Not since Michael Jackson’s combustible hair gel has the shoot for a Pepsi ad been so ill-conceived.
At the beginning of the ad, the Chinese fans would be interspersed between the international fans, but losing badly to the foreigners. The roars of the international crowd silenced their cheers for the Chinese national team. Then, the two Chinese pop stars flew in (literally, with the help of two really cool stunt men from Beijing) on cue to rally the Chinese crowd with Pepsi. With the arrival of Pepsi and the very attractive Chinese pop stars (with all the usual fanfare of a recent Zhang Yimou film), the Chinese crowd simultaneously had an epiphany and collectively realized that in order to beat the evil foreigners they needed to rally together behind Pepsi.
And it gets better and better. One part anthropological observation, one part David Sedaris essay. All of it a must read.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Josh // Nov 20, 2008 at 7:42 pm
Thanks for posting the link, Jeremiah. I agree with you, definitely a must-read.
I personally wouldn’t go so far as to say that this represents Xinjiang as a whole, but it does a good job of showing how segregation is still a big problem here. I just wish I could have been a part of it all…nobody called me!
2 Tom // Nov 20, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Sounds like a lot of trouble for a thirty-second commercial. They could probably have shot it greenscreen with two dozen actors and had it look the same.
For all the talk of Uighur girls being driven to tears by being given scantily-clad cheerleader costumes, and more-westernized Kazakh girls being willing to put them on (um, thanks to the Soviet Union?), I can’t see a single cheerleader in the sample video (maybe in the commercial?).
3 stuart // Nov 21, 2008 at 9:51 am
Ill-conceived is right. What the hell was the message supposed to be given that the ad was made in the run-up to the Beijing Games? Drink Pepsi and enjoy master race status?
Nevertheless, bringing so many varied groups together provided a fascinating insight into the role that stereotyping plays in the construction of our schemas, and how those fixed ideas are reinforced.
It was also a little worrying. Surely anyone who’s ever picked up a newspaper would know that asking muslim girls to don bikinis in public is as likely to meet with an affirmitive as a request for Hu Jintao to get down on his knees and beg the people’s forgiveness for June ‘89.
Actually, I think the latter observation underlines a trend among Han Chinese to look down upon the minorities in China and disregard their customs and beliefs as backward or inferior. Which is why, regardless of KFC’s policy, I’m certain that the Uyghur guy was right when he said that the (Han) Chinese would purposely serve them non-halal food. Or, at least, that they would make no effort to respect a custom that was alien to Han China.
Anyway, very interesting stuff.
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