The Simpsons: Does Apu need to leave the cartoon series?

"You have to sort things out later," Marge said to her daughter, and Lisa adds, "If anything." The scene comes from the episode "The Simpsons" "No good reading remains unpunished", with which the successful American animation series responded to allegations that an Indian character was racist. Perhaps it was a hidden clue about how the Fox broadcaster and the team around the "Simpsons" creator, Matt Groening, would deal with the "Apu problem". Namely not.

At least that is what the indigenous television and film producer Adi Shankar claims in an interview with the American online magazine "IndieWire". "They will completely abandon the Apu character," said the 33-year-old according to several sources from the "Simpsons" environment. "They will not do a big deal, but they will drop it to avoid controversy," said Shankar, producer of Netflix Castlevania and YouTube's satirical short film. The "Bootleg Universe" portal works.

The controversy Shankar is talking about is that of the Simpsons character, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, who was born in India and runs the general store Kwik-E Mart of the fictitious Springfield cartoon. Not only is it outrageous that Apu is being spoken by the white American actor Hank Azaria, the Indian cliche also reflects "how America views us: servile, devious and silly," he said. complains the Indian comedian Hari Kondabolu in his 2017 documentary "The Problem With Apu", which caused a sensation.The portrait of Apus has been hurting and insulting the Indian community in the United States for decades, according to Kondabolu.The show, broadcast since 1989, seeks to complicate the character of Apu – or to let him die, he said in his film.

Adi Shankar would like to know from two sources who work "for the" Simpsons "", as well as another person who works directly with the genie of the series, Groening. At the request of "IndieWire", the American producer Fox simply stated that Apu is quite common in a recent episode.

Why did Shankar even ask? Inspired by the movie Kondabolus, the producer had launched a script contest to find the best "Simpsons" script to solve the "Apu problem". Won a layman on television, the book of Vishaal family doctor from Maryland. In her story, which Shankar uses to develop the script using crowdsourcing, Apu moves from the owner of a kiosk to a successful businessman in Springfield. This "perfect script" in his eyes, which Shankar Fox wanted to use for the series, has his efforts stifled in the bud. Delete Apu is "neither a step forward nor a step back, it's just a huge step back", so very unsatisfactory.

According to "IndieWire", Shankar now plans to simply produce Buch's Apu narrative as a short film to the "Simpsons" for his "Bootleg Universe" series. There, Shankar has often reinterpreted series and series of blockbuster movies, including James Bond, Marvel's "The Punisher" and, most successfully, a live action film from 14 minutes on "Power Rangers" with actors such as Katee Sackhoff and James Van Der Beek. For his guerrilla episode, he hopes to win even the original speaker of Apus, Hank Azaria.