Report: The Simpsons to drop Apu
Updated: The Simpsons producer says Adi Shankar does not speak for the show.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
The Simpsons is set to drop the character of Apu, according to reports.
In April producer Adi Shankar launched a spec script contest to address ongoing concerns about the portrayal of Indian-Americans.
While FOX has no plans to produce what he calls the “perfect script” Shankar has now told IndieWire: “I got some disheartening news back, that I’ve verified from multiple sources now: They’re going to drop the Apu character altogether.
“They aren’t going to make a big deal out of it, or anything like that, but they’ll drop him altogether just to avoid the controversy.”
Shankar clarified he got the news from two people who work for The Simpsons and a third source who works directly with creator Matt Groening.
A representative from FOX provided a cryptic response: “Apu appeared in the 10/14/18 episode ‘My Way or the Highway to Heaven.’”
In the episode, Apu only appears in a single wide shot that showed dozens of characters gathered around God.
Not even a proper exit?
Updated: Showrunner Al Jean responds, but has not denied.
Adi Shankar is not a producer on the Simpsons. I wish him the very best but he does not speak for our show.
— Al Jean (@AlJean) October 28, 2018
Share
- Tagged with The Simpsons
22 Responses
The cynic in me recognises that this is the most anyone has talked about The Simpsons in a very long time. Apu will probably disappear for a season before returning in ‘a very special episode’.
Al Jean tweeted: “Adi Shankar is not a producer on the Simpsons. I wish him the very best but he does not speak for our show.”
Apu has always been a decent law abiding family man. This is PC lynch mob tip of the iceberg madness.
Except that most in the mob haven’t called on him to be cut so much as evolve.
Would have been nice to see the writers do something very special with the character, acknowledge it’s faults but move forward. Do a ‘National Geographic’ so to speak!
I suspect the reason is Hank Azaria is not willing to do the voice anymore. I’ve seen him decline to do it in interviews. They could recast of course.
“PC gone mad” or not. Removing a character from a cartoon series is not an earth shattering event.
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon’s appearance in the single wide shot in “My Way or the Highway to Heaven” mocks Apu’s Religious beliefs. He has a shrine to Ganesha the god of worldly wisdom in the employee lounge and is thus a Hindu that believes in many “Gods”. However, if Apu is a Buddhist his belief is that Heaven and Hell are only temporary places and that “There is no god behind the scene of heaven and hell”.
APU (Azusa Pacific University) is a private, evangelical Christian university in California.
Contradictions are “The Simsons” stock in trade and it would be sad to lose such a controversial character.
Here we go again. The PC brigade on the march. People often wonder why Trump is President. This is just one of many reasons why, this type of reactive stupidity to PC gone made.
‘Political correctness’ just ruins the world…
Give me a break. Shouldn’t have caved to the pressure.
I don’t know what’s worse, the fact the show is still going even though it hasn’t been funny for 15 seasons, or the way they removed a well loved character, or that political correctness is just ruining everything.
Totally agree with all comments….. it is getting so the internet is calling the shots on every part of our lives these days… when will sanity take back some order.
So it’s OK to continue to mock Christians (Ned Flanders).
It’s a cartoon!
PC madness. What is happening to the West?
I really hope they don’t.
Sure, the character of Apu started out as a stereotypical caricature that could be considered racist but that character grew and evolved over the course of the series into somthing more than that.
To take that character away just because of the stereotypes he embodied at the beginning of the series is silly.
Will they be editing Apu out of all previous episodes and removing any Apu-oriented episodes from rotation? With 30 years worth of episodes, it is stupid and pointless to remove him now.
And by extension, they are also axing his wife Manjula, their eight children, Apu’s brother Sanjay and any other relatives or Indian characters from the show.
These people always focus in on the negative don’t they, how about talking about how wonderful the character of Carl is and what about how Lou is the most intelligent and competent officer in the Springfield Police Department. Or that Apu actually holds a Ph.D. in computer science and went on to do his Doctorate and actually began working at the Kwik-E-Mart to pay off his student loan, staying because he enjoyed the job and people he met there.
So now The Simpsons are losing a well fleshed out character that has a strong moral fibre who abandoned his plans to get a forged birth certificate because it would be forsaking his origins and religious beliefs. Of course I guess that means, losing Apu’s wife Manjula all their children and Apu’s brother Sanjaya and his daughter Pahasatira and son Jamshed.
Sigh.
At high school in the 90s every single South Asian kid got all the Apu catchphrases yelled at them. For decades he was one of the only identifiable Indians on TV, and he’s dishonest and unlikeable, a racist stereotype written and portrayed by white people.
PC gone mad. ! Next it will be they can’t make Homer stupid…..
Thank you come again.
Surely removing the character is the most racist thing they could do. If anything it played into the hands of the yellow supremisists.
PC gone mad. If we cannot laugh at ourselves, then we can’t even laugh at what we have become.