Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is being written out of ‘The Simpsons’.
The show has come under fire for making the Indian-American Kwik-E-Mart owner a racist caricature and whilst Matt Groening previously insisted he will still feature him in the animated series, it has now been confirmed that Apu will be written out.
Producer Adi Shankar told Indie Wire: "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 … If you are a show about cultural commentary and you are too afraid to comment on the culture, especially when it’s a component of the culture you had a hand in creating, then you are a show about cowardice. It’s not a step forward, or step backwards, it’s just a massive step sideways. After having read all these wonderful scripts, I feel like sidestepping this issue doesn’t solve it when the whole purpose of art, I would argue, is to bring us together."
A debate was sparked about the depiction of the Kwik-E-Mart owner by comedian Hari Kondabolu’s 2017 documentary ‘The Problem with Apu’ – which featured commentary and opinion from Aziz Ansari, Whoopi Goldberg and Kal Penn among others – which discussed whether or not Apu had caused casual racism in the US and whether or not the fact that a white actor had voiced the Indian character was a form of brownface minstrelsy.
Apu being written out of The Simpsons
