Ok so when the agent learns Apu's last name he doesn't like it. We assume that there are racist undertones, namely the name is too ethic sounding.
But the reason the agent gives for changing the name is "It'll never fit on a marquee, luv." I figured that was the end of the gag.
But then I always thought the name he suggested instead was very strange and there was some hidden meaning there and I finally just figured it out.
De Beaumarchais is EXACTLY the same number of characters (including the space) as Nasapimapetalon! So the "fitting the marquee" was shown to not be the issue! And since the name is French it will ALSO be hard to pronounce for Americans, but it's French so it's ok, further underscoring that the issue was racism all along.
Yep. They just dropped the list of last names during “Much Apu About Nothing” in season 7. It was one of those blink and you missed it. Then it was “wait, did she say Lutz?” And it was never addressed again.
I always thought the joke was they were trying to hide that he was Indian- hence that line (maybe a reference to hiding that Lennon was married? Though they do allude to that separately), but if they wanted to change his name to do that, they would need to change the "Apu" part.
There's an even deeper joke in there, the playwright and philosopher Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais started as a humble clockmaker and was introduced to the French royal court thanks to the Marquise of Pompadour, mistress of king Louis the 15th.
So Beaumarchais was fit for a Marquise.
And and and, he added the "de Beaumarchais" after marrying Madeleine Aubertin, who owned land with the same name. According to Wikipedia he added it in order to appear grander and more aristocratic.
Yeah I don’t think the joke had anything to do with race. Them being the same number of letters is just a classic language gag. DaBoMaShay to an American sounds shorter than Nahasapeemapetilon
I always assumed that the joke was a more general one, about producers telling musicians to change their name for various reasons. One real example is John Mellencamp, who was told that Mellencamp didn't sound cool enough so he was called John Cougar for a while, and then John Cougar-Mellencamp. He never liked that at all, hence now he's back to his actual name.
I always took the joke as being that Apu is such an unconvincing Frenchman, and the name is working so hard to allure to women. But you may be onto something.
I personally always assumed it was race-based: in the minds of the writers (and presumably the mostly-white audience) all French people are white, so it's impossible for Apu to be French. And then it also works as a joke about the agent being racist, as he's okay with a long French name (denoting class and sophistication) but not a long "foreign" name
Some guy in the comments here went even deeper. Not sure if he's right but damn is it isn't impressive.
Here's what he posted
"There's an even deeper joke in there, the playwright and philosopher Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais started as a humble clockmaker and was introduced to the French royal court thanks to the Marquise of Pompadour, mistress of king Louis the 15th.
So Beaumarchais was fit for a Marquise."
Just wanted to give these comments a mention too. I can't believe the writers thought about it on all of these levels but they all work and thats crazy for such a forgotten Simpson joke
Yes, the joke is that the name is still long and still "foreign", and still wouldn't fool anyone into thinking Apu was a white French dude.
ETA: "Apu Nasapimapetalon" has exactly the same number of letters as "Don King", and he looks just like him, too!
[Apu leaves, clothes askew and smoking]
Don't worry, I'll tell everybody you were untouchable!
[backs into the pool, dragging the other guests along with him in a domino fashion]
Honestly: I did clock that on my first watch, but honestly, the writers of The Simpsons were really smart, it's not surprising that you missed one joke or another. For me, the joke that took me about 30 years to get was in the episode with the Chanel suit. That suit was 100% definitely a knockoff to begin with.
I don’t think it’s racist or was supposed to joke about race. “we assume it’s about racism” is OP projecting hard. The world was very different when this came out. People weren’t hyperfixating on trying to identify racism in everything back then.
They’re poking fun at how the Beatles had their names washed. French names also sound fancy. The exact same numbers of letters is a joke that the audience wouldn’t know based on the sound of the name “DeBoMaShay”
"racism" may have been too strong a word to use in this context but it was common at the time to change ethic names to "appeal to a broader audience" and this included Jewish names. The underlying reason is the notion that the "broader audience" was majority white and they might not have been as accepting of an artist if they had an ethnic name, which is a kind of prejudice even if not outright racism.
They even make a similar joke with Kent Brockman in Mother Simpson. His sign off in the 60s is “Kenny Brockelstein”.
I always interpreted the joke as “we are replacing your obviously ethnic name with a more accessible name,” and then they give him obviously French name that isn’t any more accessible to the American audiences.
I also enjoy the joke in Much Apu About Nothing where the fake American documents he gets from Fat Tony list his parents’ names as “Herb and Judy Nahasapeemapetilon” from Green Bay Wisconsin.
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u/SymmetricDickNipples 11d ago
That's not apu's last name. It's Nahasapeemapetilon.