Kendall’s advert for Pepsi leaves a sour taste
Model in race row over film showing her calm a protest with can of drink
AN “ABSURD” Pepsi ad showing Kendall Jenner offering the soft drink to police to calm tensions at a protest has triggered a global backlash.
The beverage firm was accused online of “appropriating” the Black Lives Matter resistance movement, against police shootings of African-American men, by casting the white supermodel in the commercial.
The two-and-a-half-minute film shows Jenner, 21, posing for a photoshoot in a blonde wig when she notices a passing demonstration. She throws off the wig, grabs a can of Pepsi and marches to the police line where she hands the drink to one grim-faced officer, who smiles after he takes a swig.
In the YouTube description for the advert, titled Live For Now Moments Anthem, Pepsi calls it “a short film about the moments when we decide to let go, choose to act, follow our passion and nothing holds us back”.
However, many critics of the campaign, which is set to Lion by Bob Marley’s grandson, Skip, compared the imagery to a photograph known as Taking A Stand In Baton Rouge. The picture, taken in the Louisiana city last July, shows protester Ieshia Evans being arrested by riot police during a demonstration against the fatal shooting of a black man, Alton Sterling, by two white officers.
US comedian Travon Free tweeted: “The Kendall Jenner Pepsi fiasco is a perfect example of what happens when there’s no black people in the room when decisions are being made.”
Broadcaster Piers Morgan added: “The new pepsi ad with Kendall Jenner is stupefyingly diabolical. Absurd, PC-crazed, virtue-signalling, snowflake claptrap.”
Australian Green party senator Scott Ludlam tweeted: “Who else is reminded of Dr Martin Luther King’s famously resonant I Have A Pepsi speech?”
Jenner, who was born in California and rose to fame on reality TV show Keeping Up With The Kardashians, seemed unperturbed by the outcry. She said: “I am thrilled to join the legendary roster of icons who have represented their generations and worked with Pepsi.
“The spirit of Pepsi — living in the ‘now’ moment — is one that I believe in. I make a conscious effort in my everyday life and travels to enjoy every experience of today.”
Pepsi said: “This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony. We think that’s an important message to convey.”