“I think particularly right now, people feel so aggrieved and crazed and powerless that they’re picking the wrong battles,” Mr. Groening said.

Yeah, I’d alter the thought just a tad, in explaining what they think the line between the characters of Apu and the ground-swell of Trump characters are.  And then comes an on-rush of commentary, as seen when The Simpsons aired their “defense” / “delay” / “answer” on the “Problem of Apu” — leafing through an edition of The Entertainment Weekly I saw the episode diagnosed in a thumbs down category as “tone deaf”, which mostly just means… we disagree with it.  And Groening is too white to get to have an opinion on this.

The good news there, such as it is, is I can easily find a person of Indian descent who’s at war with pc culture and mocks the sentiment.  And then things get complicated on lines of authenticity, who speaks for whom, who gets to amplify whose voices.

Segue some commentary from Indians moving through their complicated history with Apu — at first, good to see representation, then… this and that, that and this, and… I’m supposed to be that?

Segue to an article pointing out what seems an obvious, and in some manner arrives at the: all of the Simpsons universe of characters are stereotypes.  And what do we do about Cleetus?  The point becomes: what a dull show this would be if we had played firmly within the lines.

Maybe a thought on the new relevance of The Simpsons in a manner it hasn’t been controversial since the days of old — the frolicking devil-may-care early Fox News, assaulting your puritanical sensibilities — Married with Children, The Simpsons, and Living Color.  Oh, those wacky Wayan Brothers.

Hey!  Comedy must be from the vantage point of the powerless toward the power!  And… must it?

And now I see commentary that the new show Groening is about to release — same bug eyed character design as always — and the take on fairy tales is … not subversive enough… in dismantling fairy tale motifs.  Which really means that it doesn’t confirm with their artistic or political ideology on what the “fractured fairy tales” should be saying.  And we’re back to square one with the problem with the problem with Apu.

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