Hank Azaria has apologized for having spent years as a voice actor voicing the Indian character Apu in the cartoon series The Simpsons spoke. The actor realizes that he portrayed Apu as a stereotype.
Azaria already announced in early 2020 that he would stop recording the voice, but goes there in the podcast Armchair Expert deeper into it.
“I have not thought about it well enough and I realize that I have hurt a lot of people. I almost feel like I have to travel to India to personally apologize to every resident there. It was wrong what I did and I think it is especially bad that I saw nothing wrong in it for years. That ignorance of myself, I am ashamed of it “, says Azaria.
The producers of The Simpsons announced at the beginning of last year that a colored character is no longer played by a white person, which was the case with Apu.
What opened Azaria’s eyes was a conversation he had with an Indian classmate of his son. “He had The Simpsons never seen it, but knew Apu is some sort of insult. A figure that people laugh about and look down upon. “
“That moved me enormously, because I never meant to. He asked me to ask the writers in Hollywood for better representation of the Indian community. And I did because he is absolutely right.”
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