this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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The 90's were such a weird time for representation. All the higher ups in media were still old white people, but some of them were well meaning and did think it was important to insert people of different ethnicitys and cultures into their programming. Problem was that none of the people of the culture being depicted were involved in the writing, so these characters were often offensive stereotypes. Apu from the Simpsons and Chakotay from Star Trek Voyager are two of the most egregious examples. This all paved the way for actual progressive inclusion in media, but man has a lot of it aged poorly.
Apu has more character progression than Homer Simpson does
The problem with Apu stems deeper then just the character itself though. He embodies a mix of negative and positive stereotypes, but the biggest problem is the fact that he is written more or less exclusively by white men, and voiced by a white man doing an impression of an Indian accent. I think the character could have been pulled off fine if there had been someone of Indian decent offering creative input and voicing the character.
So, had he been voiced by and written via the consultation of an indian person, the stereotypes would cease to be unacceptable?
I mean kinda yeah. No doubt the character would have been portrayed differently had there been input from someone of Indian decent. Besides that its a general rule in good comedy to not punch down. If you're going to have jokes about a minority culture then it needs to be that culture making jokes about itself. Relatively few people were outraged about the Black stereotypes made fun of on The Boondocks because the vast majority of people involved in creating that show were Black. In the case of The Simpsons, it was just a bunch of White guys sitting around writing jokes about Indian stereotypes and making a silly voice.
I wonder exactly what would've been changed with the input of the average Indian person. What is man that ye shall know him? Would it be Apu or a name with another rose?
I also have a problem with the whole 'punching down/up' nomenclature. As long as the intention is to punch at all, then I think you're coming from the wrong angle, especially as - depending on the trajectory - it seems to try and justify different things. A lot of 'punching down' seems in good spirit, whereas 'punching up' is specifically designed to agitate.
Kind of?
Like making self deprecating jokes is different to another person making fun of you, but with nationalities.
Depending on which nationality. Americans lay into the French like they've forgotten how much they owe them... nobody bats an eyelid.
That guy from Short Circuit, Benjamin. It wasn't until I was an adult I found out the actor wasn't Indian.
A-koo-chee-moya
Jar-Jar Binks paved the way for Jar-Jar Abrams, so not all of it was good