The Problem With Apu: Racial Stereotyping and The Simpsons
Comedian Hari Kondabolu, the creator and star of the feature-length documentary The Problem with Apu, confronts his long standing “nemesis” Apu Nahasapeemapetilon – better known as the Indian convenience store owner on The Simpsons. Through this comedic cultural exposé, Kondabolu questions how this controversial caricature was created, burrowed its way into the hearts and minds of Americans and continues to exist – intact – twenty-eight years later.
The Problem with Apu premieres on tonight at 10 p.m. ET/PT on TruTV.
The Hollywood Review has a review of The Problem with Apu. Here is a part of the review:
“If nothing else, truTV’s new documentary The Problem with Apu, written by and starring comic Hari Kondabolu, has probably quashed any desire to bring up caveats in my hypothetical response. A brisk discourse on hegemony and representational inequality, The Problem with Apu lays out its thesis against the character’s acceptability in 2017 (to say nothing of 1989) with such clarity it’s hard to imagine it generating an adversarial response more cogent than that hoary classic “It’s a joke, stop taking it so seriously,” which is no response at all.
The problem with The Problem with Apu is that, at 49 minutes, it’s half a film. Directed by Michael Melamedoff, The Problem with Apu makes its primary case, has a couple of talking heads including Kondabolu admit they aren’t sure what can or should be done, and ends abruptly and frustratingly.
That case can be summed up simply: Although representation of South Asian actors and characters has increased and improved on television and in movies in recent years, it’s still relatively minuscule and when The Simpsons premiered, South Asian characters were basically nonexistent. So for the one prominent South Asian character on TV to be a frequently deceitful convenience store proprietor with a cartoonish Indian accent voiced by a white guy? That’s bad. It’s bad for a generation of South Asian children growing up and seeing only that one representation of their culture and having fellow kids judge them based upon it. It’s bad for the older generation that had their immigrant experience represented in only this one way on TV for millions or maybe even billions of viewers. It’s just bad.”
KJ