The Four Color Media Monitor

Waiting for the underground comics of the 60s and 70s to come back. They used political correctness for a bum wipe. Something just as counter cultural now would explode heads of the pissy elite from New York to Los Angeles.

Apu deserved a better finale than this, but once Azaria said he would no longer voice the character, they had no alternative.

Still, it works both ways. The next time a writer makes use of the stereotype of the unemployed conservative white guy shooting up a bunch of hard-working immigrants, how can you complain? If East Indians should not be making a big deal about a caricatured stereotype, how can conservatives complain about the stock character headline-grabbing version of themselves?

You should really warm up before you stretch that far to make a point, you might pull something.

You have to look at the comment in context. This site has made repeated postings criticizing stereotyped bad conservative characters, and arguing for the hiring of conservative writers, in part to remedy that. Meanwhile, East Indians are criticizing Apu and wishing there were East Indian writers who understand he East Indian experience, and this site says it is just phoney posturing. The link oils not that hard to draw.

Okay, I get it, but what is so offensive about Apu beyond his mere existence? Here in Southern Ontario we have a huge Indian population, and more often than not, the guy driving your cab, or running the local convenience store is Indian. Apu also speaks English more clearly than many of them, so there is nothing outrageous about his accent.

This really just seems to be more of the manufactured outrage so prevalent today, and it's getting pretty tired.

Shame Apu had to get the axe. I heard one of the so-called Hindis who expressed mock-outrage over his existence was a failed comedienne. Honestly, I'd argue that Apu among immigrants would have been a dang good role model, considering he was an avidly hard worker, and actually made sure he legally became an American citizen to avoid being deported instead of remaining an illegal alien. Then again, the left always tries to get rid of the good ones.

And funny you should mention All in the Family by Norman Lear, as Lear actually intended for the audience to root against Archie Bunker and root for Meathead, who was a very explicit left-winger. Let's just say that backfired on him big time (thank goodness, since the last thing we need is people adopting Communist insurrection as easily as Gotham embraced Jerome Valeska's antics wholesale in Gotham.) where audiences were far more receptive to Archie Bunker than to Meathead, to the extent that Archie Bunker's chair is a Smithsonian treasure, while Meathead is an insult right now.

Meathead was always an insult; it is not like that was Mike Stivic's real name in the series. Norman Lear was too good an artist to do one-dimensional characters; he gave weight to both Archie and Mike. He also showed how Archie's world was changing around him.

Apu doesn’t seem that bad to me, although Azaria would be the first to
say that his accent is not authentic. Still, if I was the only white
kid going to school in some rural Chinese village where the only
things the local kids knew about white people came from watching
Simpsons reruns, I would be pretty angry about Homer by the time I
finished high school.

Maybe this is something that Avi’s East Indian émigré readers,
American or Israeli, could weigh in on? I notice that a few people
of European descent are claiming that this is all false outrage
stirred up by white liberals and that Apu is a positive role model for
European-Americans and Indian-Americans alike, but I have not seen
East Indian people, of any skin color, saying that.

The show’s producers, by the way, have denied that they are shelving Apu.

Never could get into shows like the Simpsons or Futurama, too mocking and little in the way of genuine laughs.

Surprised shows like the Simpsons are still going on, sometimes you just have to put something out of its misery.