Name: Akaash Singh's Defense of Apu
Uploaded: 2022-02-08T22:28:01.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Akaash Singh's Defense of Apu' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-08. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Akaash Singh's Defense of Apu' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-08. Transcript available.

- The Joe Rogan experience.
- The thing that you find over time
is that people understand you.
Like they'll watch your podcast with Andrew
and they've seen you guys for hundreds of hours.
- Yes.
- They know you.
- Right.
- So like when you're talking, if you say something,
if you misstep or you know,
if you say something that doesn't turn out to be that funny,
they know what you're trying to do.
They know you're not a vicious person.
You're just trying to be funny.
- And you're never gonna be perfect.
This is the biggest opportunity in my life.
I'm gonna walk out here being like,
I wish I said that one thing differently.
- Of course.
Did you take any, like you have this defensive Apu,
which is a fucking hilarious bit.
- Thank you so much, man.
- Thank you.
- It's so dead on too.
- I appreciate it.
- It's like, why is that offensive?
Why is that guy offensive?
But does anybody give you a hard time about that?
- I'm getting some comments.
- Yeah.
- And what I want to delineate, I think is the word,
like differentiate.
- Delineate, yeah.
- Delineate, thank you.
I'm not as smart as I should be.
But what I want to differentiate
is the difference between your hurt feelings
and being oppressed.
Your hurt feelings are valid.
And if kids made fun of me for it,
that's valid, that hurt.
I can go talk to a therapist,
but you're not fucking oppressed.
And that's what I thought canceling Apu was.
It was, we think we're oppressed
and we're not at all with that shit.
- Well, there was a lot of things going on, right?
Like first of all, there was a white guy doing the voice.
- Yeah. - What's that dude's name?
- Henry Azaria, the fucking goat dude.
- Hank Azaria, right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- That's my guy, bruh.
- He was on, what else was he on?
- Oh, he's done accent.
He's in everything.
- Been a bunch on TV shows, right?
- He does a hilarious French accent
and along came Polly that's so over the top
and so ridiculous, but it's so funny.
He's a guy that just does accents well.
- You're allowed to do French people though.
- Yeah.
- Because it's like, they don't have extra melanin.
- They don't have extra melanin
and I see how it's worse, but I also.
- What?
- This guy, the voice.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, dude, that's so fucking funny.
- Are you for Scuba?
- Yeah, are you for Scuba?
Yes, dude, it's so funny, Lubin.
- What is that movie in?
- Along Came Polly. - Along Came Polly.
It's a movie most people hate, but I love.
It's one of those romantic comedies,
Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller.
- But he was in, wasn't he in a sitcom?
- He's in, probably, he's in everything.
- I just thought, I understand the context
with which The Simpsons was created.
It was a show that came out in the late 80s.
I didn't know any Indian actors,
much less voiceover actors, to do that voice.
So he did it and then he brought it to life
and I looked at The Simpsons and I said,
this is the most three-dimensional supporting character
on that entire show.
Everybody else is a static, Chief Wiggum is static,
Mo is completely static, Barney's a drunk loser all the time.
Apu is like three-dimensional and he evolves
more than every character on that show,
including The Simpsons.
He gets married, he loses a business,
gains a business, has kids, becomes a father.
So like, I love that story.
That's a beautiful story.
He's the American dream on that show.
- Have they completely removed him from the show?
- He's gone from the show.
And I think it's fucked because, dude, Apu,
if it was voiced by a brown person,
Apu is so many of our parents.
And I don't mean that, I mean that
in the most respectful way.
Like, I used to always hear, back in the heyday,
people would say, The Simpsons represents
every level of society.
That's why the politician is a sleazebag
and the billionaire is a corrupt fuck.
And Apu, I really thought, whether they meant to or not,
represented the American dream.
He came to this country in search of a better life,
he worked hard, he was mostly honorable,
and he built a fucking life.
And that is our parents.
And we should all be so proud of our parents.
And it sucks that a white guy was doing the voice,
but at the time, I don't think they had an option.
He's doing 12 voices, they just threw him one extra.
- Right.
- And they didn't have a budget.
And then he made it something.
So I would say some of the jokes were a little hacky,
you can evolve those,
but you don't get rid of the guy completely.
It was an overcorrection.