Watsons
Watsons is a health care and beauty care chain store in Asia. It is the flagship health and beauty brand of the A.S. Watson Group, which is majority owned by CK Hutchison Holdings.[1]
Back in 2017 Watsons made an advert that sparked furious allegations of racism when it depicts a woman with 'blackface' as being undesirable. Watson actually made this ad for celebrating Eid Al-Fitr' and named the ad "Legendary Cun Raya 2017". This 15 minutes ad has caused stir in the society for being racist to dark colored skin ethnic.
The Plot
The story centered at a king named Al-Kazam who is looking for the owner of enchanting voice in his dream. Bothered by the dream as the dream repeats he decided to made a contest to find the woman. Al-Kazam gathers beautiful women from all over the world and the contest begin. Women from Thailand, Japan, India, Europe, Indonesia start showing their own uniqueness to win over Al-Kazam but none of them captivate the king.
Then came in a woman (her face all covered by a scarf) singing beautifully and captivated the king and all the audience with her voice. Found what he's been looking for, the king happily approach the woman and asks her to show her face by saying, "You have beautiful voice, your face must be beautiful too. Show me your face". Then the woman open the scarf and shows her all black face, Al-Kazam exclaims in shocked "Oh my God"
"Where are the lights?"
"She is actually dark?"
Panic Al-Kazam calls his servant and the woman goes away.
As the contest starts to end the guard announces the winner and the winner is "Rapunzel" from Europe. When Rapunzel starts to made her speech the guard announced that he is made a mistake, the winner is not Rapunzel but the woman with beautiful voice but dark face named Harum Senandung. Suddenly Harum Senandung appears with her beautiful fair skin and said "I am not dark, in fact I am flawless. I just came back from washing my face". Harum Senandung says she is testing the king if the king really loves her regardless of how she is looks like. The king immediately asks her to marry him.
Why is it Controversial
It's purpose is simple, black face is ugly, white face is prettier, which is not okay. This ad clearly shows that black skin is less attractive and less desirable than fair and white skin. By that offend that black / dark skin race is less pretty which so insensitive and racist.
Apology
Realized their ad caused stir in community Watsons Malaysia apologized publicly for the ad and withdrew it shortly after it went viral. Watson wrote a formal apology letter in 8 June 2017 saying it was not their intention to offend. The company said the ad was about the legend of Dayang Senandong (1965), which is Malay folklore about a lady 'cursed with black skin but blessed with a beautiful voice'. "It was our intention to convey concepts of inner and outer beauty, unfortunately the video instead offended many."[2]
Its statement added: 'We stand firm on the belief that unity and fairness plays an important role, and we respect people from all nationalities.[3]
External Link
Watch the ad at Dailymail
Watch the full ad at Youtube
References
- ↑ Watsons. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ↑ Watsons Malaysia's 'blackface' video blasted on social media for being racist, sexist, The Straits Times, 8 June 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
- ↑ Dunphy, Liz (2017). 'I am not dark, I am flawless': Advert for Malaysian beauty chain sparks furious allegations of racism when it depicts a woman with 'blackface' as being undesirable, dailymail.co.uk, 1 July 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2020

