Name a significant Indian-American cultural figure. Take a few moments and run through the list in your head. Yep, there’s Mindy Kaling, the writer-comedian-actress who cracks us up on The Mindy Project. Don’t forget your favorite Parks and Recreation scene stealer and Netflix comedy auteur, Aziz Ansari. First-term California Sen. Kamala Harris is regularly discussed as a leading contender for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination if she runs—and let’s face it, she’s running. There’s a handful of others, too, who you could probably think up in a pinch.
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| Photo credit: The Problem with Apu/IMDb |
Okay, now name a significant Indian-American figure who rose to prominence before the year 2000. It gets a little tougher, right? Maybe so tough that you’re drawing a blank and there might be a chirping noise in the back of your mind from the crickets that remind you of your cultural blind spots.
This is not a sly two-paragraph ruse that ends with me lecturing you for being an uncultured, unwashed rube. God knows I couldn’t come up with anyone from the second category when a similar thought experiment was posed to me in the recent TruTV documentary, The Problem with Apu.
The film is presented by Indian-American comedian and Politically Re-Active podcast co-host Hari Kondabolu, who wants to know why Apu, the convenience store clerk from The Simpsons, came to be. Or rather, he wants to know why the phrase, “Thank you, come again,” spoken in a bad impression of voice actor Hank Azaria’s (a white man) caricature of Indian immigrants, has been hurled at him as painfully un-clever taunts for the last 28 years since the FOX animated sitcom began its perch atop the pop culture zeitgeist.
Kondabolu hates being compared to and reduced to a stereotype, and he hates the argument that’s always thrown in his face by those telling him to get over his revulsion: “The Simpsons turns everything into a stereotype.” That’s true, but as Kondabolu argues in his good-natured and funny (but still angry) way, there is only one Apu.
The show has introduced other Indian characters since the Kwik-E-Mart owner became a fan favorite, but they all know Apu—they are his wife (by arranged marriage) and stereotypical giant family of small children. There have been numerous kinds of drunks who hang out with Homer Simpson, several takes on ludicrously evil rich people who rival Mr. Burns in memorable lines (who doesn’t love Hank Scorpio?), plenty of shades of religious folks from Ned Flanders to Rev. Lovejoy, and so on and so forth.
For Indians and those of Indian descent who have spent any time in America for the better part of three decades, the show offers them little more than half-hearted “Ain’t this kinda racist?” reaction gags from Apu—in ways that are still at least a little racist. These people’s experiences, their appearances, their realities are not shown or acknowledged. If you live in many of the Springfields the series is based on, chances are your only contact with an Indian immigrant comes via your TV screen on Sunday evenings when this show is broadcast—and again, this “immigrant” is played by Hank Azaria, a white American man. To Americans, it’s a “funny voice” and little else. To those with Indian blood, not so much.
Cultural representation matters, and not necessarily for the reasons you think it does. Fairness and kindness and ending racism are great things, but there’s a far simpler, far more selfish reason to give Indian-American creators (and every other underrepresented group) a say in how people like them are portrayed in our pop culture—they can make it funnier, more dramatic, more whatever the piece of art wants to be. The specificity of their experience changes the way they craft jokes. As Kondabolu mentions, The Simpsons does give it a shot with Apu, and they apply their usual satirical sheen to his lines. He points out the ludicrousness of Springfield citizens’ cluelessly racist approaches to dealing with him, but it’s always done in an oversized, broad way that lacks the depth and biting sardonicism of the best satire—the stuff you recognize from pretty much every other part of The Simpsons.
Giving a seat at the table to Indian-American writers, voiceover actors, etc. would not be only a lofty, high-minded thing that deserves a pat on the back and three cheers for living in harmony with your fellow people—though it would be that. It would make The Simpsons funnier. It’s really that simple.
Director: Michael Melamedoff
Featuring: Hari Kondabolu, Utkarsh Ambudkar, Aziz Ansari, W. Kamau Bell
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Available on TruTV and via streaming rental services
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