The Simpson's Apu controversies/should the show go on are be cancelled?

[Sonicx9]

I know this story is a little late. But wanted to post it as a good share of readers on the site are long time Simpson's fans sense the shows early days.


Lately for those that are aware of this. Especially if any of you guys are long time Simpson fans for the past 30 year's. Apu, a long time fan favorite that been in the show for nearly 30 years has been getting rather controversial. Especially with the recent easily offended politicly correct movement in the past few years. And because of this, they want to retire the character from the show. Even though some articles say he is not leaving the series.

But this got me thinking, should they continue the show, or should it end? I think the show should end because of the following reasons, between the recent Apu controversies, and the Bongo comics ending recently: www.comicsbeat.com/as-their-last-comic- ... omics/amp/ and the possible Disney Fox buyout in the near future. A perfect time for the series to end at this point. Especially sense the series does not connect with today's easly offended/Polliticly correct movement going on recently?

What do you guys want with the simpsons continue on, or end?

[Stalvern]

The show should have ended with the Clinton administration.

[VideoGameCritic]

They regularly televise old Simpsons episodes on the FX channel. The older episodes from the 90s have held up well - they are still quite funny! The newer episodes however are hard to watch. I don't know if they ran out of ideas (probably), but it seems like the humor is very forced now.

Funny how people are suddenly outraged over the character Apu while Homer has been portraying white men as oafish, beer-drinking idiots for the past 30 years! Let's remember it's just a cartoon for Pete's sake.

[Sonicx9]

They regularly televise old Simpsons episodes on the FX channel. The older episodes from the 90s have held up well - they are still quite funny! The newer episodes however are hard to watch. I don't know if they ran out of ideas (probably), but it seems like the humor is very forced now.

Funny how people are suddenly outraged over the character Apu while Homer has been portraying white men as oafish, beer-drinking idiots for the past 30 years! Let's remember it's just a cartoon for Pete's sake.

On the first point, you are right on about the show back then and now. Because I am a long time old school fan of the show all the way up to the early 2000s period. Me along with my older sister and younger brother where all huge on the series during that period. I have the first 10 or 11 seasons on DVD shows how big I was for the franchise back then. But you are right the series around the early to mid 2000s to present day got progressively worse and the last things I enjoyed with the franchise is the Simpson's movie in 2007 and the Simpson's Futurama crossover episode from 2014. Everything else was mediocre to unwatchable range around that time frame. Likley because they ran out of ideas and key staff members have left the series long ago!

And for the second point, you are right how come people complain about Apu, but not Homer or the other stereotypes the show has for the longest time. It just a cartoon as even they are not safe from the current easly offended/Polliticly correct movement going on recently.

[Sonicx9]

The show should have ended with the Clinton administration.

Around that timeframe yes.

[Stalvern]

Funny how people are suddenly outraged over the character Apu while Homer has been portraying white men as oafish, beer-drinking idiots for the past 30 years! Let's remember it's just a cartoon for Pete's sake.

I think you'll find that Homer Simpson is actually bright yellow.

But to be more serious, this is both an old issue (only its current visibility is a recent development) and an understandable one. Homer may be a goofy stereotype, but he exists in a whole world of bright yellow characters who show countless different sides to being bright yellow. Apu, meanwhile, is the Indian, and he's there to check every box on the "Indian" list: owns a convenience store, has lots of kids, is polite to a fault, has a funny accent (a parody done by a white actor) and a funny name (a parody invented by white writers), the whole nine yards. He's a much more sympathetic character than Homer, but he contributes to a limited and completely external perspective on Indian-Americans – heck, I'll say it, a racist one – that is irritating for them at best and actively harmful at worst. This in fact does matter, despite your dismissiveness; the show is "just a cartoon" in the same way that the moon is just a rock. What it "is" is irrelevant when it's as big as it is.

That said, this has become a moot point. On one hand, Apu hasn't been on the show in three years, and while he hasn't been written out, there doesn't seem to be much drive to write him in. And on the other, it's hard to see what could make a difference at this time, good or bad, to how myopic (to put it charitably) the show's attitude toward Indians has already been for decades. Anything that could have mattered – more nuance in Apu and his family? a few other Indian characters? – needed to happen years and years ago to matter at all, before the show and everything about it became set in stone. Apu has already left his mark on pop culture (not entirely for the worse, to be fair; he may have reinforced a stereotypical image of Indian-Americans, but he also helped normalize them as part of American society), and nothing can change that.