially it bothered me that you just did not point out me as a result of I needed to take care of all this shit to get there… There is a story of white individuals speaking about what they’ve discovered and sharing information with out giving credit score to individuals of shade who really obtained them there. For instance, you do the work and also you by no means get credit score for the work. And on the finish of the day, I discuss that far more than I wished to.
“And I do know it is a totally different expertise for each of us as a result of for you it is opened up all these new concepts and you’ve got grown extremely and I can see your enthusiasm for the work you are doing now. For me, it was previous hat once I did the documentary, so it is a double whammy of being caught right here with no props, so so that you can say it now means quite a bit.
You possibly can listen to the whole conversation with Code switch here.
New episodes of The simpsons broadcast Sundays on Fox, are available to stream the next day on Hulu and are then available to stream on Disney+.
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