Apu and 7-Eleven

I’m sure you must have heard of 7-Eleven’s tie-in promotion with “The Simpsons” movie whereby they transform several real-life stores into “Kwik-E-Marts”. As part of the promotion, the stores will look like their cartoon counterpart and sell products that exist in the cartoon universe such as Squishees and Buzz Cola.

Promotional stunt turns 7-Eleven stores into ‘Simpsons’ Kwik-E-Marts - International Herald Tribune

Although there were initial concerns of potentially offending Indians, and a majority of 7-Eleven franchisees in the US are Indian, a large number of store-owners think it is a great business idea. But then Manish Vij sees a problem with this:

Desi franchise employees, among others, are being asked to don Kwik-E-Mart costumes with Apu nametags, come to work under banners mocking their ethnicity, and bid customers goodbye with the phrase, “Thank you, come again!”

Comment is free: The Apu travesty

I don’t know how true Manish’s accusations are (his is the only name in several reports of the same story) but I can understand his frustrations and indignation if they are. Rightly or wrongly, the phrase “thank you, come again” is now so deeply “Indian” thanks to The Simpsons that you can’t possibly say it without sounding like or thinking of an Indian person. But then, don’t most service employees say that phrase, in one form or another?

Being an ethnic minority, I’m acutely aware of stereotypes of my race and culture wherever and whenever I see or hear them in the media. But I think when the promotions are done right, in general, most of us have learnt to laugh at the stereotypes.

A few Australian TV examples come to mind:

  • The feuding Thai restaurant owners in an ad for Yellow Pages.
  • The Indian guru and his yoga class full of pretentious Anglos in an ad for Lipton Ice Green Tea.

In general, I feel that the Apu stereotype is a positive one: although his character’s Indian qualities are played up for laughs, he owns a business, he’s usually shown to be more intelligent than the other characters who frequent his store and in one episode he aspired to become an American even whilst clinging on to this Indian ways. He is a model immigrant indeed.

There would be some who would not be satisfied with the above so to them I’d say, “The Simpsons” is full of crazy and outlandish stereotypes and nothing and no one is sacred. Even Australians were lampooned mercilessly in one episode, and yet the show is still shown here. So perhaps, a step back to look at the bigger picture is in order.

In ending, there is one oft-repeated cultural mistake in Australian media which I’d like to mentioned though and that is: satay is Malay/Indonesian and not Chinese or Japanese. Stop showing chopsticks, and playing cheesy Eastern-sounding gongs and chimes, and showing Chinese-y and Japanese-y “words”, and women in cheong-sams or kimonos in your advertising. If you wanna do Asian, get the facts right. Mmm-kay?