Mallika Rao's Article 'Is It Time To Retire Apu?'

Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is an offense to South Asians because it stereotypes them. In The Simpsons Apu is the stereotypical South Asian whose catchphrase is “thank you come again.” Since there was not much variety of South Asian representation this was all they got back then. In Mallika Rao’s article Is it Time To Retire Apu?, she emphasizes how Apu has caused South Asians to feel belittled and wrongly stereotyped.
The fact that Apu is voiced by a white man, Hank Azaria, makes South Asians feel depreciated and unrepresented. Apu “totally f-ked with [people’s] childhood” and actors even get asked to do “the Apu accent.” Rao connects with the readers through people’s anecdotes. The personal anecdotes used, make the reader feel empathetic toward the South Asians affected by Apu. Ambukdar constantly reflects on his childhood because around school or in public, he was constantly compared with Apu. This helps the reader relate to Ambudkar and understands his feelings of hate toward Apu. Apu even affected people’s adulthood like Nanjiani’s. He was asked to do “the Apu accent” for a role he got and that belittled and unappreciated his real talents

There are popular shows with good South Asian representation like “The Mindy Project” and “Pitch Perfect.” There was also a “Totally Biased studio audience a few days before the premiere of the ‘The Mindy Project.’” The irony of the way “The Mindy Project” was presented is to show how drastic the change of finally having more representation has affected South Asians. The misrepresentation of South Asians often leads to bullying; they get called slurs or mocked through Apu. The effects of being stereotyped are real and have consequences for the people being oppressed, not the ones doing the oppression, and it is unfair. Rao mentions these shows to convey how South Asians are taking back their power of being represented by their