Via a reader tip comes what is being claimed as the most racist TV commercial ever that has been airing recently in China.
The Chinese television commercial shows a black man apparently doing painting work inside a home covered in paint. He begins to whistle at the Chinese woman in the house who is flirting wth him. The Chinese woman puts a laundry detergent pack in his mouth before grabbing the black man and throwing him into the washing machine. Afterwards she opens the washing machine and instead of a black man coming out a clean handsome Chinese man comes out. You can watch the video below:
This doesn’t surprise me, but the laundry detergent company said they intentionally made this advertisement to be provocative:
Xu Chunyan, an agent for Qiaobi based in the Suzhou, China, told the Times that the ad was meant to be provocative.
“We did this for some sensational effect,” she told the newspaper. “If we just show laundry like all the other advertisements, ours will not stand out.” [Miami Herald]
For those not familiar with China racism is not a big issue with them and this commercial is definitely racist. However, in the age of the Internet commercials like this can no longer just remain with a domestic audience. With that said what affect will the blowback on the Internet really have any affect on the company if they are strictly targeting the Chinese audience? Since their goal was to stand out to their domestic audience, the controversy on the Internet is probably only going to help their sales if anything because of the increased attention. Plus I just don’t expect a big movement with China to develop as a backlash against this company that would impact their sales any way.
