The Apu travesty
An email I got about that accent…
i’m juan, from buenos aires, argentina. i work in an ad agency and i’ve found your opinion about the film “the party” while i was looking for peter sellers portraits for an ad.
it seems really strange to me to find somebody calling this movie “racist”, a thing that never pass through my mind. I’m not saying you are wrong at all, maybe the film is racist and i, seeing only the funny side of the gags, didn’t realize…
for example, aside of the accent (which i can’t say if it is a denigrating imitation, i don’t know many indian people), what do you see in the character that is offensive to indians specifically? i mean, do you find the film “the pink panther” offensive to french people?
sorry if this questions look absurd, but i’m not joking. i’m just curious and very interested in what people find funny or offensive, i work with this stuff.
It’s the accent, not the bumbling. Nobody actually speaks that way — it’s a badly-done racial stereotype. I love ethnic humor when it’s competent and smart. This accent is just crudely done. It’s been the model for Apu on the Simpsons, racist radio DJs and loads of British comedians. It’s white people doing brownface badly– like white people doing a minstrel show. In the UK it’s called the “bud bud” accent, a poor imitation of the sound.
Take a look at the video above. To someone who knows the Indian accent, it’s a travesty. It’s not like someone Argentinian doing a good Argentinian accent– it’s like someone Texan doing a shitty Spanish accent where the punchline is “I speak-o Spanish-o, burrito-nacho-taco.” Just weak.
I have a hard time writing this because of the gut-level revulsion this churns up in me. I grew up in the U.S. and don’t even have the actual accent, but the crudely pasted together, synthetic version begun by Sellers has been flung at us in racist attacks and jives for decades.
got it. the example of the texan is crystal clear. i’ve been in arizona a couple of times (guess is similar) and find latinamerican immigrants that were embarrassed about their accent, or even about being latinos. they refused to speak in spanish with me!
Here’s an example of people who’ve gotten the accent more or less right, Indian Brits who didn’t grow up with the accent but whose parents have it.
It’s not that only desis are allowed to do desi humor. It’s that the version done in the U.S. exists only in the U.S. and Britain and is done only by white people — it’s artificial. It’s badly done partly because the language lacks Hindi phonemes (as you know, Spanish and Hindi have soft consonants missing in English), but also because of a racist lack of interest in doing it well.
Some white people have done the accent well — just saw a Bollywood movie last night, I See You, with a Hindi-speaking white British actor. I haven’t yet seen it in American comedy.
Hank Azaria is the new Peter Sellers.
on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 8:38 pm in Issues, Simpsons, Video clips › 
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I tend to interpret it differently. These accents are so overblown that no reasonable person would think it is representative of Indians, and hence it is at best funny (I find them occassionally mildly amusing), and at worst, boring and silly. I also think context crucially matters, most of the DJ incidents have been with people with a demonstrated track record of racist and crude behavior, whereas I don’t think that is the case with either Hank Azaria or Peter Sellers (he just made a career of overplaying most roles he was in, be it a French police inspector, an Indian set assistant, an evil Nazi genius, or even a naive American gardener vaulted into power without his knowledge).
Personally, I find people like Deepak Chopra more annoying - people like him perpetuate the notion of Indians being steeped in mysticism, and people might believe that notion as it is put forward without any irony by an Indian himself.
Manish, such stuff indeed is repulsive many a time or excruciatingly boring and disgusting. Mostly such crap is a result of laziness more than anything else, laziness on the part of the so called performers or those who give such performers a chance. Indian accent or rather accents (because there is a great variety) are as distinct as any other, and hence need just as much effort to master. And yes, French people (the few i happen to know) do find Pink Panther crap irritating.
While its true that Simpsons and other great examples you mentioned, are gulity of holding forth a bad stereotype of desi English, sometimes fellow brownz also contribute significantly to the scene. I am not sure if i agree that the YouTube clip posted here is good desi accent, its an OK attempt at the best. What about Sendhil Ramamurthy passing off an amalgamation of Brit and Amreekan accents as desi accent. May not be his fault though, as he mentioned that it was the directors wish that he uses a Brit accent to pass off like a well educated Indian. Gimme a break. I know several well educated people from Chennai, and none of them talks in a British accent! (I can understand very elderly people having British infulence in their language).
Hindi movies take the cake when it comes to racial and linguistic stereotyping. Even desis mock each others accents! What about all the South Indians saying Ayyo Rama, all the Bengalis saying Uri baba, all the Punjus saying Balle Balle, all the Sindhis saying Vadi Saayin-all bad stereotypes, all perpetuated by us, the desis. and thats the most painful situation when we start hating each other…..
Rahul, I agree with you on mysticism stereotype.
Peace, and a happy new year to everyone.
rahul, you’d be surprised how many supposedly educated people have asked me whether my parents “sound like Apu.” And yes you could argue that everything Peter Sellers did was overblown or that everything on the Simpsons is meant to be a caricature of something else — but either way we’re still being mocked. Most people are aware that not all Americans are fat, lazy, and dumb like Homer. But most people in America also haven’t come in contact with too many browns (particularly where i live, in Hicktown, CA) so they aren’t able to differentiate b/t satire and reality, particularly since satire is supposed to be based on truth. ironically, there’s little truth in either Peter Sellers’ or Hank Azaria’s accents.
and i agree with musical on the laziness issue.
Amen to that, my brother.
And I’m sorry, but not only do people ask whether Indians “sound like Apu,” but they also try to ape the Apu accent themselves. The latter is probably what makes my hatred for Hank Azaria a bottomless well.
Your example of the texas accent made me think of this comment by a movie reviewer on Slate.com about the movie nacho libre:
“At least three-quarters of Nacho Libre’s jokes rest on the assumption that being Mexican is inherently hilarious.”
Is that another element of the offensiveness of “the party”?
the pithiest line i’ve read all year. thankee bug.
Manish, if I read you correctly, you’re saying that the depiction is racist because the accent is badly done, especially if the actor is ignorant of how far off he is; but if it is well done, then such a depiction is not racist.
The bumbling struck me as more a character than a stereotype, but the accent lives on.
I couldn’t agree with you more…Peter Sellers is not my favourite actor at all. I’m from India and throughout the 80s and 90s I had these lovely cousins coming down to visit from the US…they thought it was hilarious to do the Sellers desi accent while being treated to nice dinners by my parents. Aunties fussing over these cousins while they made fun of our accent. Simply lovely.
So it’s not just non-Indians like Hank Azaria who get it wrong.
Now I live in New York city and the awful cousins live in New Jersey(HA!!!!!!), and I still get the fake desi accent from them once in a while. They seem to have no clue that it is hurtful and mean to make fun of other people.
Very fun blog you’ve got going here, btw!
accents like Azaria and Sellers I think give permission and a ‘how to guide’ for ordinary white Americans (and Canadains) to openly and shamelessly use the ‘accent’ in public without thinking it is offensive. Case in point: my sister and father were at the drive thru in an New Mexico fast food restaurant (we are from Toronto) and the person taking their order thought it was perfectly ok to respond to them in a ‘Indian accent’, a la Apu. I have no doubt that this came from the Simpsons and the thinking behind it is, ‘if white people can do it on tv, why cant I do it in everyday life…’. Sarcasm is beyond most.
I think you are getting your chaddis into a knot for nothing. These accents are caricatures and you really cannot expect a caricature to be but a distortion of the real thing- intentional or not. Also, they feed a stereotype that the target audience has and would seem to meet their requirements; these are not meant for us desis. I personally quite enjoy this, starting with Sellers in The Goons and now my young daughter (who was born in Australia but does a mean Indian accent caricature) is also getting into them! Unwind yourself and have a giggle!
Yes, the accents are synthetic. Apu feeds a conception which is authentic American but is ill-informed and racist.