Back in 2017, comedianHari Kondabolumade an extremely thoughtful and reasoned documentary titledThe Problem With Apu, pointing out that the Indian-American character Apu (voiced by American actorHank Azaria,who is of Sephardic Jewish descent) is a harmful racial stereotype thatThe Simpsonshas been happily perpetuating for literal decades. In fact, Kondabolu goes so far as to call Apu a minstrel character, and it’s hard to disagree with him. It seems like the show has finally decided to listen, and from now on will no longer have white actors voice non-white characters.
As reported byVariety, the decision was made shortly after actorMike Henryannounced he would no longer be voicing Cleveland Brown on the animated sitcomFamily Guy. Earlier this week,Kristen Bell andJenny Slatedecided to step away from their respective roles onCentral ParkandBig Mouthas mixed-race characters, which no doubt played a part inThe Simpsonsfinally deciding to end the controversial practice of using white actors to portray POC characters. (Azaria himself announced he would no longer voice Apu back in January.)
Obviously this is the right move for these shows to make, especially for one as massively popular and influential asThe Simpsons. However, it’s quite literally the bare minimum. Azaria and Henry voiced their respective characters for decades, with Henry even voicing the Black character Cleveland on theFamily GuyspinoffThe Cleveland Show. Perhaps these showrunners should go a step further and examine why they normalized this practice for so long.The Simpsonswas particularly shitty about the Apu controversy in the 2018 episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished”, in which Marge and Lisa make an indirect reference to the character and say, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive, is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” That frustratingly smug response aired just two years ago, so while it’s nice they’re finally addressing the problem like adults, it’s hard to praise them after giving an Indian character a racist-as-hell voice for 30 damn years. For more onThe Simpsons,read how towatch the older episodes in their original aspect ratioon Disney+.
