Comedy sometimes ages like milk. The things that were funny in say the ’80s may not be as funny in ’20 or ’25, and as time passes so does the nature of things people laugh about. Everything from roasts to impressions to specific jokes can eventually go from light comedic jabs to being offensive over time. Which brings us to The Simpsons Apu. While voice actor Hank Azaria stepped away from the character in 2020, he opened up about what convinced him to retire Apu on The Simpsons despite initially thinking the backlash would blow over.
In an interview on the podcast ‘Pablo Torre Finds Out’, voice actor and human jukebox Hank Azaria talks about some of the inspirations for some of his most iconic characters, as well as his previous comments about AI and the outsourcing of his job to a machine. During the discussion, the actor was asked about how he approached the controversy regarding the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, and he got real about the “deep dive” that came when people called for him to quit the character.
Do I keep doing the voice or not,’ required a deep dive. It wasn’t like, ‘Well, let me take a week and look into this.’ It was probably two or three years because we all froze at ‘The Simpsons. We had no idea what to do. The character stopped saying anything, and it became a deep dive into, ‘Well, is this racist? Does Hollywood have a tradition of doing this? In one way or another, am I a part of that?’
The conversation grew bigger after the 2017 release of The Problem With Apu, a documentary by comedian Hari Kondabolu about the negative impacts of the stereotypes that the character of Apu had perpetuated. Azaria commented on this topic at the height of the controversy, and again in 2020 when he officially stepped down from voicing Apu.
Despite stepping back from the role, he still gets questions about characters he has voiced on The Simpsons.
I still get comments to this day, [with Italian accent] ‘Why can you do Luigi? And that’s not offensive.’ [With Southern accent] ‘Why can you talk like Cletus?’ [With Normal voice] ‘And that’s not a problem? But you can’t do Apu?’ Honestly, at first, I thought, ‘Let me look into this, and then I’ll go back to doing the voice,’ and say, ‘I understand, but I’m going to keep doing this.’ I was surprised myself that I came down on, ‘No, I think I’m participating in a harm here.’
Both the documentary and Azaria’s interview on ‘Pablo Torre Finds Out’ touch on how other people felt about the Apu character outside of the context of those working on the show. Azaria went on to share that when he realized the level of ridicule and hurt feelings he was inspiring, he realized that while he himself did not mean to cause harm, he inadvertently was.
The main thing was when hate crimes were perpetrated against Southern Asian people, a lot of times, they were just called ‘Apu,’ which became a slur when convenience store guys were stabbed, shot, or robbed, especially when guys were who were more in the stereotypical professions like taxi driver. They were hated on physically and called ‘Apu.’ That Apu crap isn’t because it’s a cartoon, like ‘Oh, it’s a silly voice.’ There’s all this other stereotyping and things that have teeth in them that affect people of color in this country.
The Simpsons has long been a staple of media, and it has never been immune to controversy around its satirical humor. Episodes like ‘Stark Raving Mad’ have made headlines, as did the time the show got into a battle with Brazil over the episode ‘Blame it on Lisa’. Other times the show has brazenly jumped into touchy topics in ways that look more positive years later, with ‘Homers Phobia’ still marked as landmark TV many years later.
It’s been several years since Hank Azaria first changed his mind on the topic, but his willingness to pipe about it speaks volumes about his character, no pun intended.
