| By Cara Boekeloo - Jul 11th, 2007 at 2:40 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Anticipation has been building for the Simpsons movie due to an aggrandized advertising scheme which includes Tuesday’s naming of Springfield, Vt., as the city which will host the premiere of the Simpsons movie. The small town beat out 13 other like-named cities in order to win an online poll it wasn't even invited to participate in.
However, other advertising ploys for the movie (which, as my esteemed editor points out, isn’t going to be that great because the Simpsons has sucked for the last few years anyways) have been met with dismay by some members of the community. The last weekend in June, 7-Eleven Inc. turned a dozen stores into Kwik-E-Marts, the fictional convenience store in the show.
Apu, the Simpsons character who own the Kwik-E-Mart on the show, speaks in a heavy Indian accent and frequently cheats his customers, charging outrageous prices for food he has dropped on the floor.
Many Indian-Americans have expressed anger (which is in my opinion justified) at the stereotype-ridden character of Apu which has come to life in the Kwik-E-Mart stores. Blogger Manish Vij, who started the website Ultrabrown, is extremely critical of the stores and was featured on CNN last night.
“Desi 7-Eleven owners, among others, are being asked to greet their customers with a banner mocking their ethnicity and accent as a promo for the Simpsons movie,” said Vij on his blog. “Next they’ll be asked to don turbans and bow to customers while lisping. Is the promo adorable and highly meta? Absolutely. Is it racist? In the extreme. There’s no other character in the Simpsons where a small, relatively new minority is the butt of a crude ethnic joke.”
Not all members of the Indian-American community share Vij’s feelings. In fact, half of the rebranded 7-Eleven stores are owned by Indian-Americans. Andy Chaudhari, owner of the Manhattan store which has been turned into a Kwik-E-Mart feels that Vij and others like him need to “lighten up.” Since converting his store to the fictional convenience store, his sales are up to double what they were last year. He felt that the character of Apu was just a joke and pointed out that “no one has been forced” to rebrand their store.
Hundreds of 7-Eleven stores are owned by Indian-Americans. What’s your position? Is the re-branding of the stores to Kwik-E-Marts a racist move or a funny advertising campaign?
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It's obvious that on the Simpsons, Apu is completely stereotyped.. from everything to his wife, Manjoola wearing a traditional sari and long braid, to Apu and Manjoola having over 100 children. (as if that's all indians do...) Growing up, I always thought it was hilarious... until people started asking me to "DO THE ACCENT"... then I started getting annoyed and kind of WTF about it.
But as far as this goes, I know this is pretty horrible to say, (side note: my dad is a business owner and manages a team of over 50 employees. He is a short, balding indian man with a very thick accent) but if this horrible marketing strategy is increasing sales.. then I guess so be it. They need to feed their families you know? I might get some flack about this from my Indian-American community but I'm sympathetic to the people who are hard-working individuals looking for an increase in sales. (even if it comes at the expense of stereotyping the indian-american community)
Educated people know that not all indian-american (if any) are this way. We are an incredibly hard working group of people who came here with next to nothing and have made something for ourselves. Okay that's enough of me babbling with my Indian pride.
I hope this sparks an interesting discussing because like Cara, I am interested in knowing what everyone thinks about this issue...If you read this far down, thanks!
i don't see as much outrage over parminder nagra's character on E.R as over apu on the simpsons...is it because medicine is deemed a more acceptable, worthy position by indian society?
perhaps if apu was dr. nahasapeemapetilon, hibbert's trusty colleague, we wouldn't be quite so angry. thoughts?
People forget that conservatives (and liberals alike) have perpetuated stereotypes through roles like Apu, but also encouraged this myth that most South Asians are well off and in educated, upper-middle class positions. This has been used to help with welfare, class, race, and immigration battles on the conservative front. Indians are compared to Mexicans in a "if this community made it, why can't you?" sort of manner - completely ignoring the millions of reasons why this a flawed argument (including how/why each group came over here - but that's another post). South Asians are compared to African-Americans by politicians and pundits - they forget that one group was brought over in slavery, while the other was brought over on H1-B visas that only allowed the most educated and upper class individuals to come into the States.
For example, I was in Chicago last week with my father and brother and we met a family who lived on a farm in Indiana I believe. My father was talking to the guy and tehy got along well and the guy noticed my father spoke and gestured in a kind of stereotypical Italian-New Yorker way. He found it amusing I guess and commented on it and asked my father to say certain things to more or less get a laugh. But it wasn't (and my father didn't take it) as being insulting in any way. It was just a friendly notice of differences taht they joked about. If that happened to say one of my grandparents when they were younger they may have been more insulted because they grew up when Italians were still really discriminated against and it probably would have hit a nerve.
My father also is a big Abott and Costello fan and commented on one of the characters who was Italian and given a ridiculous sounding name with like a million vowels and who also portrayed a stereotypical italian image; he noted how back then no one really thought twice about doing something like that but that today people have become much more sensitive. I don't think that's a bad thing because we know how it can turn from something innnocent into something serious.
But whether or not a store owner wants to use the popular culture image to boost business isn't really an issue; it really only comes down to whether people are looking at that character and applying that image to the image they have of all Indians or whether or not they recognize it as a stereotype that's not meant to be taken seriously at all.
In one episode a while back, Homer muses, "Getting out of jury duty is easy. The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races."
A man in Cape Cod who must have seen that episode tried out Homer's advice Monday. Here's an excerpt of the CNN story - Link (h/t Dorna Mohaghegh):
On a questionnaire that all potential jurors fill out, Ellis wrote that he didn't like homosexuals and blacks. He then echoed those sentiments in an interview with Nickerson.
"You say on your form that you're not a fan of homosexuals," Nickerson said.
"That I'm a racist," Ellis interrupted.
"I'm frequently found to be a liar, too. I can't really help it," Ellis added.
"I'm sorry?" Nickerson said.
"I said I'm frequently found to be a liar," Ellis replied.
"So, are you lying to me now?" Nickerson asked.
"Well, I don't know. I might be," was the response.
Ellis then admitted he really didn't want to serve on a jury.
"I have the distinct impression that you're intentionally trying to avoid jury service," Nickerson said.
"That's true," Ellis answered.