The Simpsons will write off Apu after stereotype backlash

Producers are reportedly planning to write the brown-skinned shopkeeper off the animated show in an effort to silence allegations of racial stereotypingabout Indian-Americans.

Producer Adi Shankar, who does not work for the show, said Fox will “drop the Apu character altogether,” according to his interview with IndieWirepublished Friday. “They aren’t going to make a big deal out of it, or anything like that, but they’ll drop him altogether just to avoid controversy.”

The Indian-American producer said two people who work for the long-running show and one who work for its creator, Matt Groening, told him the “disheartening news.”

Shankar set out to save Apu earlier this year by crowd-sourcing a script that would make the character more PC with a storyline that “evolves him in a way that takes a creation that was the byproduct of a predominately Harvard-educated white male writers’ room and transforms it into a fresh, funny and realistic portrayal of Indians in America,” Shankar said.

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