POP CULTURE
Apu, Ramy, and the Bygone Necessity of Stereotypes
Thank you, please don’t come again.
Every minority culture has seen itself stereotyped on screen in some way or another. Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s for East Asian people, Family Guy’s Consuela for Latinx people, the list goes on.
For South Asians, it’s just four words:
Thank you, come again
Four words that are tattooed on the consciousness of a generation of South Asian people living in the United States.
Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the hyperbolic Indian Kwik-E-Mart clerk on The Simpsons, is in large part the impetus for every head-bobbing, socially inept, out of shape and aloof South Asian person you see in Hollywood.
Comedian Hari Kondabolu takes on this notorious character in his documentary The Problem with Apu. As Kondabolu walks back the origin of the character, it becomes clear that Apu is not just a cultural cheap shot, but a case study into stereotype and the sort of diluted minstrelsy that is a prerequisite for minority artists in the entertainment industry.
In the documentary, comedians like Russel Peters and Aziz Ansari reflect on having to make “Indian Jokes” to get laughs in front of a white audience at their community’s expense. Actor Kal Penn discusses his early role in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder playing a character named Taj Mahal.
For Kondabolu, it begs the question:
“Is it better to be clowned, or clown yourself?
Ramy answers that question.
Hulu’s Ramy is a comedy-drama series that stars comedian Ramy Youssef as the titular character, a millennial man living with his parents in New Jersey who continually grapples with his identity as a first-generation Egyptian-American in present-day America.
Ramy’s first episode opens on Youssef’s character being dropped off at a New Jersey mosque by his mother. Ramy is there for another man’s katb ketab, an Islamic pre-wedding ceremony. Before going in, Ramy’s mother pressures him about getting married.
“Ramy, do you want to stay alone forever?”
“No, mom, I don’t. I’m just figuring it out, okay?”
Ramy’s opening also plays off of stereotypes. An immigrant mother pushing her son to get married? That’s hardly a fresh perspective. So is Ramy clowning himself? Not exactly.
The key difference is in the intent. Ramy uses Middle Eastern and Arabic cultural tropes in order to critique and discuss, to pick apart and show nuance, and the discussion comes from within the community. Youssef is himself a first-generation Muslim American.
Conversely, Apu is a shallow stereotype who has little basis in reality and is conceived outside the represented community. Apu is voiced by white voice actor Hank Azaria.
How, then, would it be different if Apu was voiced by a South Asian actor? Kondabolu asks this of The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi:
“Because as a South Asian actor it is part of my cultural heritage. It’s mine. A white guy doing it feels like you’re usurping my culture. Kind of exploitation but also using it to further a narrative within the larger culture about me and my people.”
So when Ramy argues with his mother about getting married, that isn’t a mockery, it’s a representation of a lived experience. Perhaps not exactly Youssef’s lived experience, but one of his community.
There is, however, another layer of nuance to the way Ramy uses cultural tropes.
For a long time, minority identities were on either side of a spectrum in Hollywood. They were either the only aspect of a character’s personality (i.e. Apu) or their race was a means to improve a film’s optics (i.e. the token black friend). Neither of these is honest. Minority representation was either slammed in your face or pushed to the periphery. As Aziz Ansari says to Kondabolu:
“There’s this idea that if there’s four white people anybody will watch it, that’s mainstream, that’s accessible. But if it’s four Asian people or four black people it becomes like ‘Oh this is a black show” or, “This is a black movie.”… If it’s funny and interesting I don’t really care who’s in it, you know, we watch animated movies that are about fish.”
Almost every main character in the show is Muslim: Ramy himself, his family, and his friends. So is Ramy a Muslim show? I would say no.
The reason why is because Ramy does the work of removing the aesthetic distance between the Muslim community and the audience who may or may not be Muslim. Western entertainment is full of Muslim characters portrayed as villains. It would be easy for Ramy to depict a Muslim American doing only great things as if to say “look! We can be the good guys too!” but it doesn’t.
This is because neither the villain nor the saint is relatable. What the show does instead is depict a young Muslim man as vulnerable, and as someone who struggles with many of the same things everyone his age does.
Perhaps the best example of this is in the penultimate episode of the first season, titled Dude, Where’s My Country? Ramy, struggling to juggle his Muslim and American identities, travels to Cairo in the hopes of reconnecting with his roots. He wants to pray in the old mosques, see the Nile, and visit Tahrir Square in an effort to understand ‘his home country’. What he finds however is a generation of young people all moving on. They drink, party, and make references to Aston Kutcher movies.
What Ramy is searching for isn’t there because it doesn’t exist. The country his parents left has changed and he is trying to reconnect with a past that isn’t his. The episode underscores that there is no answer to Ramy’s problem. There is no correct way for him to live his life. Instead, there is subjectivity, identity, and self-discovery. All of which are distinctly human experiences, Muslim or otherwise.
After finishing Ramy and The Problem with Apu I was left wondering if South Asian entertainers owed some sort of a debt to Apu. What I mean by that is: is a stereotype a necessary prerequisite to honest representation? It’s clear that playing a trope is some sort of foot in the door for minority actors, but is it required? Without Apu, do we get a Ramy?
Clearly, Apu is supposed to be Indian and Ramy and his family are Egyptian-American, and assuming those two communities’ experiences are the same is a fallacy. But if minority performers didn’t start out making jokes at their own expense and playing characters that ridiculed their own community, would we have some of the shows we have today? I hope not
What is clear, however, is that if that was the case, it is not anymore.
One of the most telling moments in Kondabolu’s documentary is a conversation he has with his parents. His mother does not seem as phased by Apu, and even goes on to call Hank Azaria a very talented guy who was just doing his job. When Kondabolu asks his mother why she tolerates Apu, she responds:
“First of all, we came here. We had to succeed, no matter what. It doesn’t mean that we are not offended by it… Times have changed. You have security, and you belong here. You’re an American.”
Kondabolu and Youssef are both first-generation Americans, born with the audacity of equality (to steal a phrase from Hasan Minhaj, another first-gen Indian American), which means that they are by definition no less American than anyone born beside them and they have a license to be critical and be outspoken. For their parents, the pressure to assimilate and get by may have eclipsed their offense at a mindless stereotype.
As more creatives like Ramy Youssef and Hari Kondabolu begin to tear down the hegemony in Hollywood, the necessity of stereotypes continues to recede.
Kondabolu speaks with former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy about the nature of stereotypes:
“Stereotypes have a long half-life. They tend to last for a while unless we are committed to and good at telling our own story”
Ramy is evidence that putting minority creatives in charge of their own story can produce content that depicts marginalized people as neither stereotypes nor as tokens, but instead as deeply and cathartic human characters.
The Problem with Apu is available to stream on HBO Max
Ramy is available to stream on Hulu
