Kendall Jenner Ad Is Not The First Time Pepsi Has Ridiculed And Demeaned A Protest — There Was FTII Before
While going through my morning dose of reading, I bumped into this medium piece about a Pepsi ad
featuring Kendall Jenner (suggest you watch the ad before reading any
further). Whoa! It felt like I have been living under a rock in some
Saharan desert. Little more reading and damn, this had in fact been
huge. There has been so huge a backlash that the Pepsi has now taken
down their ad. They say, “ Pepsi was trying to project a global message
of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we
apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are
removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologise
for putting Kendall Jenner in this position.”
Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. tweeted,
If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi. pic.twitter.com/FA6JPrY72V— Be A King (@BerniceKing) April 5, 2017
Most of the controversy, I hear is over the stark similarity of image the ad portrays at the end. Kendall Jenner hands a Pepsi can to a rather ‘cute’ policeman against the now iconic image of Ieshia Evans.
Iconic image from ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests. |
A prominent member of the Black Lives Matter movement, DeRay Mckesson had this to tweet,
If I had carried Pepsi I guess I never would've gotten arrested. Who knew?— deray mckesson (@deray) April 5, 2017
Some
are also pointing out how Jenner threw her wig at a Black hair stylist.
And then there are more. But for a Indian (myself) looking at all this
from India, I just have been scratching my head over all the backlash.
Why? Because Pepsi had already mocked a prominent protest by students at
a University here and no one batted an eye.
Students
from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) have been protesting
against the appointment of television actor Gajendra Chauhan as
president of the FTII because he was from ruling dispensation, favored
most of government policies, so on and so forth. People saw the protest
as against the government at large (and BJP) by classifying the
protesters as ‘left wing’ etc. But a little reading would have
enlightened anyone that it was not just that. They were protesting not
just against Gajendra Chauhan but also the appointment of four of the
eight members appointed as member of the governing council under
‘Persons of Eminence’ category. All four had strong Hindu right wing
connection — now if that’s right or wrong is different debate. But this
was the move students were protesting against. When a similar question
was posed to Vikas Urs, secretary of the FTII Students’ Association, he said,
“Students did not oppose the appointment Vinod Khanna despite the fact
that he was a BJP MP at the time of his appointment as the chairperson
of the FTII’s governing council. It was because he is an artist and
knows art. Our fight is not against a person or a party. Our fight is
against the vision of the government and the visible degradation of the
premier institution.”
This
protest went on for 139 days with relay fasting, rallies and all sorts
of acts a protest includes. And then Pepsi came with below advertisement
ridiculing students who rallied against what they believed in and sat
on hunger strike for days demanding action and removal.
Pepsi Thi, Pi Gaya — There was Pepsi, I drank it! How cool?
Some
articles were written how this was “not cool” but apart from that,
nothing substantial came out. No apology, no clarification.
To
speak for myself, I personally believe in free speech, my government
does or not is another matter but I do. So although I disliked the ad , I
kept quite. But today when I read about the whole scene that played out
in US, I wonder if I (or fellow Indians) were wrong to ignore this
trivialization of protest from Pepsi or yatra.com
(which mocked Kanhaiya Kumar and protests at JNU, another University
that raised its voice against government intrusion in educational
institutions). Or is it that the Indians are comfortable with people
making fun of their protests by and large against the Americans?
The protests don’t just happen on their own. You can’t just pull out a mike from airport desk and start sloganeering (like yatra.com
ad portrays). Huge amount of thought, pain and emotions go into a
protest. People don’t just arrive on street to get a pretty picture in
tomorrow’s newspaper, they do so to fight against the injustice meted
out to them. There are protests where people lose their life fighting
for their cause, give away food for 16 long years, stand in water for days, monks who have set fire to themselves
and lot lot more. They don’t do it for kicks or for you to trivialize
them another day or be a meme, they do it for their rights which
governments and big corporations snatch away from them, against
injustices meted out to them.
Don’t
trivialize protests. Don’t mock them. Just don’t. It is not easy to go
out, stand and raise voice against the powerful. Not all have courage to
do so. But few do, few go out there, stand and face the might of people
in power. They don’t just overcome fear but also tear gas, pellet guns,
water cannons, lathi charge and god knows what. Don’t belittle their actions.
Leaving you with this…
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