When Hari Kondabolu’s The Problem With Apu debuted Nov. 19 on truTV, Kondabolu started getting feedback on Twitter almost immediately.
Many of those online commenters hadn’t even seen the movie though.
Kondabolu, a stand-up comedian who is headlining Goodnights Comedy Club in Raleigh on Tuesday and Wednesday, admitted he got caught up in some of the negative tweets directed at him, but ultimately he focused on the positives that came out of The Problem With Apu.
The titular character in the documentary, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, is the genial proprietor of the Kwik-E-Mart on the long-running FOX animated hit The Simpsons and is voiced by Hank Azaria, who is not Indian.
In Kondabolu’s movie, he and other entertainers who are Indian explored Apu and other racist portrayals of brown people in movies and TV shows past and present. It’s a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, look at what Kondabolu described as “the idea of representation” of minorities in popular culture.
In a Friday afternoon phone interview, Kondabolu and I discussed the documentary and what happened after it aired. Azaria said in December The Simpsons will “definitely address” the Apu character. We also talked about what hanging out with living Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings is like, how doing a podcast with his brother, Ashok, has helped him become a better stand-up and more.
Tony Castleberry: The last time we spoke, The Problem with Apu had not aired yet. Now that it has, are you happy with how it turned out?
Hari Kondabolu: Yeah, I mean, going into the project, I think I wanted something a little bit more academic and maybe a little more, like, complicated, but I think as an introduction to an issue, I think it did a great job. That’s what you want. I was on a cable TV network that’s reaching so much of America. It’s good to kind of introduce an idea and I think that’s what it did, the idea of minstrelsy, the idea of representation, why this thing’s important and it did it with something that’s beloved and that I too love, which is The Simpsons.
TC: What about the discussion on the topic afterward? I saw you had Twitter interactions with a lot of people.
HK: You know, it’s so easy to be caught up in the negative and I think I definitely did. The majority of the people that I was commenting on Twitter to hadn’t seen the movie. Like 99 percent of them had not seen the movie and I think that bothered me. In the movie, there are points where I try to counter people’s arguments that I figure they’re going to make afterwards and I guess I just assumed, which is foolish on my part, that they would watch it and then criticize it.
I never took into account that, oh, they will just criticize it even without knowing what they’re talking about. [interviewer laughs] It was very frustrating to be like, I didn’t know we were this ignorant that we’re not even gonna try.
It was interesting because it’s a phenomenon that I experienced. On the Internet, it doesn’t matter what the actual issue is. It becomes a stand-in for a larger thing. People are talking about political correctness and not being able to say anything and racism and snowflakes all this kind of stuff.
When I made this movie, it wasn’t about the movie anymore. It was about the idea of being critical about something and about what they saw as part of a larger attack on what you can and can’t say, which is not what the movie is. It doesn’t matter because it becomes part of this larger conversation regardless of whether it’s relevant.
TC: It’s frustrating for me to hear that. I can’t imagine how frustrating it is for you, who poured your heart and soul into this thing. So much time and effort went into it and the feedback you got from people who didn’t even watch it, does it make you want to throw up your hands and say, “To hell with this” or do you just keep fighting the fight because you want to fight it?
HK: Certainly there were moments where I felt like (giving up), but the thing I had to remind myself of was, it wasn’t for them because if it was for them, they would have seen it. So I thought about all the people who really gained something from it. I thought about the teachers who were using it in their classrooms, the professors that were showing it. I thought about the communities that were having public screenings and having discussions afterwards whether or not I was there. That’s really what it was for. That’s the impact, you know?
Ultimately, I’m happy I made it, but it certainly was a different thing. It was meant for a different purpose than purely, “Let me grow as an artist,” right? So if I’m gonna see it that way, then I have to remember the positive that comes out of it. That’s the only thing that matters because the negativity was gonna be there regardless whether I made this or not. The negativity is pre-existing.
It’s irrelevant to what I made. It’s for the people who wouldn’t have thought about it otherwise. That’s what’s important.
TC: Was it a little surreal getting a Twitter shoutout from Jeopardy! legend Ken Jennings recently?
HK: [laughs] Ken’s great. Ken reached out to me a year, year and a half ago because he was writing a book about a broad range of issues, about representation and about national conversations. He lives in Seattle and I’m in Seattle all the time. We had a lot of mutual friends that I didn’t realize. He reached out on Twitter and of course I’m shocked. It’s Ken Jennings! We met up for coffee and I’ve seen him at different shows I’ve done. He’s wonderful.
Seattle is small so everyone who does stuff that’s somewhat notable, you kind of know each other after a certain period of time. It doesn’t take very long.
TC: He’s one of those people who kind of weird me out because I don’t think there’s a topic I could bring up tthat he wouldn’t have an informed opinion about.
HK: Yes, that’s the kind of person you want to invite to a party because they can talk to anybody.
TC: Absolutely! He could hold court for as long as he wanted.
HK: What was interesting was, when he asked me to have coffee so he could ask me some questions, he was completely focused in on every word I was saying.
I think that’s why he’s so good. He’s a very attentive listener. He picks up things quickly in addition to being obviously very well read and thoughtful. He doesn’t waste an opportunity to learn. It’s very impressive and it’s been nice to get to know him a little bit. He’s been really supportive.
TC: My grandma told me at a young age that you learn a lot more by listening than talking. I think that’s still true.
HK: Absolutely. That’s a thing we forget. I feel like so much of what we do is, “This is what I have to say. This is my point of view.” It’s become even more me-centric than it has in the past. The problem with that is we lose each other and how much we can learn from each other. There’s moments where you see, like, a Twitter fight, and generally they’re not that productive because it really isn’t about that other person’s point of view and acknowledging it and having a discussion. It’s really about the fight. I think that’s a lot of what this country has devolved into. Listening is so crucial.
TC: For sure. I take every opportunity I can to shut my damn mouth. How is the Kondabolu Brothers podcast going?
HK: It’s been so fun, Tony. It’s funny, man. Stand-up is my heart. That’s the thing I’ve done since I was 16 basically and it’s such a key part of my identity and my expression, but when I’m on stage with my brother, it’s more fun than anything else in the world. There’s nothing that is as fun.
TC: No kidding?
HK: Yeah, without a doubt. I remember the first time when we started doing it and when we started clicking and started making it work, I was like, “Holy crap!” Even a bad show is not as bad as a bad stand-up show because there’s someone else to deflect it. You have a second person that can fill a hole or fix something and also, you have someone to commiserate with.
If the show doesn’t go well, you have someone to laugh it off and analyze it with and when the show’s good, you have someone to celebrate it with. It’s pretty incredible and I think he’s made me a better stand-up and our shows have made me a better stand-up because I don’t know what he’s gonna say, but I have to respond to him constantly. He has these incredible, bizarre, logical explanations for things, things that make sense based on his logic and it forces me to have to really work and think.
He’s made me a better performer and writer just because we’ve been hanging out so much doing these shows. We’re already very close, but to me, it’s a really special dynamic and I’m really privileged I get to do this with him. I’m really happy that Earwolf gave us a chance to share it with a larger audience.
Here it is, The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes:
