^I think Bob is altering the sound from the clips so youTube doesn't take the video down.
The Simpsons
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Marge really does sound different lately though; Kavner's voice is definitely not what it used to be.
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Yeah, the voice is slowed down for copyright protection. Lisa is also distorted.
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So Matt Groening made a new series called Disenchantment that's coming to Netflix this August
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Besides the obvious Adventure Time comparisons, the main character's design is giving me some flashback to Long Live the Royals:
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So we went from animated sitcom to adventures in the future to medieval setting.
Hey, I'm down, if it's anything like Bender's Game we might be in for a treat. Sides tis very rare to see anything new from Matt these days.
Heh the one with her on the throne reminds me of "I Hate Fairyland".
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This post is deleted!
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45 minutes? Good lord. What's the foot note version?
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45 minutes? Good lord. What's the foot note version?
Apu isn't racist. He's a fully-developed character. And pretty much all the complaints by Kondabolu are largely unfounded. Also, no one calls out Mario for being racist.
At least that's what he's arguing. And, honestly…I found him to be pretty persuasive.
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I love how upset people are and how much they're pushing back against this, when the dude who made the original documentary insisted multiple times that he Loves the Simpsons and still loves it.
People need to start getting that folks critique things from a non-white, non-male, non-straight, and/or non-cis lens, it isn't the same as saying "THIS ONE THING IS POSSIBLY PROBLEMATIC, SO THE WHOLE THING IS BIGOTTED AND IF YOU LIKE IT YOU ARE TOO!"
We can criticize parts of things we like and look at them through different lenses without that meaning that the whole thing is bad.
Metal Gear Solid V is an amazing game. 9, maybe 9.5/10 game. Excellent awesome game. Quiet's character design and the in-story justification for it is hot garbage.
Despite saying that? Still amazing game. -
Honestly, I thought this whole thing was pretty much over and the video above was just late for the party.
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He brings up really good points. Apu is to me one of the best developed, three-dimensional characters on the show and imo it's unfair to the writing and acting on the show to reduce him to his (admittedly silly) accent as if that was all there is to it. I found the whole controversy to be completely overblown to begin with, so I was probably pretty receptive to his arguments to begin with, but as Nobodyman said, they are objectively well-founded and convincing.
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Apu isn't racist. He's a fully-developed character. And pretty much all the complaints by Kondabolu are largely unfounded. Also, no one calls out Mario for being racist.
At least that's what he's arguing. And, honestly…I found him to be pretty persuasive.
I know I'm late to the party but I want you to know that based on your post I was almost persuaded to give HDD's vid a watch, until another forum I'm on had this to say about the vid:
Holy hell, he spends half the video rambling about Apu's positive characteristics, most prominently the fact that he is successful with women, then proceeds to invalidate most of his argument by claiming that Apu is fictional so it doesn't matter. There's a point where he says "How come I'm not racist?", and ends with the point that he's Italian and doesn't find Mario offensive because he's a cartoon character, so Apu is fine.
uhhhhhh
also, I think
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"As an Irish-American who's endured more than my share of phony, stereotypical Irish accents, I know what it is to be the butt of a joke - and I don't get offended! So why people are getting up in arms about the character Lil Black Sambo is completely beyond me"
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I know I'm late to the party but I want you to know that based on your post I was almost persuaded to give HDD's vid a watch, until another forum I'm on had this to say about the vid:
Yeah, that and a few other points are kinda…ehhhh, but I still think he makes some good points.
I think what separates Apu from the Black Sambo characters is that he is definitely a more fleshed-out and developed character rather than just a one-note disparaging stereotype that turns an entire race of people into clowns. Though yeah, HDD would have done well to acknowledge that some cartoon characters are harmful and racist.
I dunno. I guess Apu falls into that gray area like the crows from Dumbo. Yes, they're stereotypes, but they're also fun and "cool" characters.
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Apu mostly benefits from three decades of build up. But season 1 Apu was definitely a stereotype that was just there to be a joke. Not intended as racist but just an observation of what was common, joke.
That he's stuck there for thirty years since tho, well, times have moved on. Same way Bart doesn't do prank calls anymore, (and hasn't in like 20 years with a handful of exceptions.)
Similarly, you have characters like Comic Book guy that are also a observational joke that never should have gone as long as it has… made even worse in an episode where he's the main plot and they don't even give him a name and he's just called "Comic Book Guy" the whole episode. They even have an unofficial name for him, Lewis Lane, so I'm not sure why that happened.
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They even have an unofficial name for him, Lewis Lane, so I'm not sure why that happened.
I thought it was Jeff Albertson.
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I thought it was Jeff Albertson.
That's his real, official name. Louis Lane is apparently what Groening was thinking of calling him at some point but it never happened.
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I thought it was Jeff Albertson.
That must be a newer development, I've not heard that before. At the time of the episode where he date's Skinner's mother, and this was ages ago because I still watched the show, (apparently season 12, in 2001.) Louis was his unnofficial name.
And I mostly just noted and remembered it, even 17 years later, because it was really painful to have Bart explicitly referring to him as "comic book guy" while actively talking about him, not just in passing or as a descriptor of a background character. Like, the plot was about him dating someone. Surely that was an ideal time to actually make a joke about him not having a name, "what do I even call you?" "Most people just call me "comic book guy." "I'm not dating that." "You can call me ____" and then just have that as a holder in the episode, even if in the future he goes back to the descriptor.
Beauty and the Beast has a similar problem with Belle not knowing his name at the climax of the film and just having to call him Beast.
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I lost all willingness to consider the shows side of the argument after their monumentally stupid in-series "rebuttal"
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Yeah I thought that was unneeded. They didn't even have to say anything.
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Lamest 4th wall break in tv history
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Personally if someone from a minority group says they find something offensive I tend to side with them. I may not really see it that way but I'm not gonna argue why their opinion is wrong. Being called Apu by people in real life as an insult doesn't make me think the general populace sees his more positive points as much as his stereotype. I can understand why it would be hurtful. Especially since we don't get a whole lot of Indian characters in main stream stuff.
In recent years I can only think of Mindy Kaling and Tom Haverford.
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Well honest question - if Apu is damaging, then shouldn't we also get rid of Cookie Kwan, Luigi, and Willie?
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I love how upset people are and how much they're pushing back against this, when the dude who made the original documentary insisted multiple times that he Loves the Simpsons and still loves it.
People need to start getting that folks critique things from a non-white, non-male, non-straight, and/or non-cis lens, it isn't the same as saying "THIS ONE THING IS POSSIBLY PROBLEMATIC, SO THE WHOLE THING IS BIGOTTED AND IF YOU LIKE IT YOU ARE TOO!"
We can criticize parts of things we like and look at them through different lenses without that meaning that the whole thing is bad.
Metal Gear Solid V is an amazing game. 9, maybe 9.5/10 game. Excellent awesome game. Quiet's character design and the in-story justification for it is hot garbage.
Despite saying that? Still amazing game.You're absolutely right, there needs to be more of an understanding that criticizing one piece of something is not a condemnation of the entire product, and answering that idea with harassment and bullying doesn't help anyone.
However, there also needs to be an understanding that sometimes these thing that we love are products of their time and expecting everything to line up with a person's personal politics right NOW is next to impossible.
And Quiet's design was stupid as all hell, and Kojima should have just owned up to it just being "I love tiddies"
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Well honest question - if Apu is damaging, then shouldn't we also get rid of Cookie Kwan, Luigi, and Willie?
I had to think long and hard about who Cookie was. I can remember her voice but I don't know what her deal was. Or the last time I even saw her. Maybe late 90s? Early 00s?
Willie is super annoying to me. But I dunno. Luigi and Fat Tony's gang are the only Italians in the show right? I dunno really. But I'd say it's more up to the groups they belong to to say something. White ethnicities don't seem to care as much about such things. Yeah yeah Italians aren't "white." There's a lot of characters in the Simpsons that could get axed and I wouldn't miss them. The writers would have to be more creative so they don't have to fall back on stereotypes for a quick laugh.
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However, there also needs to be an understanding that sometimes these thing that we love are products of their time and expecting everything to line up with a person's personal politics right NOW is next to impossible.
But why does that mean we can't talk about those things? That's all anyone is doing.
Nobody is calling for the old episodes that featured Apu to be pulled from circulation and nobody is asking for those episodes to be edited in any way.
Simpsons is unique in that it's one of the only media properties I can think of that's had a basically uninterrupted run for ~30 years in its original format. Most TV shows, movies, games, comics etc have new iterations, or major status quo shifts etc that give the creatives freedom to update stuff that's out of date.
How DO you handle something like this?
In other mediums that have taken breaks between iterations, they've either updated the problematic thing, or just removed it.
Simpsons hasn't had that luxury because it's never been rebooted, retooled, or redone.
If something is genuinely hurtful and problematic, even if it's not intended, is it fine to just keep doing it because "It's been like that for 30 years"?!
Why is it unreasonable to just want to TALK about that?
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But why does that mean we can't talk about those things? That's all anyone is doing.
Nobody is calling for the old episodes that featured Apu to be pulled from circulation and nobody is asking for those episodes to be edited in any way.
Simpsons is unique in that it's one of the only media properties I can think of that's had a basically uninterrupted run for ~30 years in its original format. Most TV shows, movies, games, comics etc have new iterations, or major status quo shifts etc that give the creatives freedom to update stuff that's out of date.
How DO you handle something like this?
In other mediums that have taken breaks between iterations, they've either updated the problematic thing, or just removed it.
Simpsons hasn't had that luxury because it's never been rebooted, retooled, or redone.
If something is genuinely hurtful and problematic, even if it's not intended, is it fine to just keep doing it because "It's been like that for 30 years"?!
Why is it unreasonable to just want to TALK about that?
Again, your absolutely right, we should talk about that, it's reasonable to talk about things like that.
It's just too often it is not presented as genuine, and more as a cynical attempt to virtue signal to people who already agree with it.
The Apu documentary was great because the guy clearly put in the effort and actually talked to people who would be directly affected by that character's influence and 30-year long presence in pop culture. It's just a shame that 95% of other videos or essays are made by straight white people who are only doing it to drum up outrage for clicks or a gold star from their like-minded colleagues.
Though calling it "The problem with Apu" is probably way too aggressive and makes it feel we are sitting down to get lectured, maybe should have named it. "My relationship with Apu" or something more neutral
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If they can start writing out Skinner, Burns and Smithers because Harry Shearer is being a pain with the show, they can write out Apu if they felt like it.
Just not putting the character in scripts as often is a soft way to take care of it, you don't actually have to write a permanent departure story. Especially in animation where you can just toss them in the background occasionally.
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I don't care whatsoever what the Simpsons do with Apu, because I haven't watched the show in years, but writing out a character because some people are offended by it reeks of censorship to me. If Apu really was nothing else than an incredibly offensive stereotype, then sure, the problem would and should be easily solved like that, but as the video that apparently none of you are willing to watch points out, he really is much more three-dimensional than he or rather the writers are given credit for. The only completely stereotypical thing about him is that he works in a convenience store and that he has a funny accent that is not done by an actual Indian.
The last thing really is not as big of a deal as people make it out to be: since when do cartoon characters need to share the same nationality as their voice actor?? Especially when the whole gigantic cast of characters is voiced by only a handful of actors? The guy points out a ton of other cases of this, for example the Asian main character in Samurai Jack being voiced by Phil LaMarr, who, last I checked, wasn't Asian. Is that a problem for anybody? Or is that ok, because hey, at least the voice actor isn't white?! As for the convenience store thing, sure, the writers could change this dated joke if it really is so offensive to some people. But….is it really? I recently watched an old Married with Children episode that featured exactly this stereotype, and boy, it really was offensive and over the top and I could never imagine something like being put in a show today. So why doesn't Apu seem this offensive to me? Because, no matter what he started out like, he very quickly evolved into an actual character and not just some racist stereotype whose culture and accent is meant to be the butt of the joke and nothing else. Sure, the show does take potshots at Indian culture from time to time, but they make fun of every culture, most of all American culture. But Apu himself is portrayed as intelligent, caring, a ladies man, a good friend, husband and father that also happens to be Indian.
But what really boggles my mind is why this bothers people so much now, after 30 years on the air, when nobody even cares about the Simpsons anymore. I mean, duh, because someone now made a documentary about the topic. But I just can't understand this outrage over something so mildly offensive that apparently took people three decades to be actually bothered by. Another really valid point the guy makes in his video: if a bully insults you by comparing you to a character in a TV show, why would you blame the show for that?? If an obese, bald guy is mocked by being called Homer Simpson, are the Simpsons also to blame for that and should immediately remove Homer from the show? Or would this be a different case because it's not about race?
Aw man I didn't even want to write so much about this, but the whole affair just annoys me. Please don't ban me :ninja:
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You don't get to decide what other races and cultures find racist or problematic when it comes to representation and jokes aimed at them. You don't even get to be the thick skinned representative of your own culture and shrug off anything by saying you aren't offended by it, so no one else should be either. (As a Texan, I have a lot to say about King of the Hill, for example.)
And it didn't take 30 years to suddenly become a problem out of nowhere. It took 30 years for a guy who grew up being associated negatively to grow up, get funding, and make a documentary and shine some light on it. Just because you personally haven't seen the problem until recently, doesn't mean it wasn't a problem earlier.
And quite clearly, lots of people still care about the Simpsons. It's maybe not the must watch tv global phenomenon it was 25 years ago, but it still a cultural touchstone common reference point, that gets syndicated around the world and still shows no signs of ending, even after all this time.
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Of course I can't decide if somebody should or shouldn't be offended by something, but comedy and satire will quite often offend somebody, unless it is a very tame kind of comedy. And honestly, some people get offended quite easily without much cause or reason.
So, in any case where somebody feels insulted or offended by some comedic piece of art (or really, any piece of art), be it a cartoon, a TV show or whatever, the response should be widespread moral outrage and a demand for the apparently offensive element to be removed? Many of the best comedians test out the boundaries of comedy and satire by making offensive jokes. And I'm not even saying that the Simpsons are doing anything like that in their portrayal of Apu; he is clearly not even meant to insult Indian culture apart from the occasional joke.People have the right to be offended, but censoring the form of art that offended them surely can't be the right response. I'm sure George Carlin offended quite a few people with his jokes. What would a show like South Park look like if they removed anything that ever offended somebody? I'm not trying to build a Strawman argument here, I know you didn't say that offensive art in general should be banned, but imho, you are arguing for censorship of art if anybody finds it problematic, no matter if it is debatable if the offensive material is even as bad as it is made out to be (as it is in Apu's case), and that is a very slippery slope.
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you don't seem to be grasping the difference between something being offensive and something being racist
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I do grasp that difference, but someone being offended by something and deeming it racist doesn't inherently make it so. That's why (and the guy in the video) argued that Apu was, in fact, not a racist caricature but a three-dimensional character and I do feel that is a fair point to make. He is not a problematic stereotype, like, let's say the Native Americans in Peter Pan. Of course, an actual Indian has more right to define what a racist Indian stereotype is than I do, but that does not mean that his assessment is completely infallible and inarguable either. I'm pretty sure (without any empirical evidence, obviously, so I might be dead wrong:ninja:) that there also Indians who grew up watching the Simpsons and love Apu and are glad that their culture is represented in one of the most successful TV shows in American history by a sympathetic, well-rounded character. But Robby said:
You don't even get to be the thick skinned representative of your own culture and shrug off anything by saying you aren't offended by it, so no one else should be either.
Doesn't that basically mean that everybody's opinion is invalid apart from the guy (or guys) who feels offended? F. e., as far as I've heard, Scots really love Groundskeeper Willie. But if one guy made a documentary titled "The problem with Willie", suddenly the opinion of the guy that thinks Willie is problematic is the only one that matters anymore and should affect the writing on the show? If I misunderstood this, feel free to correct me, but that would open up a can of worms, as it basically states that nobody has the right to argue in favor of material that is perceived as racist and offensive.
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I'm sure George Carlin offended quite a few people with his jokes.
Of course he did. Mostly for the use of language. And like he said, you can make jokes about anything, including rape jokes pr using the N-word. But he was explicit about the fact that contextand intention counts.
One of his main things was that censorship was bad in that it desensitized people to things, and that choice in language matters. You take a term like shell shock, then turn it to combat fatigue, to operational exhaustion, to post-traumatic stress disorder, and that blunts the power of the phrase entirely and keeps people from getting help.
Carlin went after societal principles, and daily life things, he didn't go after specific groups of people. He talked about race and religion, yes, but he talked about it broadly, the big guy versus the little guy, he never did the white guy versus the brown guy, unless it was to comment on how stupid that was. He focused on things like upper class versus the lower class. Even right after 9/11 he didn't go after arabs, he went after the propaganda and nonsense sensationalism surrounding the Government policies that came up after that.
What would a show like South Park look like if they removed anything that ever offended somebody?
Probably like the episodes that had to be pulled and never re-aired or released to dvd because they insulted Allah. Or possibly closer to when the show was actually good and had to do actual writing.
South Park is crude just to be crude. They insult to insult. They don't have a greater point to it, they're just mean for the sake of being mean most of the time. Their INTENTION is to be cruel and they pick their targets almost at random just based on whatever came up in the news that week. Anything they say or do isn't something steeped in old culture we should have all outgrown, they want to be offensive and awful for it's own sake.
Hell, when Isaac Haynes left the show, because they had crossed the line from satire into intolerance, look what they did to his character, and he worked with them for over a decade. They turned his character into a brainwashed pedophile that they then tore apart by animals, gave a grizzly death, and had shit himself. And that was one of the people they liked and worked with!
They don't even have a point or a message they're trying to make anymore, they're not trying to talk sense to people or cut through bullshit, they're just doing the show because they're paid to do it. Both creators wanted to stop a long time ago, they've just been running through the motions for ages. And people stopped being offended by South Park ages ago BECAUSE it's just South Park, they got desensitized to it and it stopped mattering.
But even they will retire a joke that has worn out, like Pip is too british, or Kenny dying every episode.
Doesn't that basically mean that everybody's opinion is invalid apart from the guy (or guys) who feels offended? F. e., as far as I've heard, Scots really love Groundskeeper Willie. But if one guy made a documentary titled "The problem with Willie", suddenly the opinion of the guy that thinks Willie is problematic is the only one that matters anymore and should affect the writing on the show? If I misunderstood this, feel free to correct me, but that would open up a can of worms, as it basically states that nobody has the right to argue in favor of material that is perceived as racist and offensive.
No, but it DOES mean when someone from a different background say that this joke is not only not funny to them, but outright offensive and demeaning, for legitimate reasons, and that it has actually persisted so long as to negatively affect them in life, then you need to maybe at least listen to their complaint and not just outright disregard it.
Willie is one of thousands of white (well, yellow) characters in the show. He's balanced out by all the other white characters, so going over the top extreme is okay. You also have hillbillies and drunks and idiot police and guys working in a nuclear plant that are incompetent. and Flanders is an over the top religious guy and there's a literal supervillain in town. But then you have hundreds of others to balance out those negatives. Competent teachers, Lisa, Marge, newscasters, the reverend, Sideshow Mel, etc.
And then you have ONE indian guy, who works a super low class job and speaks with a thick accent, who they throw allll the indian jokes at, because he's the only one they have.
They also only have a couple black characters, one of Homer's coworkers. a cop, and a doctor and there's just not really anything racist or demeaning about them. They're even often the competant ones of their group.
Yes, Apu is fleshed out after 30 years and has more dimensions to him. But he's also STILL a guy working a menial corner store job with a heavy accent as was the stereotype thirty years ago. I guess Indians haven't progressed any in that time, they are still ALL doing those jobs and speaking in heavy accents.
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I love how upset people are and how much they're pushing back against this, when the dude who made the original documentary insisted multiple times that he Loves the Simpsons and still loves it.
People need to start getting that folks critique things from a non-white, non-male, non-straight, and/or non-cis lens, it isn't the same as saying "THIS ONE THING IS POSSIBLY PROBLEMATIC, SO THE WHOLE THING IS BIGOTTED AND IF YOU LIKE IT YOU ARE TOO!"
We can criticize parts of things we like and look at them through different lenses without that meaning that the whole thing is bad.
Metal Gear Solid V is an amazing game. 9, maybe 9.5/10 game. Excellent awesome game. Quiet's character design and the in-story justification for it is hot garbage.
Despite saying that? Still amazing game.I would say its a terrible game, Quiet just makes it even worse.
Regarding this Apu debacle, the series is already a growing tumor dragging down the first 8 or so seasons. Removing a well estabilished character won't change much about it.
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Regarding this Apu debacle, the series is already a growing tumor dragging down the first 8 or so seasons. Removing a well estabilished character won't change much about it.
^if we're thinking of just ways to modernize the show, it's been going on for far too long for anything to matter. No one wants to be the guy at Fox that iced the Simpsons, but we might be singing a different tune once one of the core five pass away.
Tbh I kinda had an idea for the "end" - just a sit down where the voice actors talk about all their experiences. At the same time, the series has been in zombie mode for so long, it's passed the point where people would go "i can't believe the Simpsons is ending" to "dear god it's finally over praise the heavens"
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And they are officially writing Apu out next season.
https://www.nme.com/news/tv/simpsons-confirm-apu-leave-2394238
They're apparently just taking the lazy, cowardly way out and just dropping him all together. No sendoff or tweaking of the character, or actually addressing the cultural commentary, not going to hire a wider range of writers than a bunch of white guys… just... not going to have him anymore.
^if we're thinking of just ways to modernize the show, it's been going on for far too long for anything to matter. No one wants to be the guy at Fox that iced the Simpsons, but we might be singing a different tune once one of the core five pass away.
Barring an accident, that's maybe a ways away. Most of the cast started young and so 30 years later are in the 55-60 range, though Marge is almost 70 and and Shearer is 74. So it could be a while before that time comes.
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i guess the "later date" came.So…no more scenes of Homer going to the Kwik-E-Mart?
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Tbh I kinda had an idea for the "end" - just a sit down where the voice actors talk about all their experiences. At the same time, the series has been in zombie mode for so long, it's passed the point where people would go "i can't believe the Simpsons is ending" to "dear god it's finally over praise the heavens"
Holidays of Future Passed from season 23 is basically the best ending the show is actually going to get, and it was written as a finale at the time. Which means you have to ignore when they went to that well a second time, but…
There was a interview with Conan and a bunch of the writers a few years back and at one point they talked about ways to end the series. It's a good watch if you have the time.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
So…no more scenes of Homer going to the Kwik-E-Mart?
They can have a new employee there. Or new management. Or they can even have Apu still there in the background and just not talking, and phase him out slowly, like they've done with all of Shearer's characters.
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I guess Indians haven't progressed any in that time, they are still ALL doing those jobs and speaking in heavy accents.
Oh so I guess that all americans are fat guys that don't like to job, hate their families and are stupid, because Homer has been like that for 30 years, and nobody is going out doing videos offended because probably the other cultures of the world may see them like that
All characters in the Simpsons are exactly the same since the show begin… no sorry, most of them actually went backwards and now are horrible characters (except guys like Apu that were still decent)Also why just because 1 guy came out saying that he felt offended by the mere existence of Apu (without mentioning the good qualities of the character) suddenly the character must be deleted from the show? like he is a mistake.
How come that only one guy automatically represent a whole collective? even when maybe that collective may not think like him?This reminds me to that time when people from USA were sooo ofended because Speedy Gonzales was "racist", even when the people in Mexico loved him. I just love how people there have the right to decide what is offensive for everybody else in the world, and that is why now Apu is gone, because people in USA find him "offensive", so thank you guys, as an "oppressed" latin america person I thank you very much.
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I already responded to this at length above. Please read that rather than me retyping the whole message.
Short version-Homer is one white guy among thousands in the cast. Apu is the only Indian until his wife was added, and she's a loaded stereotype too.
The solution shouldn't be to remove him, but to add more varied regular representation, and just maybe get a not-white guy writer or two in the staff.
And "one guy" didn't come out and say he was offended. One guy made a documentary, full of interviews and stories and brought light to an issue that the general public was unaware of, that has since been expanded upon and corroborated. To which the actual Simpsons show responded in basically the worst way possible, and legitimately got people riled, and rightly so.
The Speedy Gonzales thing was always a mis-represented issue. Speedy was probably actually fine, but all his friends and cousins were incredibly racist and dated stereotypes, and they were in so many of his cartoons, so Speedy got lumped in with all of them. Lots and LOTS of old Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry shorts get edited to hell and back now adays. There's a ton of stuff in there that's a bit squicky to modern sensibilities.
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i guess the "later date" came.The Simpsons brought this on themselves with this.
Would congratulations you played yourself apply?
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Apu is the only Indian until his wife was added, and she's a loaded stereotype too
Willy is the only scottish character in this show and no one is complaining about him even when he is even more insulting with his actitud and the way that the show has depicted him as a pathetic man.
So why Willy get a free pass? because he is "another white guy"? so it is only okey to do a racist stereotype when the guy is white?And even if Homer is "another white guy" he still is the representation of the common american citizen, some people in my country actually believes that people there are like him, so he is a dangerous misrepresentation of the people there, most important, the most important white citizens of Springfield are a bunch of lazy fat assholes, so there are very little "good working white people" represented in the show… so, should we get rid of them too?
and just maybe get a not-white guy writer or two in the staff
Why? shouldn't people be contracted by their talent instead of their skin color?
Now it is an obligation to have an "non-white" writer?
I am not against the idea, but it isn't something that should be obligatedbut all his friends and cousins were incredibly racist and dated stereotypes
were the mexicans offended by them? I don't recall hearing any mexican people making a video about that, but the always brave american people jump to save everybody again… even when nobody asked for that.
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They should really have updated Apu instead of getting rid of him.
Give him an actual Indian VA too. A white guy with an Indian accent was one of the most problematic aspects of the character.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
Willy is the only scottish character in this show and no one is complaining about him even when he is even more insulting with his actitud and the way that the show has depicted him as a pathetic man.
So why Willy get a free pass? because he is "another white guy"? so it is only okey to do a racist stereotype when the guy is white?The Scottish don't have a history of being heavily persecuted like blacks, Indians or Jews, for example. At worst, Englishmen and other Europeans joke about their violent disposition. This context is pretty important.
Why? shouldn't people be contracted by their talent instead of their skin color?
Now it is an obligation to have an "non-white" writer?
I am not against the idea, but it isn't something that should be obligatedYou're right in that it's not obligated, however, someone of Indian or some other ethnicity is likely to bring a whole new perspective to the staff due to their unique upbringings.
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The Scottish don't have a history of being heavily persecuted like blacks, Indians or Jews, for example. At worst, Englishmen and other Europeans joke about their violent disposition. This context is pretty important
So just because of that is perfectly okay that some american writers make fun every time about scottish culture?
I am latin american, and we don't have a very good record with people form the united states, especially this days, should I be offended by that?You're right in that it's not obligated, however, someone of Indian or some other ethnicity is likely to bring a whole new perspective to the staff due to their unique upbringings
Non ethnicity or country is depicted in a right way in this show, you know why? because they don't want to do that, is a comedy show that likes to exaggerate reality, I mean, Brazis is not full of monkeys running in the street like that episode show off, Australia is not that crazy either, and those examples are even worse than Apu because the writers moke a whole country no just a guy.
There are shows that deal with that types of things, the Simpson while have its serious side is mostly a fun show full of weird people. -
Making jokes about white people is different than making jokes about brown people because of literal centuries of real world abuse.
Especially when it's white people making the jokes.
A black comedian doing a standup routine can use the N word. A white comedian using the same word is incredibly distasteful and playing with fire. There is CONTEXT. Centuries of it.
The same applies to gay jokes, Jew jokes, mexican jokes, asian jokes, women jokes, whatever.
If you're making fun of a minority, and are not OF that minority, then there is possibly a line you have to be careful about crossing.
And so on. History and context are important here.
I mean, it's obvious why they don't air the Bugs Bunny cartoon with this character anymore, right?
They did NOT need to get rid of Apu. They just had to approach him even a little bit differently, or bring in more color… and instead they're removing it. They're taking the cowardly easy way out rather than ACTUALLY address the problem or make even a tiny little consideration.
The original Simpsons writing staff was seven older white guys. Take a look at the Simpsons writing staff as of last year.
Hey, they have about an equal share of women in the mix now! Great! And a couple asians! And… two black guys? Okay. And...
It's not about filling quotas, but it is about bringing in other perspectives.
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I agree with the point you're making here but you might want to correct that image or the text since that's from a Donald Duck short, Der Fuehrer's Face.
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Google failed me. I was thinking of a different horrible racist stereotype that had basically all the same traits.
Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips is pretty close to Fuhrer's Face in image search, apparently.
This is the Bugs Bunny image I was thinking of.
Wait, that's not right either.
Maybe this one?
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Okay, now you're doing it on purpose.