‘The Simpsons’ showrunner Al Jean has hit back at reports Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is being written out of the programme.
The animated series has come under fire for making the Indian-American Kwik-E-Mart owner a racist caricature and it was claimed over the weekend by ‘Castlevania’ animator Adi Shankar that the character is to be axed entirely.
However, Al tweeted: "Adi Shankar is not a producer on the Simpsons. I wish him the very best but he does not speak for our show."
Adi had told Indie Wire he’d written a script to tackle the "Apu problem" but it was rejected because producers planned to cut the character entirely.
He said: "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, Hank Azaria, had voiced the Indian character was a form of brownface minstrelsy.
Apu not cut from The Simpsons
