Apu is back on The Simpsons, now voiced by Indian American actor Sunil Malhotra after Hank Azaria stepped away in 2020. Right to bring him back, or should he have stayed retired?
Apu hadn't spoken on the show since 2017, after Hari Kondabolu's documentary The Problem With Apu called the character a stereotype. He returned in the Halloween episode on 18 October, with Janina Gavankar voicing his wife Manjula.
What happened
Apu, the Kwik-E-Mart owner, spoke on The Simpsons on 18 October for the first time since 2017. He is now voiced by Sunil Malhotra, with Janina Gavankar as his wife Manjula; AP describes both as Indian American actors. Hank Azaria, who voiced Apu from the start, said in January 2020 that he would stop because it "just didn't feel right", and the show said that year it would no longer cast white actors as characters of colour. Executive producer Matt Selman said the team wanted to bring Apu back in a way that allowed him to evolve.
Why people disagree
Supporters say recasting fixes the main complaint without erasing a long-loved character; Hari Kondabolu, whose 2017 documentary criticised Apu, called it "a clever solution" and had never called for Apu to be cancelled. Critics say the problem was always the character as much as the voice, with one sociologist describing Apu as a "forever foreigner" stereotype, and one longtime fan told AP the change would have been better made earlier.
What's still unclear
How big Apu's role will be from now on, and whether the character itself will change as well as the voice. No ratings or polling on the wider audience reaction has been reported yet.
Sources
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