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The Problem with Apu

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The Problem with Apu[1]
Directed byMichael Melamedoff
Written byHari Kondabolu
Produced by
  • Michael Melamedoff
  • Michael J. Cargill
Starring
Production
company
Release date
  • November 19, 2017 (2017-11-19)
Running time
60 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Problem with Apu is a 2017 documentary film written by and starring comedian Hari Kondabolu, produced and directed by Michael Melamedoff. Kondobolu interviews celebrities of South Asian descent about the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from the animated sitcom The Simpsons. When the show first aired in 1989, Apu was the only figure of South Asian heritage to appear regularly on mainstream American television. In The Problem with Apu, Kondabolu and his peers assert that Apu portrays negative stereotypes of South Asians that were picked up and parroted by non-Indian people in the form of racial microaggressions and slurs against people of Indian and South Asian heritage.

Background

Kondabolu grew up watching The Simpsons and cites it as a major influence on his comedy and cultural savvy. Initially he liked the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon because the character was the only representation of his family's culture regularly aired on television in the United States. Kondabolu told the BBC, "Apu was the only Indian we had on TV at all so I was happy for any representation as a kid." As he grew older, Kondabolu became more critical of Apu, saying, "he's funny, but that doesn’t mean this representation is accurate or right or righteous. It gets to the insidiousness of racism, though, because you don’t even notice it when it’s right in front of you.”[2]

According to Kondabolu, his mother taught him that "you can criticize something you love because you expect more from it."[3] His first public critique of The Simpsons character came at the insistence of W. Kamau Bell during the first season of his FX television show Totally Biased.[4] In 2012 Kondabolu worked as a writer on the show, and Bell heard him railing against Apu for fomenting racial stereotypes about Indians. Bell then told Kondabolu that if he did not write it into a stand up comedy routine and perform it on the show, Bell would fire him.[5] In his bit, Kondabolu criticizes voice actor Hank Azaria, calling him "a white guy doing an impression of a white guy making fun of my father." Kondabolu went on to cite other portrayals of South Asians in mainstream television and film—such as a man eating monkey brains in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and an actor petting a stuffed mongoose in a metroPCS commercial—as racist.[6] Kondabolu eventually decided to expand the one-minute segment about Apu into an hour-long documentary.[7]

Simpsons creator Matt Groening named Apu after the protagonist of Bengali filmmaker Satyajit Ray's acclaimed Apu Trilogy.[2] Hank Azaria based his voice characterization of Apu on a clerk who worked at a 7-Eleven near his home in Los Angeles. In a 2015 interview Azaria acknowledged the character's impact as fodder for widespread racially-motivated bullying that targets children with South Asian heritage.[8] Kondabolu reached out to Azaria to be interviewed for the film, but Azaria declined for fear that his words would be manipulated by the film's editing process. He agreed to have a discussion facilitated either by Terri Gross on the public radio program Fresh Air or on Marc Maron's podcast WTF but rescinded his offer after Kondabolu accepted.[9]

Themes

In the film Kondabolu speaks with other South Asian-American entertainers about the impact of Apu on their lives. Actors Aziz Ansari, Kal Penn, Maulik Pancholy, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Samrat Chakrabarti, Sakina Jaffrey, Aasif Mandvi and Hasan Minhaj[1][7][10] relate anecdotes from their childhoods of being called "Apu" by other children or having the character's catchphrases from the show said to them by strangers because of their perceived heritage.[2] They also relate stories of becoming trained professional actors, and being asked to deliver lines "like Apu from The Simpsons".[7]

Kondabolu compares this instance of a white actor portraying a caricature of an Indian shopkeeper to blackface minstrelsy. African-American actress Whoopi Goldberg also appears in the film. As a longtime collector of racist ephemera from the 20th and 21st centuries, Goldberg supports Kondabolu's assertion that Apu is a form of brownface minstrelsy.[11] Kondabolu traces the origins of The Simpsons character to a legacy of brownface performance by actors such as Peter Sellers, and pursues Apu's voice actor Hank Azaria for an interview.[7]

Some have criticized Kondabolu as a "social justice warrior" for deriding a much-beloved television program.[12] In parts of the documentary he expresses his appreciation for The Simpsons as a subversive and culturally astute institution on the landscape of mainstream North American media.[13] Kondabolu said, "I made this film to not only talk about the origin of Apu and highlight the impact of such images in media, but also to celebrate the diversity and complexity of my community."[3]

Production and release

Filming for The Problem with Apu began in April 2016.[7] The film was given special screenings featuring live appearances and talkback with Hari Kondabolu in the fall of 2017, preceding its release on the truTV network on November 19.[10]

Kondabolu appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to promote the picture. He offered some insight into the serious and insidious affect of Apu, who was only one of a couple of "brown people" being portrayed on American television (and notably by a "white guy in brown face"). He also opined that the use of humor in the portrayal is an artful way of making racism more appealing, which would hypothetically be relieved by the introduction of a multitude and range of brown characters.[14]

Reception

The documentary received mostly positive reviews, with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes ranking the film at 88% out of 17 reviews, with an average critical score of 8/10 and Metacritic assigning a score of 77/100 based on 4 reviews.

Daniel Fienberg, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, praised the documentary for providing "(a) brisk discourse on hegemony and representational inequality, the doc 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.'' However, it was also criticized as being "half a documentary", and Fienberg lamented "it becomes disingenuous when Kondabolu declares, 'I realize some of you think I'm some annoying PC social-justice warrior' and then calculatedly skips those voices, and disappointing when Kondabolu and friends wonder what can be done about Apu now and there's nobody around to make it into a real conversation."[15] Scott Pierce of The Salt Lake Tribune found the documentary "thought-provoking and entertaining," ending his review stating that "Kondabolu raises some troubling questions. I’ll never be able to watch “The Simpsons” without thinking about this again."[16]

While most reviews were positive, Justin Charity, writing for The Ringer, was left with a more mixed impression. While he agreed with the basic thesis of Apu being problematic, he found the pursuit of Hank Azaria to appear in the film "a prevailing distraction from more ambitious consideration of the ideal future of The Simpsons and the cultural shifts that have rendered Apu increasingly unpalatable." He also found the documentary lacked imagination in finding a solution to creating a more nuanced portrayal of Apu, feeling "(t)hat lapse of Kondabolu’s imagination is the documentary’s real waste."[17]

References

  1. ^ a b "The Problem with Apu - Credits - truTV.com". truTV. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  2. ^ a b c Blauvelt, Christian (November 6, 2017). "The Simpsons' Apu: 'A stereotype hiding in plain sight'". BBC. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  3. ^ a b Leight, Elias (September 28, 2017). "'Simpsons' Doc 'The Problem with Apu' Confronts South Asian Stereotypes". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  4. ^ Rao, Mallika (20 September 2013). "Is It Time To Retire Apu?". Huffington Post. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  5. ^ "Hari Takes Aim at a Beloved Stereotype". truTV. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  6. ^ Kondabolu, Hari (2012). "Mindy Kaling, Apu & Indian Americans". Totally Biased. FX.
  7. ^ a b c d e Ito, Robert (10 November 2017). "You Love 'The Simpsons'? Then Let's Talk About Apu". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
  8. ^ Matz, Jenni (April 6, 2015). "Hank Azaria". Archive of American Television. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  9. ^ Meraji, Shereen Marisol; Demby, Gene (November 15, 2017). "Live From Chicago...It's Code Switch!". NPR.org. National Public Radio. Retrieved 19 November 2017.
  10. ^ a b Page-Kirby, Kristen (9 November 2017). "See 'The Problem with Apu,' Netflix hit 'Okja' and the Alexandria Film Festival". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  11. ^ Ramanathan, Lavanya (November 9, 2017). "He loved 'The Simpsons.' But Hari Kondabolu has a problem with Apu". Washington Post. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  12. ^ "The Problem with Apu – TCA 2017 Trailer". truTV. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  13. ^ Steinberg, Don (8 November 2017). "'The Problem with Apu' Explores Ethnic Issues in 'The Simpsons'". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 November 2017.
  14. ^ "November 13, 2017 – Hari Kondabolu" (Video). The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Season 3 (Television program). No. 23. Comedy Central. November 13, 2017.
  15. ^ "'The Problem With Apu': TV Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2017-11-27.
  16. ^ "Ay caramba! Is 'The Simpsons' really racist? Consider 'The Problem With Apu'". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 2017-11-27.
  17. ^ "Hari Kondabolu Doesn't Know How to Solve 'The Problem With Apu'". The Ringer. Retrieved 2017-11-27.

External links

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