Name: Hari Kondabolu - Exposing "The Problem with Apu" | The Daily Show
Uploaded: 2018-04-11T00:24:25.000Z
Duration: 4 min 7 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The imperative

which has thrust you into a firestorm, it feels like.

-Because... -Yeah. I can't check my Twitter mentions.

which is really interesting and hilarious,

Some people say you've made this movie to say

that Apu is only racist, and it is bad, and you are you angry.

This-this cartoon's been around for a while.

I mean to be honest, do you want to really know

-but I don't really give a (bleep). -(laughter)

Wait. So, so, wait. If you don't give a (bleep),

um, I feel like there's a gap. You know what I mean?

That there's a bunch of stuff that happened

brown people weren't allowed to talk until, like, 15 years ago.

-We're talking about the pre-Aziz and Mindy era. -Right.

-Right? -(laughter) -I like that. "Pre-Aziz and Mindy era."

-Yeah. P... P.A.M., and, um... -(laughter)

so there's this huge gap in who we were and what we...

what that experience is like, and what it feels like

when your only image is a cartoon character

and this country has a history of that. So...

Well, when you... when you look at the story

of The Simpsons, though, there are people who say:

But, Hari, you can't say this about The Simpsons, though.

Some people would argue that Homer Simpson is a stereotype

of a white man who's not well educated in America,

represent stereotypes of caricatures of everyone,

'Cause there's a lot of different white characters,

It really is... it really is just representation.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, I wanted to call the film,

-I Got to Explain This to You?  Um... -(laughter)

I mean, we had this one thing, and that matters.

Um, you know, we only had two representations,

brown people, in this country-- whether that's South Asian,

We had, uh, we had Apu from The Simpsons--

And so, but that didn't exist on television,

the media, at the time, so all of a sudden,

there's all these hate crimes and deportations and detentions,

Meanwhile, white guys, like, a middle-aged white dude

and no one's going after all middle-aged white guys, right?

That would be an absurd thing. No one's like,

"Oh, it's a middle-aged white guy! Get him!"

there are people who say-- and I've seen, funny enough,

"I enjoy Apu. He's my dude. I laugh at this.

-Why is it such a bad thing?" -I enjoy Apu.

but there's a... just because something's funny

the fact it's funny makes it easier to push it forward.

-that has a messed-up message works, right? -Right.

So for me, it's, like, if we had a bunch of other characters

at that time, then Apu would have been...

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Hari Kondabolu - Exposing "The Problem with Apu" | The Daily Show

stick

absolutely

bunch

hilarious