{"id":2826,"date":"2025-04-10T10:38:43","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T10:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2025-04-10T15:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T15:40:10","slug":"apu-still-hasnt-spoken-on-the-simpsons-for-8-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/apu-still-hasnt-spoken-on-the-simpsons-for-8-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Apu still hasn\u2019t spoken on The Simpsons for 8 years"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\"The\t<\/div>
The Simpsons character Apu is considered to be racially insensitive (Picture: Fox TV)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Simpsons<\/a> character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon<\/a> has been silent for nearly a decade after being criticised for perpetuating harmful stereotypes.<\/p>\n

The Indian convenience store worker is considered racially insensitive, not least because he was voiced by a white man, Hank Azaria, <\/a>60.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Apu became the centre of a documentary, The Problem with Apu,<\/a> which laid bare the harm his characterisation was causing.<\/p>\n

Since then, the character has not said a word on The Simpsons.<\/p>\n

The last time Apu spoke was the Game of Thrones parody The Serfsons, which aired in October 2017, the month before The Problem with Apu was released.<\/p>\n

In an interview on Pablo Torre Finds Out<\/a>, Azaria said The Simpsons staffers all ‘froze’ after watching the documentary and started rethinking Apu.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\"Hank\t<\/div>
He has not spoken on The Simpsons for eight years (Picture: Fox)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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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?”‘<\/p>\n<p>Azaria ultimately concluded that Apu was damaging.<\/p>\n<p>He continued: ‘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.”‘<\/p>\n<p>Azaria said one of the driving forces behind his decision was the name Apu becoming a slur.<\/p>\n<p>He explained: ‘The main thing was when hate crimes were perpetrated against Southern Asian people, a lot of times,\u00a0they were just called “Apu” which became a slur when convenience store guys were stabbed, shot, or robbed, especially when guys were more in the stereotypical professions like taxi drivers. They were hated on physically and called “Apu.”‘<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"646\" height=\"431\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/GettyImages-2189876612.jpg\" class=\"article-image wp-image-22885185\" alt=\""The Simpsons" Holiday Special World Premiere Screening For Disney+'s "O C'mon All Ye Faithful"\" loading=\"lazy\" \/>\t<\/div><figcaption>Hank said The Simpsons staff ‘froze’ after the documentary about Apu (Picture: Rodin Eckenroth\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In 2021, Azaria apologised for voicing Apu on <a href=\"https:\/\/armchairexpertpod.com\/pods\/hank-azaria\">Dax Shepherd’s Armchair Expert podcast,\u00a0external<\/a>, the actor said: ‘Part of me feels like I need to go around to every single Indian person in this country and personally apologise.’<\/p>\n<p>The same year, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening admitted that the long-running cartoon needed revamping.<\/p>\n<p>He told BBC Radio One: ‘Bigotry and racism are still an incredible problem and it’s good to finally go for more equality and representation.’<\/p>\n<p>Groening added: ‘If it’s an Indian character, Latin character or Black character, please let’s have that person voice the character.<\/p>\n<p>‘It’s more authentic, they might also bring their experience of their culture to it – and let’s not take away jobs from people who don’t have enough.’<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Simpsons is available to stream on Disney Plus.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Got a story?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">If you\u2019ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\">Metro.co.uk<\/a> entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our <a href=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/submit-stuff\/\">Submit Stuff<\/a> page – we\u2019d love to hear from you.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-justify mb-2\" >The Simpsons character Apu is considered to be racially insensitive (Picture: Fox TV) The Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon has been silent for nearly a decade after being criticised for perpetuating harmful stereotypes. The Indian convenience store worker is considered racially insensitive, not least because he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2832,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/2832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nichesitetool.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}