The Simpsons Airs A Huge F You To The Twitter People Who Were Outraged About Apu Being Too Much Of A Stereotype
I’m not the most diehard Simpsons guy in the office so maybe someone can enlighten me, but from what I understand every character of the Simpsons is a stereotype of something? Because it’s, you know, a comedy. That’s why it wins all those awards right? Like a Peabody award and a GLAAD media award and 31 Primetime Emmys? Because it’s an incredibly well done and thoughtful satire? I mean the whole premise of the show is a satirical parody of middle class America. Homer is a dumbass fat American dad. Lisa’s the bleeding heart liberal, Bart’s the obnoxious kid with an authority problem. Chief Wiggum is a stereotypical cop. Fat Tony is an Italian stereotype. Bumblebee Man could probably be seen as pretty offensive to latinos.
And from what I’ve seen over the past like 20 years, Apu is pretty well fleshed out and multidimensional?
Then again I do know Kal Penn and Aziz and Kumail all hate the Apu character and they know a hell of a lot more about comedy than any of us, and Hank Azaria has admitted to being a little uncomfortable with how stereotypical his accent was for him. But he also said he can’t imagine Apu being written off simply for being “offensive,” and last night’s episode seems to confirm that pretty strongly. Kind of shocking the Simpsons came out that strongly against the outrage, especially in 2018, and especially for a show that’s always had a strong, quote, “liberal bent.”
Standing up to a Twitter firestorm like this takes some big old balls.
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