Is this detergent ad from China racist ?

[Guest meesua]

 

 

Outrage over racist Chinese detergent ad

 

May 27, 2016

 

Traditional attitudes prizing white skin in women have contributed to bias against dark-skinned people.

 

VIDEO INSIDE

 

 

BEIJING: A Chinese detergent commercial showing a black man stuffed into a washing machine and transformed into a fair-skinned Asian has provoked outrage, although more so overseas that at home, where it was greeted with apparent acceptance.

The commercial for the “Qiaobi” brand shows a black man whistling and winking at a young Chinese woman, who calls him over, puts a detergent packet into his mouth, and forces him headfirst into a washing machine.

She sits on the lid while the man shrieks. Moments later an Asian man emerges in clean clothes, and the woman grins.

The advertisement has provoked an uproar on US news websites, which cited it as an example of racist attitudes towards black people in China.

“This ad is blatantly racist… it’s also a reminder that attitudes over race and skin colour in China can be very bad,” said Vox.com

But it has attracted little attention in its home country, with few comments on social media, and fewer than 2,000 views of the same ad on popular video-sharing site Youku.

 

China has historically experienced almost no migration by people of African descent, although the population has grown in recent years as China has risen to become the continent’s biggest trading partner.

Traditional attitudes prizing white skin in women have contributed to bias against dark-skinned people.

The Shanghai Leishang cosmetics company, which produces the gel-capsule product, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

The advert, which was reportedly shown in cinemas earlier this month, uses the same music and sound effects as a previous Italian commercial showing a white man forced into a washing machine and transformed into a black man.

The Italian advert was followed by the slogan, “Coloured is better”.

[Guest racist]

do you think that spg and those banana are racist ?

 

 

[Guest Not racist]

Let's not consider anything that has to do with skin colour as racist. This ad is more like, tasteless, and unbelievably stupid.

[J0Boo]

OMG they so bad! 

[hairy springroll]

Lousy ad

[abang]

They should stop the ad altogether. 

What a stupid ad and frankly, the racist act is so disgusting.

They should instead use a pimple-faced Chinese teenager and after using the detergent, all pimples are gone.

Same message, less damage.

太过分了， 超级无聊。。

[snowball]

广告毫无创意和明了的传递信息，真不知到底要卖弄炫耀些什么? 巧用幽默，可以轻松达到目的，不会善用分寸，就是低等讥讽。幽默风趣和恶意讥讽不同，恶意是庸俗，不含任何智慧成份，是一把刺人剑。

Edited May 27, 2016 by snowball

[Michael Tan]

I take tat black guy anytime. The other one look so sissy for her

[Exynos]

what I found surprising was why, like WHY, would the creative team/ad agency behind this ad even veto such a concept.

 

China is racing up these days, and big cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Wuhan, etc. are all becoming huge metropolis with people all over the world coming for business. it's so baffling why they would do something so distasteful, when there definitely are many black people living in China

[Guest No color]

Put a Chinese guy into the washing machine and out come a white skin angmo. Racist or not?

[Guest Guest]

Haha apparently it is a stolen idea from this adv.

 

 

[KENZ]

Not surprising. Even Cantonese have been using terms like 黑人憎 meaning let people hate 讓人討厭

sorry I can't really translate directly to English, the closest translation is "black people hate"

thou the original phrase is 乞人憎 but there is still an element of racism in the intended pun and play of words.

 

but as again I believe every race also got some racist joke against other races, such stereotypes maybe help them psychologically find common ground and bind them closer together. 

[Guest Guest]

It's ok in China , just look at how many rude shirt printing of words like fuck you  on shirts , caps , etc I have seen people wearing , funny thing is previously all other under developed countries will not produce such rude wordings ...anyhow , nothing really matters much in China one lah ....

[Guest Guest]

34 minutes ago, Guest Guest said:

Haha apparently it is a stolen idea from this adv.

 

 

How come no white complaining about discrimination ? Because in the real world , they know they are the more superior ones !

[fab]

Black can be hot. Think Tyson beckson, tyra banks, keith carlos etc.

 

This tvc is crass. But dark skinned people need to be less butthurt where color is concerned. If this tvc is racist what about mj who bleached his complexion n all those ladies who r using skin whitening products?

 

People who will like u will like u no matter what color u r. People who wont like u, wont like u regardless what color u r.

Edited May 28, 2016 by fab

[Guest Yellow bleach]

Typical of the western Wild West world incld the culture less Singaporeans here 

the chinese Ad is reported as racist even in the cable news 

but that's italian ad with the black man coming out is seen as a joke 

 

no one is complaining in China it's just the Whites and their SPG s making an issue of it ...the whites are not superior , just two faced hypocrites ... the Ad itself wasnt copied - it was most likely created by an international ad agency thought up by some overpaid ad man and reproduced in china by some white man who is based in china begging to stay employed otherwise he would be irrelevant and jobless back  home 

 

so there 

[Guest Asian]

2 hours ago, Guest Guest said:

How come no white complaining about discrimination ? Because in the real world , they know they are the more superior ones !

 

Because Imperialism mindset until today was NOT eradicated from the brains of these whites.  They want Asians to watch English football, watch Hollywood and idolized their pops stars, every product from the West is health beneficial while rice, soya products etc. is bad for health.  Watch the coming decade, crash of civilization between a rising China and superpower US.  War could start in South China Sea. 

[Guest Guest]

12 minutes ago, Guest Asian said:

 

Because Imperialism mindset until today was NOT eradicated from the brains of these whites.  They want Asians to watch English football, watch Hollywood and idolized their pops stars, every product from the West is health beneficial while rice, soya products etc. is bad for health.  Watch the coming decade, crash of civilization between a rising China and superpower US.  War could start in South China Sea. 

But so what ? All the stupid Asian straight guys  like  western sports and football , but none like Chinese opera , martial art was only made in Hollywood film that they practise it and not from some HK movie ! 

[Guest Amir]

On 28/05/2016 at 12:14 PM, Guest Guest said:

Haha apparently it is a stolen idea from this adv.

 

 

Very funny. But seriously, how can make anyone a racist?

[cutejack]

Ok wat

She is looking at the black lovingly.

Meaning she doesnt like the white rubbered dick.lol

[G_M]

Black man is washed whiter in China’s racist detergent advert

Laundry product firm denies racial slur in commercial that has outraged the world

The company behind a Chinese advert for detergent that has been dubbed the most racist ever has defended the bizarre content, saying any discrimination is in the eye of the viewer.

In the advert a pouch of Qiaobi cleaning liquid is forced into the man’s mouth and he is then bundled into a washing machine by a smiling woman. After a cycle of muffled screams, she opens the lid and a grinning Asian man climbs out. He winks at the viewer before the slogan flashes up on screen: Change begins with Qiaobi.

The commercial had apparently aired for months in China, without generating much debate, until a flicker of online discontent was picked up by a local English-language website. It posted a link to the ad and within hours it had gone viral, sparking a global conversation about racism in a country that is officially home to 56 ethnic minorities but is dominated by Han Chinese, and can feel very monocultural.

 

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 The Chinese commercial shows a black man being treated with the detergent … Photograph: YouTube

“Qiaobi Detergent Ad Might Be The Most Racist TV Commercial Ever Made,” said the Huffington Post, as global outrage grew. But a spokesman for Leishang cosmetics company, which produces the detergent, said critics had overreacted. “The foreign media might be too sensitive about the ad,” a man named only as Wang told the local Global Times tabloid. “We meant nothing but to promote the product, and we had never thought about the issue of racism.”

Other company employees were less coy about the ad, which is a virtual copy of an older Italian commercial for detergent that shows a sleazy white man being transformed into a muscular black man, with the slogan “coloured is better”.

“We did this for some sensational effect,” Xu Chunyan, an agent for the company, told the New York Times. “If we just show laundry like all the other advertisements, ours will not stand out.”

 

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 He is then bundled into a washing machine…

As a strategy it appears to have failed: the ad drew huge controversy abroad but little attention at home, with just a few thousand viewing it on domestic video sharing sites, even after the scandal broke. Some Chinese viewers were frustrated. “If the ad showed a person of Asian origin being ‘washed’ white, wouldn’t this kind of person feel discriminated against,” asked one poster on the popular Weibo microblogging site.

But mostly the ad was met with apathy, perhaps because there is limited public debate about racism in China, where a bestselling toothpaste is still called “Black Man Toothpaste” more than two decades after its English name was changed from Darkie to Darlie.

A copy of the detergent ad posted on a local video-sharing site with a caption asking “Is this ad racist?”, had not drawn a single comment.

 

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 … and emerges as a lighter-skinned Asian man. Photograph: YouTube

Beijing watches closely for slights against the country and its people in international commentary, and the Chinese media was quick to dub US presidential candidate Donald Trump a “racist”, but the government shows much less interest in monitoring domestic conversations about race.

 

China’s lack of diversity – it does not encourage long-term immigration, and the UN says it hosts only 150 refugees in a population of over 1.3 billion – can spill over into overt discrimination, particularly for people of colour. In 2009 the vicious response to a contestant on an TV talent show who had mixed Chinese and African-American heritage highlighted some of China’s problems.

 

One African-American who spent several years in China recalled being fired as an English teacher, despite his excellent professional skills, because students were obsessed with his skin colour. Marketus Presswood wrote: “I overheard students talking in Chinese about how they were paying so much money and wanted a white instructor. One went so far as to say, ‘I don’t want to look at his black face all night’.” Presswood added that he hoped attitudes were changing as Chinese engagement with the world increased.