‘Brownface’ ad sparks anger in multicultural Singapore

AN ADVERTISEMENT featuring an actor of Chinese origin with his sk in darkened to port ray di f ferent races has spa rked a nger i n mu lt i- e t h n ic Si ng a por e, pr ompt i ng a n apolog y f rom t he cou nt r y ’s st ate-ow ned broadcaster.

Race is a sensitive issue in Singapore, home to ethnic Chinese, ethnic Indians and Muslim Malays, as well as a large number of expatriates from a ll over t he world.

The ad, part of a government-initiated campaign for cashless transactions in t he techsav v y cit y-state, featured actor Dennis Chew f r om br o a dc a s t e r Med i a c or p a s f ou r characters.

His sk in was darkened to depict an Indian man, he put on a headscarf to act the part of a Muslim woman, a nd he a lso portrayed a Chinese man and a Chinese woman.

Each character was shown holding a plate of food paid for electronica lly.

“Brownface in a Singaporean ad in 2019. I thought we already went over this,” magazine editor Ruby Thiagarajan said on Twitter, in a post t hat had been ret weeted nea rly 3,000 times by Monday.

“Brownface” or “black face” are terms referring to t he practice of darkening an actor’s sk in to portray a person of a dif ferent race.

Mediacorp, through its celebrit y management arm The Celebrit y Agency, apologised “for a ny hu r t t hat wa s u n i ntent iona l l y caused”.

“The message behind this advertising campaign is t hat e-payment is for ever yone”.

The broadcaster, in a statement issued jointly with advertising agency Havas Worldwide, added the actor was chosen as he was “wellknown for his ability to portray multiple characters in a single production in a light-hearted way”.

They would not confirm whether the ad had been pulled but it had disappea red f rom a website as well as some public places where it was displayed last week.

Most of the criticism centred on how the ad had used just one actor from t he countr y’s main ethnic group, rather than getting other performers to play t he dif ferent roles.

“They could have hired an artist for ever y single race ? ? Is it rea l ly hard? ” one Twitter user said.

However other socia l media users said they thought there was nothing wrong with it, and people should not be oversensitive.

“This ad ref lects Chew’s creativity immensely . . . There is def i nitely no t i nge of racism here,” one person wrote on Facebook.