Can You Fix the Simpsons' Apu Problem?

For the last year, things have been complicated for Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the iconic owner of Qwik-E-Mart from America's longest running sitcom The Simpsons. After nearly 30 years of being voiced by Hank Azaria, a comedian and actor of caucasian descent, fans of the series have called for a new direction for the character, possibly even recasting the role with an Indian voice actor. One producer thinks he has the fix.

Adi Shankar, the showrunner of Netflix’s Castlevania series, has launched a screenwriting competition to crowdsource a spec script to reconfigure Apu. Shankar aims to rewrite the character in a way that makes him more than a stereotype.

According to the contest description on the contest website:

"We are looking for a screenplay centering on the character 'Apu' set in the world and cannon of The Simpsons that takes the character of Apu and in a clever way subverts him, pivots him, intelligently writes him out, or evolves him in a way that takes a mean spirited mockery and transforms him into a kernel of truth wrapped in funny insight aka actual satire."

Shaknak’s contest “Crowdsourcing the Cure for The Simpsons” is free to enter and open to anyone, regardless of ethnicity. However, he does ask that submitters think about whether they are the right person to rewrite Apu, encouraging people with experience with Indian culture in America to apply.

The contest runs through June 30th, 2018. Finalists will be announced on July 27th and the winners announced on August 17th.

Shankar promises to hand deliver the script to The Simpsons writers room for consideration. If it is rejected, he will produce the script as an unofficial fan film.

The contest even caught the eye of Kanye West, because what would a story about any earthly activity be without a mention of Ye. Tweeting a video of Shankar discussing his problems with Apu, Kanye said, “Adi Shankar We got love.”

Up until now, The Simpsons has been hesitant to engage with critics of the character, primarily comedian Hari Kondabolu, whose 2017 documentary The Problem With Apu pushed the issue to the fore.

Since the film's release, it’s been two steps forward, one step back for Springfield's first family. First, the show dismissed these criticisms in an episode where the character Lisa Simpson, long recognized as the conscious of the show, said, "Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”

Needless to say, fans weren’t really satisfied with this response, except if you’re counting fans who say things like “Everyone’s a stereotype on the show” and “White people aren’t yellow and you don’t see us complaining," which we're not, but I digress.

Meanwhile, Hank Azaria, who voices a number of other Simpsons characters aside from Apu, has been setting a positive course for the discussion around Apu, particularly on issues surrounding his role in the controversy. Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Azaria said that he’d step aside from the character and encourage the inclusion South Asian writers into the writers room, change how the character is voiced and possibly who voices him.

Matt Groening, the creator and former showrunner of The Simpsons, decided to take the role of someone The Simpsons would make fun of in its heyday and said, "I think it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended.”

So, now that we’re back to square, and The Simpsons, whom despite having a chance to regain some of the social and cultural cache that once defined the seminal series, has squandered whatever goodwill they might have had to right this problem, allowing everyone to go back to just being casually dismissive of the series, which has been pretty lackluster for the last 20 years.

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