This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I'm a terrible, terrible person. How do I know this? I watched this Pepsi advert, and I quite liked it.

I mean, it's nicely shot, it has a cool song and it tells a story about breaking from the shackles of your everyday life, being inspired by the people around you and making bold moves to surprise the opposition. What's not to like?

Oh, a lot. The internet response was so emphatic in its disgust that Pepsi pulled the advert less than 24 hours after its release (although obvs we can all still see it because the internet is forever).

What are the complaints? The Independent puts it succinctly: "The commercial is being criticised by people who have interpreted it as a co-opt of the resistance movement whilst featuring a privileged, white, famous young model using a drink sold by a massive conglomerate to create peace between activists and law enforcement."

Ravishly is even harsher: "Kendall Jenner managed to land an advertisement for Pepsi which so clearly appropriated the #BlackLivesMatter movement, in addition to glossing over the bigotry Muslims are facing in America, while happily playing the role of the white savior — in a Pepsi advertisement. All of this while never once publicly standing up for marginalized people of color in any real way."

Rather than being full of angry people fighting for their rights, this protest consists of smiley models whose signs say things like "Join the conversation". Does it mimic #BlackLivesMatter? In the last few years we've seen a wide variety of protests (climate change, wars, Brexit, Trump etc) and the commercial stays carefully vague about the nature of its demonstration. However, it's the climactic ending which really invites comparison with a real-life event: the eerie elegance of this shot (taken by Jonathan Bachman at a Louisiana protest) made it instantly iconic.

Kendall Jenner approaching stern-looking cops in order to offer one a drink seemed to mirror the fearless approach of of Ieshia Evans, the lady in this picture. (For the record, Ms Evans was arrested and spent the night in jail. There were no high-fives, no cheering and no cans of Pepsi involved.) It must be especially annoying to be a black hero when your portrayal in the media turns white — just ask Sargent Jason Thomas, an African American Marine who rescued firefighters from 9/11 wreckage, but was played by a white actor in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. 

Pepsi must have thought they were ticking all the youth-market boxes when they scoured Instagram for celebrities and came up with Kendall Jenner. But would the reaction have been different had a black celebrity fronted the campaign? I suspect the online jeering would have been even more lively at the idea of a black person being able to get this close to a cop without being arrested or, indeed, shot. The internet poked fun at the concept of Pepsi being a magical elixir to promote peace, with Martin Luther King's daughter Bernice tweeting sarcastically "If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi."

There were also objections to the Muslim photographer character; Good announcing "There’s actually something more offensive in Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad than Kendall Jenner" and the Huffington Post pointing out that "A headscarf is not a prop." Apparently a token Muslim woman wearing a headscarf is now the go-to character to sell soda while suggesting diversity and general right-on-ness. 

Tokenism is annoying, but it's the first step to normalising. A couple of decades ago a headscarf would not have been a prop, because nobody wearing one would have featured on a Pepsi advert in America. 

And this is why I can't really get behind all the angst around this advert. It falls short of the mark it's trying to hit, sure. But does it really deserve to be considered "the worst commercial of all time"? Or do we just LURVE getting to feel superior to a stupid ad executive somewhere and tweet insulting things about one of the Kardashian clan?  

It's not the first time we have collectively licked our lips at the thought of tearing apart one of the internet's least favourite family. Last year Kylie Jenner brought the wrath of the internet down upon herself when she claimed that she had "started wigs" and now everybody was wearing them because of her talent for trendsetting. The reaction couldn't have been more vitriolic if she'd announced that said wigs were made out of fluffy puppies she'd skinned herself. 

As always when it comes to the Kardashian sisters, accusations of appropriation were never far away. Kylie was not aware of stars like Lil Kim and Nicki MInaj wearing the kind of novelty wigs she favoured, nor the fact that black women everywhere have been wearing hairpieces for ever. "So shut up, you stupid cow," was the gist of the backlash.

But Kylie Jenner was eighteen at the time. Eighteen! Imagine if you'd had a camera crew and a bunch of journalists following you around and recording every stupid thing you'd said at that age. (If you reached your teens after the dawn of Facebook, you may actually have an idea of what this is like.) Yet rather than chuckling indulgently, grown adults considered it their sacred duty to bring her down a peg or two, in brutal fashion. 

I'm not sure how I feel about the current zeitgeist of being instantly, viciously critical about everything. On the plus side, it lets companies know immediately when they've stepped out of line. In addition to the latest Pepsi debacle, for instance, when adverts appeared on the tube asking if people (well, women) were "beach body ready" the response left no room for confusion: 

The advertising campaign was dropped from London transport: mission accomplished. (Except the company boasted that the extra publicity had tripled their sales...) 

It seems that these days, the slightest offence gets you banned for life. University students are now commonly mocked for being "snowflakes" who can't tolerate points of view which are different to their own. (Which sort of defeats the object of going into higher education, but never mind.) Where does respect for other people's feelings turn into censorship? Germaine Greer was banned from a university lecture when she said that transgender women can't be women. Mean and insensitive to people who have suffered mentally for years before having a life-changing operation? Perhaps. But I do take her point, that a transgender female can't understand what it's like to be raised as a girl, any more than I would understand what it's like to have grown up as a black person, if I woke up tomorrow with different skin colour.

Political correctness can be translated as "respect for other people" (amusing when headlines use this substitution). Some people make a fuss about "snowflakes" needing "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings", although the same people have no problem with having a "spoiler warning." So basically, we hold the plot line of Star Wars sacred, but when it comes to warning people you're about to talk about "brutal gang rape" for instance, and they just need to toughen up. 

But are we taking "being offended" to ridiculous levels? 

How many of the internet commentators who claim to be disgusted by the Pepsi advert actually know what they're angry about? And how many are just jumping on the bandwagon because other people told them they SHOULD be angry? 

As I said, I have mixed feelings about the spirit of criticism currently running rampant. If it lets people / ad executives know that their genuinely offensive opinions don't jive with the rest of civilised society, that's got to be a good thing. But if it's just a bunch of prickly people jumping on bandwagons and claiming they're really offended (because other people have told them they should be), is it not just a game of one-upmanship? It feels like a trend of competitive offended-ness, where the person who can find something offensive about the most innocuous statement wins at being superior and right-on.

Jumping up and down at random thoughtless comments from celebrities (who aren't celebrities for reasons of their brain power) means we risk losing impact when it comes to stuff that really matters. Speaking of which: one thing I've noticed is that while people of colour now have plasters that match their skin tone in the US, they're still all the same shade of (white) "flesh" here in the UK. Looking for a birthday card for a kid who ISN'T blonde and blue-eyed? Good luck finding any designs with pictures of children who look anything like them. 

I tell a lie: They're occasionally brunette

These might sound like little things — and they certainly haven't achieved the outrage of one commercial featuring Kendall Jenner —  but I'd suggest they actually have a far more negative effect on children who wonder why they're not considered normal enough to be represented anywhere

And back to advertising: I wonder what kind of reception this ad would receive in 2017?