The Simpsons family may not have grown older during their nearly 30 years on TV, but some say the animated series is showing its age.

This criticism isn't the usual “the show just isn't as funny as it used to be” — which, by the way, I read from as long ago as the mid-’90s. It’s more serious and thought-provoking and suggests that the show is engaged in unintentional racism with its long-running Indian character and Kwik-E-Mart owner-operator, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, who speaks with a heavy Indian accent voiced by Hank Azaria, who is white.

After denouncing Apu as an offensive caricature if not racist stereotype in his stand-up performance, comedian Hari Kondabolu, who is a Simpsons fan and whose parents immigrated to America from India, went so far as to make an hour-long documentary about it, The Problem With Apu, which featured other comics expressing their same concerns and frustrations.

The response by The Simpsons earlier this year only inflamed the issue. In an episode about rewriting a classic children’s novel so that it matches the culture of the times, Lisa looks to the camera and says, “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” The Simpsons shrugged their shoulders.

Simpsons creator Matt Groening later told USA Today that he’s “proud of what we do on the show. And I think it’s a time in our culture where people love to pretend they’re offended."

But a recent viewing of an episode from season two reminded me of The Simpsons’ long tradition of thumbing its nose at controversy and how out of touch that now seems.

In Itchy and Scratchy and Marge, Marge crusades against the violent Itchy and Scratchy cartoons, but refuses to join her fellow protesters who wish to prevent Michelangelo’s David from appearing in town because the famous statue is naked.

After being accused of being a hypocrite — “How can you be for one form of freedom of expression like our big naked friend over there, and be against another form like Itchy and Scratchy?” — Marge acknowledges the difficulty in the position. “Well, I guess I can’t,” she replies, “which is a shame, because I really hate those cartoons.”

I was a college student enjoying Christmas break at home when I first saw that episode and loved how the show was sticking it to its critics. Watching it again with my daughter, as we chronologically make our way through every episode, I was struck by its truth. There is no easy answer to that question of hypocrisy or to the criticism of Apu. 

Apu is complicated. Like many Simpsons characters, he began as a one-dimensional joke and over almost 30 years has been fleshed out and evolved into something much more.

A naturalized U.S. citizen, Apu “came from India in search of the land of opportunity”; has a PhD in computer science but took a job at Kwik-E-Mart to pay off his student loan; is married (though he’s strayed) and a father to octuplets; is a strict vegan; was friends with Paul and Linda McCartney in the 1960s; and was a replacement member in the Be Sharps barbershop quartet, whose popularity at one point rivaled that of the Beatles.

And yet he remains a brown-skin character voiced by a white guy. That’s a problem as Azaria recently acknowledged on Late Night with Stephen Colbert.

“My eyes have been opened,” he said. “We have to listen to South Asian people in this country when they talk about what they feel and how they think about this character and what their American experience of it has been.”

And while he offered that “what should be done with the character moving forward ... is not so easy to answer,” he suggested the show should hire more Indian and South Asian writers to inform and direct the character, including whether Azaria continues to voice Apu, or even if Apu has a future on The Simpsons.

“I really hope that’s what The Simpsons does,” he said. “It not only makes sense, it just feels like the right thing to do to me."

It would be a shame if they didn’t, because, unlike Marge, I really love those cartoons.

Contact Kirk Baird at kbaird@theblade.com or 419-724-6734.

First Published May 10, 2018, 8:00 p.m.