Fun is
fine, but it’s crossing beyond the line of well-meaning amusement into the morally
dubious zone of condescension when laughter echoes around the reckless representation
of the “other.”
For a
while there, Ashton Kutcher does appear swell in his four-character skit in the Pop
Chips commercial as if he were trying so desperately to surpass Meryl Streep’s chameleon
instinct for uncanny accents in her larger-than-life characterizations. And then one starts to feel queasy seeing Kutcher’s
antics, specifically his impersonation of an Indian guy named Raj, lapsing into
lousy caricature. It’s pretty
understandable that Pop Chip’s advertiser wish to grab attention through eye-catching parody, but it leaves a foul taste in the mouth when the mirth of the marketing
spiel comes at the expense of another ethnicity.
By
reducing Raj to the level of a buffoon, the advertisers have reinforced the historical
sweep of the Western gaze since the dawn of empire-making, looking down at
non-whites as inferior race whose exotic ways are worthy of a chuckle and
waiting to be civilized. Indeed, any
notion of one race being superior to another is potentially and inevitably
spawning the evil of racism.
The
downgrading blow was further delivered in the concluding shots when the real
Kutcher appeared, acted disgusted by the preceding character sketches, and
muttered a punch line that dismissed the whole caboodle as a “freak show.” With
an apparent repulsion, Kutcher asked: “Are we all in the same category?”
That
question, I say, sums up the advertisement’s disdainful attitude masked in
hilarity. The Raj character particularly sticks out not only with its exaggerated
accent in sing-song but also with its “brown
face” make-up. For me, Raj’s face recalls the one-dimensional characters of “blackface”
performers in minstrel shows circa 1830-1890 when America’s bigotry fomented
lowdown perception about African-Americans. Although other immigrants were specifically
easy targets for stereotyping on the stages of music halls, the black people
were more vulnerable to sing-and-dance comedy of blackface performers who
provide a literal face to the mockery—shaped by ignorance and intolerance—toward
the black community.
If there’s
an upside to the outcry over the Pop Chip controversy, the marketer’s decision
to pull out the commercial spot indicates the advertising and TV industry’s
sensitivity to the power of social media. When the hullaballoo made the rounds
of Twitter and Facebook, the marketers know that alienating the demographics that
reflect the social network is recipe for bad business. And that, certainly, can
never be a laughing matter.
