Earlier this spring, Disney announced that it hadn’t just renewed The Simpsons for a new season, the studio had renewed Springfield’s finest for enough seasons to help Homer, Marge, Bart, Maggie, and Lisa hit its fortieth season. While many of the original voice actors have been bringing the longest-animated series’ characters to life for decades, Hank Azaria decided to take a step back from one particular character with the episode “The Day The World Went To Pot.” Said character has never spoken since this installment and Azaria recently dove into the controversy surrounding his performance and his ultimate decision to leave the Kwik-E-Mart behind.
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In a new podcast episode of “Pablo Torre Finds Out,” Azaria didn’t mince words when it came to his decision to not voice Apu moving forward, “Do I keep doing the voice or not,’ required a deep dive. It wasn’t like, ‘Well, let me take a week and look into this.’ It was probably two or three years because we all froze at The Simpsons. We had no idea what to do. The character stopped saying anything, and it became a deep dive into, ‘Well, is this racist? Does Hollywood have a tradition of doing this? In one way or another, am I a part of that?”
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Apu No More
Azaria has made it quite clear that he won’t be coming back to run the Kwik-E-Mart anytime soon, if ever, saying as such on the recent podcast, “Honestly, at first, I thought, ‘Let me look into this, and then I’ll go back to doing the voice,’ and say, ‘I understand, but I’m going to keep doing this. I was surprised myself that I came down on, ‘No, I think I’m participating in a harm here.’”
The Simpsons’ voice actor then further explained that hate crimes taking place that would routinely use Apu’s name was a deciding factor for him, “The main thing was when hate crimes were perpetrated against Southern Asian people, a lot of times, they were just called ‘Apu,’ which became a slur when convenience store guys were stabbed, shot, or robbed, especially when guys were more in the stereotypical professions like taxi driver. They were hated on physically and called ‘Apu.’”
A major turning point for the actor came in the form of a documentary from comedian Hari Kondabolu titled “The Problem With Apu.” In it, Kondabolu explores both his love for The Simpsons and the struggles he has with Apu’s character. Azaria brought up the documentary and its creator in the interview, “Hari, no matter how American he is or sounds, appears Indian and will get Apu crap if someone decides to give it to him,” he said. “That Apu crap isn’t because it’s a cartoon, like ‘Oh, it’s a silly voice.’ There’s all this other stereotyping and things that have teeth in them that affect people of color in this country. While Apu might not be the most important thing in the world, it’s a window into quite important things.”
At present, no word has arrived as to another voice actor taking on Apu’s role and the owner of the Kwik-E-Mart remains in limbo in Springfield.
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