Artifact Analysis: Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in The Simpsons Episode, “Much Apu About Nothing”

Apu as a Stereotyped Embodiment of the Indian-American Immigrant Racial and Hindu Religious Identity at the intersection of Religion in Popular Culture

12 min readNov 25, 2019

Introduction

The artifact that I have chosen for my course blog artifact analysis assignment is the character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon from season 7 episode 23 of the T.V. show The Simpsons, titled “Much Apu About Nothing” (1996).

Apu is portrayed in the show and episode as a male, Hindu-Indian immigrant, living in Springfield where he runs the local convenience store called Kwik-E-Mart while still being a student in medical school, and already previously having a PhD in computer science. He is vegan, has a brother named Sanjay, and has a wife from an arranged marriage named Manjula, with whom he shares eight children.

The episode, “Much Apu About Nothing” tells the story of the mayor of Springfield, Mayor Quimby proposing a municipal law to deport all undocumented illegal immigrants. Apu panics and purchases fake documents from the Springfield Maria that lists his parents as legal-American citizens Herb and Judy Nahasapeemapetilon from Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA. Apu realizes however, that he is betraying his home country of India and his parents’ legacy and ditches the documents and instead with the help of the Simpsons family, passes the test and becomes a legal U.S. citizen.

Media 2: Apu Realizing he has Betrayed his Family’s Legacy

Media 3: Apu Standing Next to Mayor Quimby’s Propaganda Poster in His Store

This post will discuss Apu and his character as an example of the intersection of religion in popular culture. The cultural aspect of Indians in popular culture and its associations of religious associations of Hinduism demonstrate a foundation for critical analysis. This artifact as projected in popular culture is the basis of mainstream representation and generalizations of Indian culture and Hindu religiosity that gets integrated in global perceptions of the character of Apu that shapes the way in which Indians and Hindus are portrayed and interacted with in on a day-to-day basis. This post will discuss Apu and his character as an example of the intersection of religion in popular culture by looking specifically at the projection of Apu as a stereotyped embodiment of the Hindu, Indian-American Immigrant identity in season 7 episode 23 of the T.V. show The Simpsons, titled “Much Apu About Nothing” (1996).

The Voice of Apu

In the episode “Much Apu About Nothing”, when Apu is suggested to fake a Southern American accent to fit into American society after receiving his fake documents, Apu wears a cowboy hat, a New York Mets baseball jersey, and fakes an American accent.

Media 4: Apu Wearing a New York Mets Jersey and a Cowboy Hat

He also ditches his statue of Ganesha which he has on his front counter of his store. When Homer Simpson asks why his statue of Ganesha is gone, he responds that he does not need the Hindu deity Ganesha as he now has a magazine of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. This making a point about how popular culture and celebrity gossip is replacement for American religious identity and belief. In the same way, his American ‘voice’ with a Southern accent is replacement for the ‘brown voice’ he originally possesses.

This voice also has a connotation of comedic relief of traditional religious worship. For example, when Apu first finds out that the Mayor want all undocumented citizens out, he offers chocolate milk to his Ganesha Deity and prays that he makes his problem go away. This is circumstantial as it associates his religious identity to ideas of religious Hindu worship of offering milk and cow worship, to further ideas of comedic relief that suggests he took chocolate milk from the shelf at his connivence store as a replacement offering.

Media 5: Apu Offering Chocolate Milk to his Ganesha Deity

Media 6: Apu Showing Homer his Magazine Stand of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Replace of His Ganesha Deity

Apu’s voice in The Simpsons plays an important role in the representation of his character at the intersection of religion in popular culture. Stuart Hall, in his book Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997) argues that representation is connected to power that is held by producers and recipients that further negotiate and produce meaning attached to representation.

Hall discusses the invisible factors of representation, which one is production. Hall argues that the inventing, producing, and distributing of the artifact are all ways in which power is used to illustrate and mold representation in popular culture.

In Apu’s case, one might ask who is producing the character of Apu in The Simpsons? The examination of voice actors is critical when examining the power of vocal representation of Apu’s character. Apu is voiced by a White, European-American actor named Hank Azaria. Apu’s brother, Sanjay is also voiced by a White, European-American actor named Harry Shearer. Lastly, Apu’s wife Manjula is voiced by two women, Jan Hooks and Tress MacNeilie, both White, European-Americans.

Media 7 & 8: Hank Azaria (Left) as “Apu” Jan Hooks (Right) as “Manjula”

None of these people nationally or ethnically mirror the represented racial and ethnic representation The Simpsons projects of Apu, his wife, or his brother. The question may be asked, how hard is it to find an Indian voice actor? The producers of this show, and the choice of voice actors to represent these Indian characters shows true power in production. This is projected to the audience and then the audience along with producers generate a meaning of the character of Apu. This meaning is the stereotyped Indian-American who struggles with English.

Also, the meaning created with the representation of Apu projects a power-induced creation of this “brown voice”. Shilpa Davé, in her article titled, “Apu’s Brown Voice: Cultural Infliction and South Asian Accents” (2005) examines the idea of “brown voice” and its annotations on South Asian characters in American popular culture characters like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in The Simpsons. Through the analysis of the putting religious and cultural associations on to non-associative concepts like voice. Davé argues that the racializing of the “brown voice” in society and as projected in popular culture projects ideas of foreignness and class and cultural privilege on the South Asian racial, ethnic, and religious identity.

This links to Hall’s arguments about representation in regards to production and power of Apu in popular culture. It is exemplary of the fact that the white voice actors that are used to represent the Indian characters in the show hold the true power in the representation and projection of decisions that go into encoding the representation of Apu. If this is an accurate depiction of the immigrant Indian-American person who naturally has this “brown voice”, then why can’t an Indian voice actor voice Apu and its supporting characters? The answer to this lies in Hall and Davé arguments that the power induced representation of these characters leads to this voice as a formation of racial identity to induce stereotyped comedic minority representation in popular culture.

Constructing and Projecting the Stereotyped Indian-American Identity

In the episode, “Much Apu About Nothing,” when Apu gets his fake ID, the member of the Springfield Mafia pronounces his name in its intricate long and comical length. Apu although takes these documents, he feels bad that he disappointed his parents even after obtaining a PhD, and still being in medical school, and further questions his fake documents linked to being “ashamed” of his racial, ethnic and religious past and the expectations that come with it.

Media 11: Apu Shows Homer his Fake Document

Pierre Gottschlich, in his article, “Apu, Neela, and Amita Stereotypes of Indian Americans in Mainstream TV Shows in the United States” (2011), argues that Indian-Americans in popular culture like Apu have progressed from a character who has been isolated to only his immigrant, ethnic and religious status, into a well-rounded, multi-dimensional character that has become a well-liked individual in American television. This argument stems from an analysis of the entire progression of Apu throughout the show The Simpsons thirty year show run.

But the root of this progression is important to analyze when looking at the creation of Apu’s character as the constructed orient or ‘other’ in the west. Edward Said in his book, Orientalism (1978) argues that the construct of the orient ‘other’ refers to something society has constructed mentally, which is constructed in part by excluding other aspects of racial, cultural, and religious identity.

Apu’s racial, cultural, and religious identity is constructed as an orient in The Simpsons and American society by creating an Hindu religious, and Indian-American ethnic Immigrant identity that stems as a collection of religious and cultural Indian and Hindu Stereotypes. Sophia Arjana, in her article “Monstrous Muslims” (2017) argues, “the tendency to use the signifiers of a culture — clothes, music, street urchins, unfamiliar writing — as a kind of spicy Orientalist soup of otherness” (Arjana 2017, 95).

This creates the representation of Apu as a projection of the essentialist identity. One of these stereotypes is Apu’s name. Traditional Indian last names tell religious history and religious significance of family construct and genealogical significance. Apu’s name, (Nahasapeemapetilon) is not an Indian last name. It is simply a constructed name that serves to only poke fun how long and intricate Indian names can be, especially for westerners to pronounce. The short first name however is essential to the commercializing of the character and the use of him as a mass media character that can be related to by American society as Gottschlich argues. This leads for the audience to question for example, what kind of exotic, “other” people have such long and comical names?

Media 13: Apu Repeating his Name and Making a Joke on What his ‘White’ Name would be

Another stereotype used to construct this identity of the “orient” is the portrayal of Indians’ only ambition to become a doctor. This projects the “orient” Apu as having a backward way of thinking that there is only one career path, to become a doctor. Apu embodies this by ways of not giving up his dream to become a doctor, even in the socially unconventional timeline of medical school in adulthood.

Apu and the Comedic Immigrant Struggle

In the episode “Much Apu About Nothing”, Apu faces first financial problems when he mentions that no one has come to his store in a week. Also, he also recites this struggle as in line with his identity in American society as an illegal alien.

Todd Lewis in his article, “Religious Rhetoric and the Comic Frame in The Simpsons” (2002) argues that through themes of comedic relief and satire, The Simpsons provides a diverse and respectful projection of religion in modern American society. Lewis does this through the analysis of majority religions in America like Christianity and its portrayal by the main character (mostly Homer Simpson and his family), as well as the minority religions shown by re-occurring characters like Apu, and his Hindu religious family.

Media 14: Apu’s Convenience Store, “Kwik-E-Mart”

Media 15: Apu Working Hard, Breaking a Sweat. Mopping his Store

Just as Hip-hop serves as a medium that connects to Black racial community issues in America, the episode’s comedic tone use the medium of comedy to connect to racial minority religious and illegal document status and deportation issues in America. Anthony Pinn in his article, “Rap Music and Its Message: On Interpreting the Contact between Religion and Popular Culture” (2017) argues that the hip-hop and racial community issues is a “relationship to temporal and proactive plans for social transformation” (Pinn 2017, 405). This aligns with the illegal immigrant narrative the Simpsons projects in context to bigger issues like to those of the immigrant person struggling with ethnic, racial, cultural, and national identity. Although Apu is an undocumented citizen, he shows as Lewis argues, how tackling the barriers of the immigrant identity conflict can be resolved with a simple realization and medium of attachment to a homeland and acceptance of a new life.

Media 16: Apu After he Legally Became a U.S. Citizen

Conclusion

At the conclusion of the episode, “Much Apu About Nothing,” Apu toasts after passing his citizenship test, “I am no longer an Indian living in America, I am an Indian-American.” This suggesting the moral of the story, which is that the immigrant struggle of ethnic and national immigrant, as well as outside cultural and religious identity is complex.

Many people however, have expressed concern about Apu as a character that projection and feeds racism in America. Hari Kondabolu created a 2017 film titled, “The Problem with Apu” in which he brought light to the racial issue of identity representation and racist undertones of Apu in the Simpsons. This film sparked rage and demands for answers from the T.V. show creators, and the voice actor who voices Apu. It is the further issues that the character of Apu puts forth issues of representation vs. reality in American society. Hari Kondabolu shares,

“Like most Americans, I’ve become very familiar with Apu over the years. But in my case, as a Pakistani American, it wasn’t just seeing him on screen — it was being called Apu in locker rooms, being mistaken for the clerk in convenience stores, hearing people mock my family’s accents by saying, “Thank you, come again!”

Media 17: Documentary Creator Explaining his Reasoning for the Film “The Problem with Apu” (2017)

Media 18: A Tweet Regarding the Simpsons’ Response to the Film

After the film, The Simpsons responded but many say that it is not enough. Although Hank Azaria personally has apologized for offending anyone, The Simpsons claim that as of 2019, Apu will remain a reoccurring character in the T.V. show.

Media 19: Hank Azaria’s Apology

How it sometimes is the only way in which people get to know what the Indian and Hindu identity is lived. It can be problematic because sometimes it is the only projection of an Indian in racially under cultural areas.

For myself, growing up in a predominate racially White suburb in Canada, I experienced what I didn’t realize was racial and religious bullying. Every time I put my lunchbox in my shelf, at lunchtime I would notice bologna in it. When I got home I would say, I didn’t eat the meat you put in my lunchbox, and my mom said, “what meat?” She noticed every day, someone from my class would but lunchmeat in my lunchbox. I started putting my lunch bag next to the teacher’s lunch bag.

I didn’t notice that it was racial bullying until I reflected on it as an adult. It bears the question, how was the act of kids putting meat in my lunchbox related to the projected embodiment of Indian culture and Hindu religious belief that Apu represents?

At the end of the day, I was one of the only Indians at my school, it is not the kids’ fault for the way in which they honestly believe the generalizations about the Indian identity in western society that is fuelled by popular cultural representation. In some regions, popular culture serves as the only projection of some minority people identities, and when that identity is misrepresented, it can be problematic.

Media 20: Apu’s Famous Catchphrase after he Serves Customers

Works Cited:

Scholarly Sources:

Davé, Shilpa. “Apu’s Brown Voice: Cultural Infliction and South Asian Accents.” East Main Street: Asian American Popular Culture. Ed. Shilpa Davé, Leilani Nishime, and Tasha G. Oren. New York and London: New York University Press, 2005. 313–336. Print.

Gottschlich, Pierre. “Apu, Neela, and Amita Stereotypes of Indian Americans in Mainstream TV Shows in the United States.” Internationales Asienforum, vol. 42, no.3–4, Nov 2011, pp. 279–98. ProQuest, https://search-proquest -com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/1013487807?accountid=14771

Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. SAGE, Milton Keynes, 1997.

Lewis, Todd V. “Religious Rhetoric and the Comic Frame in The Simpsons.” Journal of Media and Religion, vol. 1, no.3, 2002, pp. 153–165. Taylor & Francis Online, doi:10.1207/S15328415JMR0103_2.

Pinn, Anthony B. “Rap Music and Its Message: On Interpreting the Contact between Religion and Popular Culture” Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition. Ed. Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan. University of California Press, 2017. 390–412.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. Pantheon Books, New York, 1978.

Sophia, Arjana. “Monstrous Muslims.” Religion and Popular Culture in America, Third Edition. Ed. Bruce David Forbes and Jeffrey H. Mahan. University of California Press, 2017. 86- 99.