racism on Simspons???
Sriram Sankar
I am Indian, and in general do not find the Simpsons show
racist wrt Apu. I have no problems with what he does or
his lifestyle. As many others have said, both me and my
Indian friends who watch this show get a kick out of seeing
an Indian comic character.
If at all something is to be considered racist in the depiction
of Apu, I can think of two possibilities:
1. His accent: Very few real Indians speak like that. Although
I do not find this accent offensive for a cartoon character to
have, Apu's accent is very similar to accents of Indians one sees
in movies with real people produced in the West, for example,
Passage to India. I once went to one of these traffic schools
taught in humor, and the instructor insisted on putting on this
accent every time he spoke to me, much to the amusement of the
others. It is in situations such as these, and not in cartoons,
that this accent may be found offensive.
2. A certain quote from last weeks show where Homer works for Apu:
Apu said something like "I never thought the day would come when
one of you would work for one of me". I'm not sure I have the
quote right, but for whatever reason, my immediate reaction was
that I didn't like it. And I think the reason was that it made
Apu seem racist - he was classifying people. If there are
other interpretations of Apu's comment, I'd like to hear them.
Sriram.
a...@usdb.edu
Tim Messick
eEEeEeeeH!
a...@usdb.edu
Abe Newart
>In article <48...@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> mes...@boole.seas.ucla.edu (Tim Messick) writes:
>>
>>eEEeEeeeH!
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