It occurs to me that on at least one episode of the Simpsons I've seen, they purposefully made fun of their own stereotypes by having the "arr" pirate, the Mexican bumblebee, and the groundskeeper Willie as a "rogue's gallery" all standing in a line acting as over-the-top buffoonishly as they could. After seeing that, I never worried about racism or stereotyping in The Simpsons again - I just interpret anything and everything to do with that show as a spoof, joke, or over-the-top example of just how wrong people's misperceptions can be. And as somebody already pointed out, they actually took perhaps the MOST offensively stereotypical character (Kwik-E-Mart's Apu) and actually gave him a full background and social life - and if they hadn't his "thank you come again" shtick probably would have gotten dreadfully old over time; now he's one of the guys.
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