Is Kendall Jenner's Pepsi Ad Video Really Racist?
Kendall Jenner recently starred in a Pepsi ad that is now the subject of much criticism and a great amount of backlash online. The company has since pulled the ad from circulation, and offered an apology on April 5, Wednesday morning, to Jenner and the public in general.
Some of the criticism for Jenner's new ad for Pepsi centers around the online consensus that the ad is "tone-deaf," due to critics that think that the protest movement being portrayed in the commercial is a skewed, idealized version of the actual struggle that's been ongoing for years. In any case, the pulled-out commercial, for the brief time that it was on air, had "the entire internet going crazy" as BGR puts it.
Exactly how racist the Pepsi advertisement happened to be is subject to personal interpretation, but Telegraph media points out one segment of the video commercial in particular, calling it "The wig debacle."
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This part of the commercial comes while Jenner was posing at a doorway in what could be a commercial photoshoot. According to Telegraph, "When Jenner-the-model sees the protest, she whips off her platinum blond wig, and without even looking at the woman to her right, just chucks it at her. Said woman, who is black, stands there holding the wig in confusion. White privilege in action."
Pepsi has since posted a statement on Twitter as a way to apologize to any who may have been offended by the ad. Along with announcing that they are pulling the ad from further airing online or elsewhere. The post also apologized to Jenner.
"Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue," Pepsi said in the Twitter image post as their way of apologizing for the controversy. "We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position," Pepsi added. The image message was not followed by any caption.
