Photo: Courtesy of Disney/20th Century Fox
The Simpsons is the longest running animated sitcom of all time and if you live in America, it’s hard not to have sat down at least once and watched the family on television. But of course, when something is around that long, you tend to capture different…things.
When the show was being put on Disney Plus, I remember headlines being dedicated to talking about how a few episodes weren’t gonna show up on the platform because they were offensive and good on them for it. I don’t know how long it's been since anybody’s actually sat down and watched the Simpsons, but if you were to check off how often the show lambasts people of different cultures and races just because they’re of different cultures and races, you’d fill up the notebook that you’re writing in.
But a few years before that even, there was this one episode that aired called No Good Read Goes Unpunished. It’s a fairly underwhelming episode that discusses this very thing, that over the course of history as our culture changes, our media is the artifact that doesn’t really change with time, and…whatever. It’s the episode that booted Apu, and I remember at the time a lot of uproar from my peers in the cartoon reviewing community, alongside a lot of faceless people on the internet.
Photo: Courtesy of Disney/20th Century Fox
There were some that were well intentioned, saying that they’re happy that The Simpsons acknowledged their faults and that they were willing to change them, but the episode is also split with Homer and Bart going to a Minecraft convention, so of course tonality was an issue.
But because the internet blows, I remembered a lot of the people around me saying that they actually loved the racist character of Apu, and that there’s no good reason for them to remove him because he’s an icon, he’s existed on the show forever, I like the funny accent. It’s incredibly close-minded, and a young preteen me decided that it would be a good idea to make a video about it.
Yes, white, sheltered, suburban child, Kyle Merritt, thought it would be a good idea to make a whole five-ish minute long video about why he thought this episode was bad. I shouldn’t even really be saying he, because the opinion wasn’t his own, he didn’t care whether or not Apu was removed from the show, he just saw a bandwagon, and he wanted to jump on before everyone else did. I wish I still had the video because I would tear apart my younger self, but that’s lost to time, alongside the friends that I had in that community.
That video I made was the highest viewed video I had for years, ten thousand views. And even though it was a pretty small dent in the grand scheme of things, I still worry to this day that I led some people down the wrong pipeline. Because as a whole, the episode is well intentioned...kinda. I rewatched it with a few friends of mine recently, and while it’s actually a really god awful episode, we didn’t really disagree with what it’s trying to say.
I just remember how ironic that a show like The Simpsons that hasn’t had a holy original idea since the late 90’s finally decided to put their foot down and say we're gonna change, but in regards to this. Apu needed to be removed, I just wished they did it in a better way.
In the episode they have Lisa say, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”
But here’s the thing, it was never politically correct to begin with. If I could get a time machine and go back to the year 1990 and ask Indigenous Americans what they thought of Apu, I’m pretty sure most of them would’ve been upset with the portrayal. But seeing how stretched thin and heavily under the microscope a series like The Simpsons is, they have way too much to lose when handling subjects like this, they’re not Jon Stewart or Adam Conover and they’re most certainly not South Park. So it was either gonna be approached like this, or it wasn’t gonna be approached at all, and I wish they choose the ladder.
Complete character erasure without acknowledging it in universe. What’s the worst that could’ve happened? They did that with the Michael Jackson episode and it was fine, so why not Apu? Who knows? But what I do know is that The Simpsons hasn’t had strong commentary on much of anything for decades now, their takes on modern culture aren’t really that effective because they haven’t aged at all really, so what’s the point in caring?
With how much society has changed, The Simpsons haven’t. What was once a show that showcased a pretty down to earth depiction of the modern dysfunctional family, because of how little they’ve changed, that depiction hasn’t got much ground anymore. Families like the Simpsons, are probably not gonna exist for the majority of people in my generation, because we literally can’t afford it.
And sure, there’s more episodes that battle this criticism head on and sometimes it’s funny, but The Simpsons is just too old to have anything really important to say anymore, and when it does, it’s mishandled or it feels disconnected.
Look, I’m not writing this article because I hate The Simpsons, The Simpsons is one of my favorite shows of all time. If anything, I’m writing this to highlight how even when a change is positive, if misguided, the missteps tend to overshadow your intentions.
Kudos to the Simpsons for being able to recognize how much of a problem Apu was and taking the appropriate steps to remove him, but given how many people look over the production of a single episode, I just wonder whom in that line of people completely squandered what was otherwise a really good effort to move ahead.
