Hank Azaria willing to stop voicing role of Apu
Actor Hank Azaria, left, appears Tuesday with host Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Hank Azaria says he’s ready to give up being the voice for Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, a character on “The Simpsons” that some find to be offensive.
“The idea that anyone young or old, past or present, being bullied based on Apu really makes me sad,” he said Tuesday night during an appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Last year, comedian Hari Kondabolu produced a documentary called “The Problem with Apu” that emphasized how Apu’s characterization propagated racial stereotypes about South Asians living in America.
The Fox show’s apparent response to the documentary, embedded in an episode of the animated series this month, stoked the public debate to new levels, with some cultural critics interpreting the show’s stance as one of smug indifference.
On April 8, “The Simpsons” aired the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” in which the family sets aside electronic devices for books. In revisiting a childhood favorite, though, mother Marge sees that stereotypes abound and so revises the book with cultural correctives, as viewed through a 21st century prism.
The episode leaves it to daughter Lisa, the show’s resident progressive champion of the marginalized outsider, to ask powerlessly, “What can you do?” when something “that started decades ago” and was applauded and deemed inoffensive by many “is now politically incorrect.”
On Tuesday, after Azaria’s appearance on Colbert’s show, Kondabolu tweeted a response to Azaria: “Thank you, @HankAzaria. I appreciate what you said & how you said it.”
Azaria told Colbert that he was “perfectly willing and happy to step aside” from voicing the role of Springfield’s Indian KwikE-Mart owner.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought, really a lot of thought, and as I say my eyes have been opened,” Azaria said. “And I think the most important thing is we have to listen to South Asian people, Indian people in this country and they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character and what their American experience of it has been.”