'The Simpsons' finally brings back Apu — after 9 years of agonizing over political correctness
After nearly nine years of silence, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon is finally speaking again on "The Simpsons."
But before the Indian convenience store clerk could return to Springfield, the show's writers apparently had some apologizing to do.
'When my agent called me about a "Simpsons" audition, I knew exactly what role it was for, and the idea actually made my stomach sink.'
Thank you, come again
Sunday night's episode, "The Revengening," brought back the once-popular character with a new voice actor, Sunil Malhotra, and a storyline that doubles as an apology for the way the show handled the controversy that drove Apu off the air in 2017.
In the episode, Apu returns to Springfield seeking revenge on the townspeople who abandoned him. He tells them he has spent years on the "island of forgotten garbage," where he encountered another discarded Springfield resident, Dr. Nick Riviera.
"I am the man you left for dead," Apu declares. "I am the one you pretended never existed!"
In a clever bit of self-mockery, the writers have Springfield's residents parrot what sounds like their own years of agonized internal debate over Apu.
Marge — "clearly serving as a mouthpiece for the show's producers," Variety notes — is first to respond: "Apu, we're so sorry we left you for dead. Believe me, we wanted to do the right thing."
Bart admits they were scared and didn't know what to do. Lenny says there were "many internal conversations about it," while Carl concedes that those conversations "kind of just didn't go anywhere."
Homer eventually joins the chorus of apologies, recalling Apu's many contributions to Springfield and admitting that he took his old friend for granted.
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No 'Kwik' fix
Apu had been a fixture on "The Simpsons" since its first season, running the Kwik-E-Mart, shamelessly gouging customers, and occasionally enjoying adventures beyond the convenience store — including a stint in Homer's Beatles-inspired barbershop quartet, the Be Sharps.
He was also at the center of a controversy that erupted following comedian Hari Kondabolu's 2017 documentary, "The Problem with Apu."
The film argued that Apu's exaggerated Indian accent and stereotypical portrayal had helped perpetuate unflattering assumptions about Indian-Americans. Kondabolu was particularly critical of the fact that Apu was voiced by Hank Azaria, a white actor.
But not all Indian-Americans agreed that Apu was a problem. In a 2018 Washington Post essay, Indian-American writer Amar Shah explained that he saw his own father, who had operated convenience stores and gas stations, reflected in the character. Although Shah acknowledged being irritated by Apu jokes as a child, he eventually came to appreciate the similarities between Apu and his hardworking, entrepreneurial father.
"Does he offend me? No, because some part of him is real," Shah wrote.
When Shah asked his father what he thought of Apu, the older man had a less philosophical response: "Who? I don't know who that is. I have an inspection to worry about."
Indian comedian Kunaal Roy Kapur was similarly untroubled by the character's exaggerated accent. In a 2016 NPR discussion, he described Apu's voice as entertaining and funny, saying he had no issue with it.
Azaria eventually agreed with the criticism of his portrayal. In 2020, he announced that he would no longer voice Apu, and the show's producers subsequently declared that white performers would no longer voice nonwhite characters.
The bizarre decision led to the recasting of other characters, including Dr. Hibbert and Carl Carlson. But Apu was effectively sidelined. Although he occasionally appeared in the background, he hadn't spoken a word since October 2017.
Until Sunday.
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'I am Apu!'
Apu's new voice belongs to Indian-American actor Sunil Malhotra, who told Variety that his initial reaction to being offered the role was hardly enthusiastic.
"When my agent called me about a 'Simpsons' audition, I knew exactly what role it was for, and the idea actually made my stomach sink," he said.
Malhotra wondered whether the writers had learned from the controversy, whether Apu could be reinvented, and whether the character's return could acknowledge past mistakes without disappointing longtime fans.
His reservations were personal. The actor said he had turned down his first professional acting offer 28 years earlier because it required him to play a stereotypical "Hindu guy."
"To be the butt of the joke wasn't something I was willing to do, and I've turned down similar work multiple times since," he explained.
Before accepting the Apu role, Malhotra insisted on meeting with showrunner Matt Selman and co-executive producer Cesar Mazariegos. He ultimately described the experience of working with the producers as collaborative and said bringing Apu back felt like a reclamation.
The actor was particularly pleased with the episode's climactic moment, when Apu removes his disguise and loudly announces his identity.
"I'd be lying if I didn't say that the sweetest part of all was unleashing that righteously rage-fueled 'I am Apu!' — on behalf of so many of us — over and over in the studio until we got it just right," Malhotra said.
He added that he hoped the episode was "equally satisfying for longtime fans" as it was for "other South Asian kids who, like me, stopped watching at some point along the way."
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New Gears Of War Game Is So Annoyingly Woke, Players Modified It To Shush Girlboss Character
Rather than allow the original characters to carry the story, developers shoehorned in new characters to push modern sensibilities.My publisher thought my new thriller was too political. So I found another.
There are three high bars in the modern literary trade — writing a good novel, getting it published, and selling it to the public.
I’ve cleared the first two with my new political-thriller mystery, “The Camelot Trail,” which comes out November 17. Now I have to clear the third.
I committed another contemporary heresy in 'Paper Tigers': I gave the character I politically disagree with dignity and wit.
That last bar used to be lower once you cleared the first two. Publishers, even smaller ones, had a built-in promotional pipeline. They would set up radio interviews and nationwide book signings and send review galleys to genre-specific media like Analog for science fiction, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine for mysteries, and Romantic Times for, yes, romance novels.
But that was the 20th century, when reading was still commonplace and before the internet atomized audiences. The publishing business has changed in other ways too.
Heroes wanted
At the turn of the millennium, "Harry Potter" triggered a reading boom among young and old alike. J.K. Rowling established her fantasy universe with a strong male lead, and boys showed up in force. A 2006 Scholastic study found that 57% of boys ages 5 to 17 had read "Harry Potter," compared with 51% of girls.
The best-seller lists of the 2000s were also thick with male-driven thrillers and mysteries from Lee Child, Dan Brown, Vince Flynn, John Grisham, Harlan Coben, and others. Their readership was hardly confined to men. Men and traditional women still appreciate alpha males.
Yet over the next decade, publishing and Hollywood increasingly came to regard the traditional male hero as something requiring correction.
I noted the latter tendency eight years ago in my first article for the American Spectator. Marking the 10th anniversary of the action-thriller hit “Taken,” I wrote that a film about a heroic white father rescuing his kidnapped daughter from Albanian sex traffickers would never be greenlit in 2018. Radical feminists would reject the original story as patriarchal toxic masculinity.
Their “Taken” remake, I joked, would depict the father as a cretin while the minority-race mother kicks white male ass to save their mixed-race gay son from a white-supremacist Christian cult. Whether the resulting movie would be laughed off the screen would matter less than the message.
Male jail
Consider Rachel Zegler explaining Disney’s new “Snow White”:
“She’s not going to be saved by the prince,” Zegler said. “And she’s not going to be dreaming about true love. She’s dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.”
So get with the program, all you silly girls dreaming about true love and Prince Charming, and you useless boys with no hero to emulate or damsel to rescue.
They can still find both archetypes in books from independent publishers.
Publishing itself is overwhelmingly female. The Association of American Literary Agents’ 2023 membership survey found 82.1% of respondents identified as "cis women," versus 14% as "cis men." The organization’s DEI committee explicitly describes agents as “gatekeepers” and says part of its mission is to advance AALA as an “anti-racist organization.”
The AALA does not, of course, publish a sign reading STRAIGHT WHITE MALE HEROES NEED NOT APPLY. But if you are a straight white male writing novels about masculine heroes and sexy women, you can draw your own conclusions.
I did.
Heretic's tale
I’ve written five books, including what I immodestly consider a Great American Novel, “Paper Tigers.” It’s about two copy aides at the Washington Post who discover that chemistry trumps ideology. My Christmas romantic fantasy, “The Christmas Spirit,” has become a Yuletide perennial among some readers.
So why haven’t you heard of either book?
Because they were put out by small independent publishers willing to offer readers things the majors increasingly seem embarrassed by — in my case, romantic tough guys and beautiful feminine women who appreciate the opposite sex.
By 2020, I had little expectation that those once-unremarkable elements would win me a top agent, let alone a mainstream publisher. And I committed another contemporary heresy in “Paper Tigers”: I gave the character I politically disagree with dignity and wit.
That’s rather important in a romantic comedy. It may also help explain why Hollywood has largely abandoned the kind of romantic comedy in which men and women are permitted to like one another.
The trade-off with boutique publishers is promotion. They simply don’t have the budgets and machinery of the majors.
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The thrill is gone
Which brings me back to “The Camelot Trail.”
It is book two of my political-thriller mystery series featuring young Washington private detectives Mark Tristan and Neil Cork. In “The Washington Trail,” they tackle what begins as the simple case of a beautiful UNC co-ed dumped by her D.C.-based fiancé. The intrigue escalates into a deadly political conspiracy.
A political thriller has to be timely.
“The Washington Trail” came out in August 2024, and the story takes place in February of that year. But I wrote it in 2023, when Donald Trump had what appeared to be a likelier future as a prisoner than as president. I had to anticipate the political situation a year ahead, knowing that a single contrary development could derail months of work.
I submitted the manuscript that October. Aethon Books accepted it and offered me a contract for two more novels in the series.
By the time “The Washington Trail” appeared the following summer, its plot was still on the cutting edge.
Then real life started behaving like a political thriller.
I turned in the second book, “The Camelot Trail,” last June, in time for what I hoped would be a lucrative pre-Christmas release.
The Aethon editors balked. They apparently considered the book too political to have broad commercial appeal — which I understood to mean too politically incorrect — and gave me a choice: Soften the politics or take back full rights to the series, including de-publication of “The Washington Trail.”
Blazing a 'Trail'
I had to weigh the two options carefully.
“The Camelot Trail” follows Tristan and Cork as they bodyguard an expatriate English literature professor forced to flee Britain in fear for his life. His Excalibur Movement, urging a return to Arthurian chivalry among young men, has drawn threats from Islamists, feminists, and a British government increasingly hostile to him. He finds refuge in America, but a massive Excalibur rally planned for the National Mall once again makes him a target.
Softening the politics would have required a full rewrite, with no chance of making the Christmas season.
Finding another publisher could cost me the same window.
I chose option two.
I contacted World Castle Publishing, the publisher of “The Christmas Spirit,” which has sold well for the company every Christmas. On the strength of that book, World Castle agreed to keep “The Camelot Trail” on the original schedule and republished “The Washington Trail” this summer.
“The Camelot Trail” comes out November 17.
Now I really have to clear that third bar.
'He's right about gym girls': Former 'SNL' star backs Shane Gillis as liberal celebs 'gasp' in shock
They can't fire him this time.
While Shane Gillis' latest "Saturday Night Live" monologue continues to inflame his liberal critics, some former cast members were wholly unoffended by his remarks — and even defended the jokes that sent social media into another meltdown.
'When did "camel toe" become acceptable gym fashion?'
Hump day
Gillis said that going to public gyms in New York City is a "nightmare" because they're filled with the "hottest gay guys you've ever seen," before adding that he didn't realize "women just dress like whores now" at the gym.
Actor Dan Levy responded by arguing that more men should stand up to remarks like Gillis' or risk normalizing misogyny.
But two former "SNL" cast members, quoted in Entertainment Weekly's recap of Saturday's episode, took no issue with the comedian's comments.
Victoria Jackson, who was a cast member from 1986 to 1992, called Gillis' monologue "good."
"Shane looks skinny/handsome! He's right about gym girls dressing like 'whores,'" Jackson said. "When did 'camel toe' become acceptable gym fashion and grocery shopping attire?"
Jeff Richards, who was on the sketch show from 2001 to 2004, simply called Gillis a "really funny guy, obvious natural."
Public enemy
Travis Kelce, NFL star and husband of Taylor Swift, dared to show his support by liking a post featuring Gillis' monologue on social media, Heavy reported. The like quickly made him a target of online backlash.
Plenty of other celebrities were less amused.
Singer Maren Morris posted a bizarre video of herself giving the camera the middle finger with the caption, "me being a wh0re at the gym."
Maggie Baird, the mother of singer Billie Eilish and an activist according to Billboard, said she "literally gasped" over Gillis' jokes.
Other celebrities joining the criticism included "Wicked" star Kristin Chenoweth, singer Jewel, and rapper Flavor Flav, who called it "important allyship" to stand against the monologue.
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Irish goodbye
Current "SNL" cast member Michael Che, meanwhile, remarked on Instagram that every question he fields while promoting his new comedy special will probably now be about Gillis.
"Gotta do more press this week to promote the special ... wonder what every f---ing questions gonna be about," Che wrote. "Thanks a lot shane."
Gillis generated still more controversy when he accidentally dropped an F-bomb during a Dr. Seuss sketch. But NBC insiders told TMZ that he won't be banned over the slip-up.
And Gillis attracted yet another round of attention when unaired footage showed him walking off during the show's final credits, when the host and cast traditionally linger onstage after the good-nights.
Saturday marked Gillis' third hosting gig on the show since being fired in 2019, after a social media user dug up jokes he'd made about Chinese immigrants and gay people on his comedy podcast the previous year.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!Replacing Columbus Day With ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’ Is An Attack On America
The promotion of Indigenous Peoples’ Day has never been neutral or dispassionate. It is part of a broader ideological program to remake our great nation.Nikole Hannah-Jones learned the hard way what ruins schools
When it comes to educating your children, never go full woke.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, the New York Times writer best known for “The 1619 Project” and her work on school segregation, apparently learned that lesson the expensive way. In a lengthy New York Times Magazine essay, she recounts how she deliberately enrolled her daughter, Najya, in struggling Brooklyn public schools because she believed families like hers should live their integrationist principles instead of seeking out better schools.
Hannah-Jones deserves some credit for publishing an unusually candid account of what happened to her daughter. But that candor should lead somewhere.
The experiment did not go well for Najya. Hannah-Jones describes weak instruction, assignments that went ungraded, little homework, disorderly classrooms, and large gaps in basic math. Her parents paid for tutoring and repeatedly intervened on her behalf, but the academic deficiencies accumulated.
By eighth grade, Najya insisted on choosing her own high school. She selected a rigorous screened school, mostly white and Asian, and initially struggled because she had not received the same preparation as many of her classmates. With tutoring and help from her new teachers, she caught up.
Her verdict on the experience was brutal: “Sometimes I wish instead of always thinking about other kids, you would have thought about me. I never really got the education I wanted.” Hannah-Jones apologized. “I feel like you got cheated,” she told her daughter. She also wrote that, in the end, “I had not chosen her.”
So Hannah-Jones does recognize that she failed her daughter. What she does not abandon is the larger diagnosis that led her there.
Her essay still treats segregation, school choice, and the sorting of affluent and high-performing students as central explanations for why schools like Najya’s struggle. She closes by arguing that there is “no absolution” as long as families rescue their own children from failing schools while poor black children remain behind.
But her own story points toward a more basic problem: Schools do not become good because more high-performing children are assigned to them. High-performing families are attracted to schools that teach well, maintain order, set clear standards, and hold adults and students accountable.
Money does not explain away what happened, either. New York City Public Schools reports a $45 billion budget and $34,717 in per-student spending for fiscal 2026 — and that per-student figure excludes debt service, transportation, and food. Whatever else New York City schools lack, they are not operating on starvation rations.
The harder question is competence.
In my experience teaching high school English, failing schools are often terribly run. Principals avoid disciplining disruptive students, teachers lower expectations to keep everyone moving, grades cease to mean much, and administrators explain away poor results instead of correcting them. The result is a campus where good teachers burn out, serious students learn to keep their heads down, and everyone gets passed along.
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Hannah-Jones’ reporting describes many of those symptoms, yet she can’t seem to connect the dots. Najya said students received little homework, grades did not reflect mastery, and classrooms could be loud and chaotic. When Hannah-Jones played those complaints for Unison Principal Emily Paige, Paige cried and blamed the larger system: “This is the reality of a segregated system, and it’s not just segregation by race and class; it’s by ability. This is the reality of school-choice systems.”
That answer is revealing. If a school needs an influx of stronger students to make the classrooms function, then sorting may explain who attends the school, but it does not explain why the adults failed to teach the students already there.
To Paige’s credit, she also told Hannah-Jones something far more important: “It is important to not, in our pursuit of being antiracist, lower expectations. Because this is what happens, right? It’s racism under the guise of antiracism.”
That is much closer to the lesson Hannah-Jones’ story actually teaches.
Freddie deBoer, writing from the left, takes the argument in almost the opposite direction. In a response to the Hannah-Jones essay, he argues that schools and teachers have relatively little influence over a student’s long-term academic outcome and that prior performance and innate academic ability matter far more.
Yet Hannah-Jones’ own account makes that hard to dismiss as irrelevant. Najya entered high school with serious gaps in algebra and basic math. Intensive tutoring and direct help from teachers followed. By the end of the semester, she was earning mostly A’s and B’s and later passed the state algebra exam. Whatever one thinks about the size of school effects in the aggregate, instruction and intervention plainly mattered to this particular student.
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Mississippi offers another useful comparison. Since the state enacted its Literacy-Based Promotion Act in 2013, its fourth-grade reading score on the National Assessment of Educational Progress rose from 209 to 219, while the share of fourth-graders scoring proficient or advanced rose from 21% to 32%. In 2024, Mississippi ranked ninth nationally in fourth-grade reading.
Those gains did not come from simply throwing more money at schools or rearranging their racial composition. Mississippi combined early screening, teacher training and coaching, evidence-based reading instruction, intensive intervention, clear promotion standards, and retention for third-graders who could not meet the reading threshold, with exemptions for specified cases. The state now touts the nation’s largest fourth-grade reading gains since 2013.
The lesson is not mysterious. Schools that insist on order, competent instruction, meaningful grades, and high expectations give students a better chance to learn. Schools that make excuses for disorder and disguise failure with inflated grades do not.
Hannah-Jones deserves some credit for publishing an unusually candid account of what happened to her daughter. But that candor should lead somewhere.
If a child can earn honors grades without learning algebra, if parents must hire tutors to repair years of missing instruction, and if a principal’s first explanation is that the school lacked enough high-performing students, the problem is not that too many families exercised choice.
The problem is that the school was failing the children who were already there.
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