Report: As Cancel Culture Slowly Dies, Hank Azaria Remarks On It’s Earliest Victim “Apu”

It’s been an interesting week when talking about political correctness in media as Robert Downey Jr. stopped by Joe Rogan Experience to talk about his new film Dolittle opening in theaters this week. He was straight up asked about taking on a character donning blackface in Tropic Thunder and Robert seemed (as he should be) super confident in the role to this day because he knew where his heart was with the character and his pal Jamie Foxx loved the depiction so much that he casted the former Iron Man in another upcoming film where Downey will play a Mexican guy.

On the other end of the spectrum is Hank Azaria. Scared straight following the release of The Problem with Apu, Hank has opted to not continue doing the voice of “Apu Nahasapeemapetilon” after receiving increased scrutiny from extreme PC police. While producers of The Simpsons, most notably Al Jean and Matt Groening, have stood by the character it seems that doesn’t matter as Hank Azaria has reportedly been heard by Slashfilm about whether or not he plans to resume playing the character. Here’s what he had to say:

“All we know there is I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s someway to transition it or something,” Azaria said.

“What they’re going to do with the character is their call,” Azaria said. “It’s up to them and they haven’t sorted it out yet. All we’ve agreed on is I won’t do the voice anymore.”

“We all made the decision together,” Azaria said. “We all agreed on it. We all feel like it’s the right thing and good about it.”

Our Take

I’m not in love with the source or the article as I feel like the author comes off somewhat star-fucking what he thinks is a millennial readers base that still cares about the topic, but I’m assuming for a second everything here is 100% factual. As such, cancel culture claims another innocent victim at the moment. The Simpsons return with new episodes on February 16th so it will be a while to see if the longest-running animated series in primetime addresses this any further before the end of the year. That said, I’m not into the idea of a recast of the character and would prefer just a new character to work at the Kwik-E-Mart as I’m already not feeling the new voice for “Martin Prince” following the passing of Russi Taylor aka Grey Griffin, and that’s not to take away anything from Grey who is a fabulous actor, rather I would have preferred The Simpsons to introduce new characters for Grey to voice versus the route they ended up taking.

[h/t: /Film]