I commented on this doc over on NoHomers a few months back. Figure I'll reiterate my perspective here...
Man;3755723 said:
Maybe some of the other writers wanted to annoy Reiss, so when he wasn't around they told Azaria that they wanted an Indian accent.
I don't buy that. Frankly, it makes no sense to even wrap your head around some kind of notion that there was some internal battle between writers to overrule Mike Reiss on the use of a stereotype when stereotypes have been largely embraced throughout the show's 28-year history. Hank simply did an improv during the table read of The Telltale Head, made the rest of the room laugh because he's supremely talented and that's what comedians do and they ran with it.
And had The Simpsons been on the air for a single season instead of becoming an overnight smash success, it wouldn't have made a lick of difference because a bit character that's briefly on the screen in three Season 1 episodes would have been as quickly forgotten as all of the live-action stereotypical Indian shopkeeper characterizations in cinema from the late 80s / early 90s have largely been.
But it wasn't. Instead it became a cultural phenomenon. Now the show's writers are kind of penciled into a corner because they're now largely contributing to the public's cultural consciousness and one of their now-established pantheon of characters is an Indian guy voiced by a white actor. And while I don't buy Hank's story that he was told to make Apu an Indian stereotype from the onset (I trust that Mike wrote 'not an Indian' in the script and was overruled by the reception when Hank trotted the voice out), I do believe him when he says he was told to play up the stereotype in subsequent appearances 'cause you can hear the evolution of his delivery in Homer's Night Out and Krusty Get Busted as Apu starts getting more lines. And that's largely what the show has done over the years... they use a stereotype or an impression of a familiar celebrity/character as a starting point for a character and then they get fleshed out and evolve over time. They've been doing that consistently from Day 1... from the early days to the HD era creations like The Parson, Shauna Chalmers and Anger Watkins. Sometimes they become something MORE than that initial rendition (which Apu has) and other times they do not.
Hari's contention is entirely valid. Apu set the bar really low for mainstream awareness of how Indians should be portrayed in entertainment. The Simpsons is kind of a victim of its own success in this respect. And yet the larger fundamental problem here is the bigotry on display from creators in the entertainment industry in the decades since to apply what is a clear stereotype in a comedic cartoon as a basis for "this is how Indian characters should sound". This is a problem.
