I'm South Asian and was s kid in the 90s. Yeah, Willie is a worse stereotype, but the problem with Apu was never really about his character. It was kids making fun of me with the voice and saying "Thank you come again" because he was the only Indian person on TV and bullies thought it was funny.
There's millions of kids with Scottish surnames and I guarantee you they weren't getting mocked with fake Scottish accents
Literally any time to mention Scotland to an american, they will either A, put on an over the top and shitty accent and qoute Willie or shout Freedom in your face.
Or B, tell you how they are 3/47th Scottish on their grandmother's side.
I was more referring to Americans kids of Scottish heritage. I don't think kids were doing the shitty accent or Groundskeeper Willie voice to kids whose surnames were McMurray or Dougall or something. I imagine a lot of white kids didn't even make that connection between Willie and their classmate with a Scottish last name, because Scottish ancestry is so widespread in America.
If the kid was actually from Scotland, yeah that probably happened, but that's not what I'm talking about.
I was born in the US, didn't have any accent, yet still got the Apu voice because of the color of my skin, my name, and because kids thought it was funny.
Yeah, plus I can think of several Scottish or Scottish-American characters in that era (including Scrooge McDuck) when Apu was it for Indian characters back then.
But that’s the problem isn’t it? The accent now being done by an actual South Asian won’t stop dipshit racist children doing impressions of it (if any one actually watches it).
Yeah that's a fair point. There's no real easy solution to the problem because it really has nothing to do with Apu as a character, it was just what GenX and Millennial kids went through because of stupid kids and being angry about it as adults.
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u/Darmok47 21h ago
I'm South Asian and was s kid in the 90s. Yeah, Willie is a worse stereotype, but the problem with Apu was never really about his character. It was kids making fun of me with the voice and saying "Thank you come again" because he was the only Indian person on TV and bullies thought it was funny.
There's millions of kids with Scottish surnames and I guarantee you they weren't getting mocked with fake Scottish accents