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Hank Azaria says he will no longer be voicing the controversial character Apu on The Simpsons. Azaria made the comment in an interview with Slashfilm at the Television Critics Association’s Winter Press Tour following a panel for his IFC show Brockmire. “All we know there is I won’t be doing the voice anymore, unless there’s some way to transition it or something,” Azaria told the publication. “We all made the decision together… We all agreed on it. We all feel like it’s the right thing and good about it.” The show’s producer 20th Century Fox TV would not comment on...

You don’t win battles when there is an abundance of white flags in your arsenal. Christian universities haven’t grasped that concept. One after the other, Christian schools have hoisted the white flag of surrender regarding their practices, policies, and precepts. That’s called apostasy.   Last month, California passed a resolution calling on religious leaders to affirm homosexuality and “transgenderism” and to accept that Christian efforts to help people with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion are “ineffective, unethical and harmful.” Eager to please, Dr. Kevin Mannoia, Azusa Pacific University (APU) chaplain and the former head of the National Association of...

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m tired so let’s end on a lighter note. Long-running character Apu is going to be written out of the Simpsons forever. There has been controversy about the character, who speaks in a stereotypical Indian accent, for several years. Earlier this year producer Adi Shankar launched a spec script competition looking to somehow subvert or possibly put an end to the character. Shankar doesn’t work on the Simpsons but was hoping that if the idea caught on and the spec script was good enough, maybe the show would embrace the idea and produce it. But today...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Creators of “The Simpsons” have the freedom to handle the show’s depiction of Indian shop owner Apu in the right way for their show, a top Fox executive said Thursday. Apu, the Kwik-E-Mart clerk who has sold expired food and ripped off customers in the long-running animated Fox series, has come under fire as racist and stereotypical. The criticism flared after the recent release of the documentary “The Trouble with Apu.”

Hank Azaria says he is "willing to step aside" from his role voicing Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. It follows a documentary made by Indian-American comic Hari Kondabolu that argued the Indian character is based on racial stereotypes. Speaking on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, theactor said his "eyes have been opened" by the debate and that he never intended to cause offence. He also distanced himself from the show's controversial response. Shopkeeper Apu has been part of the long-running animation series since 1990, with Azaria adopting an Indian accent to voice him. The character is one of several voiced...

I quit watching The Simpsons years ago. Not due to anything in particular. Just lost interest (plus I've not had a working television for almost the last 20 years, now). Recently, a comedian kicked up some brouhaha over one of the Simpson characters in a documentary: Apu, a Hindu Indian immigrant stereotype in that he has a thick Indian accent and owns/runs a convenience store. (Gee, so unrealistic, right?) The Simpsons volleyed back: Mr. Kondabolu accuses the makers of “The Simpsons” of racism and laments that Apu’s accent—voiced by the Greek-American actor Hank Azaria —sounds like “a white guy doing...

Fox's The Simpsons is under fire for the way in which the show responded to controversy around one of its most recognizable and oldest characters, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. The outcry over the stereotypical portrayal of Springfield’s Kwik-E-Mart owner, voiced by Hank Azaria, was addressed Sunday night in the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished" when Marge Simpson reads a book to daughter Lisa that has been changed from its original version to something not so controversial. “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?,” says Lisa. The show then panned to...

“After a while, you’d watch The Simpsons on a Sunday and you’d get a sense of how you’d be made fun of at school on Monday, based on what Apu did in the latest episode.” Hari Kondabolu doesn’t mince words about the impact the character on the long-running animation had on his own life. “Kids in the playground would always mimic the accent and say ‘Thank you, come again!’ or ‘Hello, Mr Homer!’” the Indian-American comedian tells BBC Culture. “Sure, growing up in New York City everyone tries to be funny. If you grow up there you learn to make...

A Christian university blocked conservative students from forming a Young Americans for Freedom chapter on campus last week.Azusa Pacific, a private Christian university near Los Angeles, California, took issue with “divisive language” on the website of YAF, an advocacy group for college-aged conservatives. University officials also feared that replacing the existing conservative student club with a YAF-affiliated one would limit membership options for students.A spokesperson clarified that while students were free to associate with YAF, no official relationship would be permitted to exist. “They can associate with YAF, we’re just not wanting a formal chapter on our campus,” said Rachel...

With the official announcement of AMD's Trinity APU expected May 15th, with reports that much of the APU line-up is now shipping, it's about time we placed our hands on some leaked benchmarks, which, with thanks to some Korean slides, we now can. Benchmarks that have seen the light of day are for the firm's high-end mobile APU, the A10-4600M, which targets a TDP of 35 watts. It's revealed that the chip will feature two 'Piledriver' modules, or quad-core as AMD likes to put it, 4MB cache and will clock in at 2.3GHz with a TurboCore of 3.0GHz.Out of interest,...

At an event today in Rochester, New Hampshire, Vice President Joe Biden used an Indian accent to imitate call service employees: (Video at link): This is not the first time Biden has made bizarre and inappropriate comments about Indians. In 2006, Biden came under fire for making this remark about Indian-Americans in Delaware: "I've had a great relationship. In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I'm not joking."

The tragedy in Tucson, Arizona shows that America is becoming a dangerously polarized and divided country. As a result of the policies pursued by the extreme rightists and populists, America is a politically, ideologically, racially, and intellectually polarized country. The congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 12 others have been critically wounded and six people, including a federal judge and a member of the congresswoman’s staff have died. The casualty figures could have been much higher, if the gunman, a 22 years old white man, was not overpowered by the people who were attending an informal meeting with the congresswoman outside a...

Our friends over at Radio Equalizer caught liberal radio talker Mike Malloy in a bit of hypocrisy. Malloy obviously thought his wife was a scream as she pretended to be Governor Bobby Jindal portraying him as an outsourced computer tech from India replete with cutsey faux Indian accent. Malloy's wife acted as if Jindal was the Simpson's character Apu, or something. Now, one cannot help but realize that if a conservative had indulged in such an outrageous parody of an ethnic politician, Mike Malloy would have eviscerated that action presenting it as a high crime. Yet, when he and his...

Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times D. G. Sthar, a manager of the 7-Eleven on 42nd Street, and Yuka Sugahara, 22, of Emerson, N.J., with a cutout of Apu from “The Simpsons.” In Times Square, ...visitors to 345 West 42nd Street are reveling... In “The Simpsons,”...Kwik-E-Mart is a barely disguised 7-Eleven whose Indian owner changes the expiration dates on spoiled food, worships at a shrine for the elephant god Ganesha and is under constant siege by armed robbers. Far from shrinking from the image, 7-Eleven has embraced its inner Kwik-E-Mart... Andy Chaudhari (pronounced CHOW-dree), the 7-Eleven franchise owner on 42nd...

A recent article by writer Manish Vij, The Apu travesty in The Guardian has stirred up something of a hornets nest of controversy as was chronicled here in NewsBusters. Vij took a strictly PC approach and condemned the portrayal of Apu from "The Simpsons" as being racist. However, his opinion is far from universal among people of ethnic Indian background. Journalist Saptarshi Ray who is based in the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Guardian has a very different view of the Apu character in his response, The wonder of Apu: Apu may run the local shop, he may indulge in some jiggery-pokery with...

In this day and age of Political Correctness it can almost be expected that someone will object to the portrayal of Apu in the upcoming "The Simpsons" movie as racist. Sure enough, writer Manish Vij, made just that accusation in the July 17 issue of the British newspaper The Guardian with an article titled, The Apu travesty: ...The Simpsons has long irritated some Indian-Americans because of the thickly stereotypical character of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the effete cornershop owner with fractured English, excess fertility, bizarre religious practices, illegal immigration status and a penchant for cheating customers.Apu is quite a unique character on...

Dallas, April 29: Today's great American hotel owner is more likely to be named Patel and have roots that extend to the Indian state of Gujarat, than to be named Trump and lay claim to premier properties in the New York area. Immigrants from India, almost all with ties to Gujarat, have become a dominant force in the US hotel industry. They own about half of the US economy lodging facilities and almost 37 per cent of all hotel properties here, according to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA), based in Atlanta. This means that if a traveller stops...

Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq:MSFT - news) plans to double its staff strength at its Indian centers in Hyderabad and Bangalore by March 2006, a top company official said late on Saturday. "We aim to ramp up the strength at the India Development Center (in Hyderabad) by another 1,000 professionals," Tess Field, Microsoft's head of human resources in India, told reporters on the sidelines of a management convention. The Hyderabad campus in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh is the software maker's largest campus outside the United States and provides product development and support services. The 28-acre (11 hectare) campus, which...

Indian restaurant's face legal threat over playing music London, July 5 (UNI) Indian restaurants in Britain are under threat of a legal crackdown on their choice of background music. Majority of the restaurants play Hindi film songs but some restaurants in London particularly have been playing Bhangra or Indipops. A demand is now being raised that the Indian restaurants pay performance fee for the music they play. If they fail to do so, they will be liable to court action taken against them by the official collectors of music royalties, the Performing Rights Society (PRS) and Phonographic Performance Limited. It...

Toast the New Year With 7-Eleven® Free Coffee Free Fresh Java Will Rev Up Drowsy Drivers Dallas, TX, December 30, 2003 - After a night of New Year’s revelry, party-goers who stop at participating 7-Eleven® stores can ring in the New Year with a fresh, free, hot, cup of coffee. For the 16th year, the convenience retailer will host its “Free Coffee on New Year’s Eve” program during the overnight hours. [Times vary by area. See attached chart for locations and times.] Stores in various areas of the country will participate in the program, which was designed to help combat...