Watsons

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Watson MY Commercial.png

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 advertisement that ignited an angry accusation of bigotry as it portrays a woman with 'blackface' as unacceptable. Watson really created this ad to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr' and called the ad "Legendary Cun Raya 2017." This 15-minute commercial created a stir in culture to be racist to dark-colored skin racial.

The Plot

The plot was based around a king called Al-Kazam who was searching for the owner of an enchanting voice in his dream. Frightened by the dream as the dream repeats, he wanted to take part in a contest to find a girlfriend. Al-Kazam brings together stunning people from all over the world and the contest begins. Women from Thailand, Japan, India, Europe, Indonesia are starting to demonstrate their own individuality to win over Al-Kazam, but none of them captivate the king.

Watsons MY.jpg

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 comes to the woman and asks her to reveal her face by saying, "You've got a lovely voice, your face must be beautiful, too. Show me the 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 begins to make her speech, the guard declared that he had made an error, the winner was not Rapunzel, but the lady with a pretty voice but a dark face called 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's testing the King if the King really likes her, no matter how she looks. The King promptly asked her to marry him.

Why is it Controversial

It's intention is clear, the black face is ugly, the white face is nicer, which isn't all right. This commercial simply reveals that black skin is less appealing and less desirable than white and fair skin. By that offense, the black/dark skin race is less beautiful than it is too ignorant and sexist.

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 letter of official apologies on 8 June 2017 saying that they have no intention of offending. The company said the commercial was about the legend of Dayang Senandong (1965), which is a Malay folklore about a woman 'cursed with dark 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

  1. Watsons. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  2. Watsons Malaysia's 'blackface' video blasted on social media for being racist, sexist, The Straits Times, 8 June 2017. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  3. 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