Blog Post 4: “Apu’s Brown Voice”

In the article “Apu’s Brown Voice”, written by Shilpa Dave, the author discusses how accents has an influence on representation through television of Southern Asians with example of “Brown voice” of Apu, the Indian character of The simpsons. Apu not only gained popularity thanks to humor of “Brown voice” but also shows the image of South Asians as model minority in the US to audience.

Apu represents a stereotypical successful case of South Asian immigrant who have successed because of their hardworking efforts. Moreover, He plays an active role without regard to race. He is essential character of The simpsons and very popular character. Apu symbolize the South American’s stereotypical success and racial privilage in the Us. However, he is one of the only South Asian on the TV and there is no other type of South Asian people on TV. Therefore, his image of South Asian has a great power and influence on how South Asian cultural identity is seen in the US even though he is played by white, not authentic Indian. As Shilpa stated, “Indian accents imply a model minority and multicultural politics this is the type of minority the United States wants to promote because they fit the entrepreneurs, computer engineers, and successful immigrants in general.” (318) Apu and his accents represent not only South Asian immigrat’s success in the US as model minority but also these images can reinforce them to be like Apu as ideal way to be accepted in the US.

The important term in this article is “brown voice”. According to Shilpa, it “identifies specific racializing trait among South Asians which simultaneously connotes foreignness and class and cultural privilege.” (314) It means that South Asians are accepted as model minority and privileged ethnic group comparison to other Asian groups in the US because of their political and economic consequence they have achieved and their particular historical background. Brown voice makes us think about how we see and racial identity and how we process the cultural meaning of accent beyond the visual.

The ideas presented in this chapter connects to the ideas in the Crazy Rich Asians. It achieved big success as a movie which all performers are Asian. However, there are a lot of arguments because there is a difference in how each Asians are descripted in the movie. this movie is particular about performing by only Asians, but, there are lot of East Asian actors (in particular Chinese Americans) and there are few Southeast Asian actors even though this film is set in Singapore. Moreover, almost all of characters speak British or American English. Some Singaporean speak English with accent and it is well known as “Singlish”. However, few characters speak Singlish in the film.